missed opportunity?
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There is a problem with this book.
It is a good enough story, and Conrad can set the scene really well; his descriptions of the surroundings, including the inhabitants are like oil paintings that bring the story alive.
Nevrtheless, here's why i think the novel doesn't quite work.
Firstly, i think Conrad is too long-winded and overinclusive. He puts in a lot of detail and characters and their stories that, i think, detain you from the main story. This doesn't help in a story that is by its nature pretty slow anyway. The novel would have benefitted from some robust editing.
Secondly, this is really a story in two parts and a coda.
The first part is about Jim in our world falling from grace, and his inability to put this behind him. So far so good. Next comes the second part, which is about Jim settling into another world in some remote spot where there are no other westerners. Here Jim can rebuild his life and accomplish his dreams (because he has been able to run and hide from his own demons). For me this second part didn't sit comfortably with the first. As if Conrad had strayed into side issues and had forgotten about the main theme - he kind of lost me here: i speeded up my reading in an attempt to rediscover the main issue: how Jim will, eventually, confont and deal with his problem(s). I think this second part could have been halved at least. The coda fortunately saved some of the story for me: i thought it was a satisfying enough conclusion.
Of course, one could look at the unsatisfactory transition/relation between the first and second part (and the distracting nature of part 2) like this:
essentially Jim doesn't deal with his problem, but runs away; and this is precisely how i was made to feel when reading the second part, which in the story after all is Jim's ultimate denial of his problem: in a very real way i was made to feel the inadequate and unsatisfying way in which the problem had been dealt with. If that was his intention - then my hat of to Joe Conrad. Still, i wonder - and am left slightly dissatisfied...
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Gripping, though unsettling
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This took me a while; it is very dense prose, and you can't skim it. A fascinating tale of disgraced and redemption; the eponymous Jim is complicit, more or less by accident, in marooning eight hundred pilgrims in a sinking ship in the Arabian Sea; fleeing his past, he ends up in the interior of Celebes (or as we now say Sulawesi), where he finds a role as protector and lover; and meets a gallant end.
The portrait of Jim's own psychological journey is fantastic, told through stories within stories, as if we are delving through layers of narrative to get at the truth. It is very nearly good enough to drown out the colonialist assumptions of the narrative; Jim basically becomes a white god to the natives; the lowest form of life is the mulatto or half-breed (even though this includes Jim's lover); there are a number of brilliant psychological sketches of other characters, but only white ones. (Having said that, the French officer who found the pilgrim ship, and the German merchant who sends Jim on his final mission, are both great creations.)
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A moral identity
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Joseph Conrad's novels are ambitious. The main character 'Jim' in this story tries to 'save from the fire his idea of what is his moral identity', after he failed to rescue the life of muslim pilgrims in an apparent shipwreck.
He is haunted by the guilt instilled by his father's (the good old parson) religion: 'who once gives way to temptation, in the very instant hazards his total depravity and everlasting ruin.' Jim stands alone and above the 'stupid brutality of crowds', in a world where 'a massacre was a lesson, a retribution - a demonstration of some obscure and awful attribute of our nature, which is not so very far under the surface as we like to think', where 'the Irrational lurks at the bottom of every thought, sentiment, sensation, emotion.' Joseph Conrad's vision of humanity is very pessimistic indeed.
Jim's fate constitutes the bankruptcy of all that stays for 'a moral identity'. He is the lonely hero who considers that what he did was 'a more than criminal weakness', not 'honest faith' or the expression of 'the instinct of courage'.
He (one of us) stood alone within the bunch of criminal whites (us) and above the innocent savages (them).
For Joseph Conrad, his fate is the result of 'the implacable destiny of which we are the victims and the tools.' One of the villains in this book, Brown, foreshadows the main character in Conrad's magisterial novel 'Heart of Darkness'. This book is not without some melodramatic effects (an idyllic love affair) or superlatives ('eyes as immensely deep wells'); however, it is a great novel by an ambitious author.
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Slow, but stylistically stunning
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Lord Jim is a rather downbeat novel, telling the tale of a young romantic who finds himself unable to forgive himself for a moment of moral weakness when he flees a sinking ship without attempting to rescue any of the hundreds of travellers asleep within. Plot-wise this book is incredibly slight, with Conrad taking an age to stretch out what is essentially a short story into a full-length novel, but despite the meandering pace the authors use of the English language is simply stunning, and provided you have the willpower to continue you will be rewarded with a stylistically rich character examination that more than repays the readers patience.
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"a shred of meaningless honor"
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There is no doubt that Conrad is one of the master writers of the previous century, however I tend to find him rather a chore to read. Not that reading is supposed to be "easy" of course, but that's just by way of a warning. In this novel, he not only embarks on epic page-long sentences, but engages in a whole range of innovative (for the time) techniques for telling the tragic tale of Tuan/Lord Jim. These techniques include abrupt shifts and jumps in time, and a great deal story within a story constructions. The bulk of the story is recounted by a seaman named Marlow (who also was narrator for Heart of Darkness), who is often retelling what he heard from another source, or even third-hand. Some may find this a little confusing at first, but it shouldn't be a surprising device for the modern reader. Technique aside, this is an exceedingly dense work, rich in lengthy descriptions, and requiring the reader's utmost attention. Jim is a well-bred young Englishman who takes to the sea, envisioning a series of adventures in which he will prove his mettle and emerge as a well-regarded man. Alas, when a ship carrying a load of Malay pilgrims to Mecca strikes something and seems destined to sink, and his senior officers all abandon ship without rousing the passengers, he experiences fear and abandons ship as well. But when the ship doesn't sink, Jim is the only crewman to step forward and present himself to the maritime court of inquiry, which strips him of his sailing papers. Thereafter, Jim knocks around the South Seas, working as a water clerk in various ports, and departing whenever someone recognizes him. Finally, the narrator Marlow arranges for Jim to be installed as manager of a remote Malaysian trading post. There, he becomes the ruler and protector of the native people. The story is not really of importance though; really, we are meant to be taking a long and careful look at the character of Jim. Some may find him to be a tragic and romantic figure, however I view him as the embodiment of self-absorption and pride. Jim's vision of himself as a brave and true fellow is so key to his ego that he literally can't face his own past actions, even though they are utterly understandable and human. And far from seeking to prove or redeem himself, he seeks to remove himself from the sight of anyone who might recognize him. His self-imposed exile among the Malays allows him to fulfill his dream of being an respected leader, and allows him to avoid introspection. Indeed, had he been even slightly introspective, he might have eventually recognized that his overwhelming adherence to a code of honor has not served him particularly well. Ironically (or maybe predictably), at the end of it all, his misguided sense of honor brings death to him, and destruction to his people. It's not too hard to figure out what Conrad, who spend several decades on the high seas, thought of this ideal of honor. One character gives voice to Conrad's views, by saying that Jim died for "a shred of meaningless honor".
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