Lord Jim

Description

Considered to be essentially a book about the sea, Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim is a timeless classic about man’s desire to greatness, about the power of fear and about many other aspects of human emotions, all depicted in Conrad’s well-known, insightful and impartial style.

The protagonist of the novel is Jim, a young British sailor who serves as first mate on a ship called Patna that transports pilgrims to Mecca. The ship becomes damaged and its crew and passengers leave it to be collected later on by a French ship, but the crew is held responsible for the damage and they must appear in front of a court. Most crew members disappear to escape justice, leaving young Jim to be the only one who undergoes inquiries by the court.

He is punished, his navigation command certificate is taken away, but he later on finds work as a ship chandler’s clerk, then he becomes factor in Patusan, a remote area in the South Seas invented by Conrad for this novel. Jim lives a decent life in Patusan and he earns the respect of locals by protecting them against bandits. Though Jim seems to have found his peace, in fact he did not, willingly meeting his tragic end.

Lord Jim is undeniably among Conrad’s best novels, with his lyrical and sensitive storytelling style at its best. Jim has a tainted past, but he is struggling to prove his worth despite his shameful behavior in the past. He suffers and experiences happiness, like all of us, he is deeply human and complicated, like all of us, making the novel as complex as only the best modernist novels can be. Lord Jim makes an excellent read for anyone interested in human nature that is always brave and coward, explicit and enigmatic at the same time.
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