Lord Jim (Signet Classics)

I didn’t know what to expect from this book, but it gripped me right away. What a fabulous story it is. The imagery was clear and compelling and the internal struggle of the man character was fascinating to contemplate and try to understand.

Let me begin by saying that, when it comes to Conrad, I have a bias. I actually keep a picture of him on my writing desk. I have, in a sense, adopted him as a kind of muse, the literary equivalent of a patron saint. Here's an author who managed to achieve immortality by writing in a language that was not his own. Being an ESL writer myself, I draw inspiration from this. I have not read all of Conrad's works; I may not even have read half of them. But all I read by him leaves an indelible mark upon me, and I must confess I am one of those people who are mad about _Heart of Darkness_ (and about T. S. Eliot's _The Waste Land_, but that's another story). _Lord Jim_ (1899) has been hailed as one of Conrad's highest achievements, and while I would not say it is perfect, nor that it is his most enjoyable work, I recommend this novel to anyone interested in the author or in literary modernism._Heart of Darkness_ was serialized between February and April of 1899. Conrad began to write _Lord Jim_ in September of that same year, and finished it in July of 1900. Two observations. First, given the short time span between the two works, it shouldn't come as a surprise that there are many similarities between them, the most obvious of which being that both feature Charles Marlow as the narrator, and in both cases Marlow talks to a group of people about a noteworthy person he knew. My other observation is that, having been completed within 11 months, the 312-page _Lord Jim_ should be considered not merely a novel, but a vision.Most of _Lord Jim_ consists of a monologue that Marlow delivers while sitting on a verandah with a group of acquaintances. He tells the story of a man wracked with guilt over an unfortunate event he was involved in. The tale is related in a non-linear manner; rather, it follows the caprices of memory and emotion. Within Marlow's monologue, the speaker also reproduces the speech of other narrators who filled in the gaps of the story of Lord Jim, so that the reader often finds a voice within Marlow’s voice within Conrad’s voice. _Lord Jim_ is a literary puzzle that slowly falls into place. This will sound familiar to readers of Faulkner. As I read Conrad's novel, I could not stop thinking of _Absalom, Absalom!_ (an "oral," "dialogical" novel), and I was also reminded of certain passages in _Go Down, Moses_. _Lord Jim_ is an early example of the modernist polyphonic and multiperspective novel, which questioned the omniscient narrator that predominated in the nineteenth-century novel.While similar to _Heart of Darkness_, _Lord Jim_ differs from it in many ways, two of which are quite important. From the genre perspective, _Heart of Darkness_ is a novella, while _Lord Jim_ is a novel. The former focuses on suggestion and reexamination; the latter, on development. Regarding the central characters, _Lord Jim_ offers what _Heart of Darkness_ does not: a sympathetic character. It is difficult to feel for Kurtz, but it is easy to identify with Jim. _Lord Jim_ is about honor, about guilt and the possibility of redemption. Like _Heart of Darkness_ it comments on the politics of intervention with subtle criticism (I was also reminded of Kipling's "The Man Who Would Be King"), but Jim is not as easy to condemn as Kurtz. However, one may ask, isn't evil--or darkness--more interesting? Perhaps. That's up to each reader, and so, many will prefer Heart of Darkness over Lord Jim, for the same reason that many find Dante's _Inferno_ more compelling than the _Purgatorio_ and infinitely more interesting than the _Paradiso_. Personally, I like _Heart of Darkness_ better than _Lord Jim_ because I am a novella person, but I am thankful that Conrad also chose to write a novel that revolves around a "good guy". His fate speaks volumes about the role of goodness in an unscrupulous world. Conrad is at his most compassionate here. As Jim points out, shattering the good/evil binary, "Men act badly sometimes without being much worse than others" (296)._Lord Jim_ does have its faults. As other reviewers have observed, it is a little too long, in the sense that it overstates the point. Some incidents could have been left out without detriment to the story. Would it have been better as a novella? Maybe, but then it would have been _Heart of Darkness_ with a sympathetic character at its center to replace the more censurable Kurtz. _Lord Jim_ is great as it is. After all, Faulkner isn't exactly focused either. Readers who like a straightforward, concise narrative should be aware that _Lord Jim_ is not that. The novel is still compelling and written with the elegance that is Conrad’s trademark. It is also one of the most satisfying explorations of the concept of honor written in the English language.My next Conrad will be _Victory_ (1915).Thanks for reading, and enjoy the book!

Lord Jim is one of the few books that one finds it necessary to reread at least every decade or so. I suppose most of us are introduced to the classic Marlow-narrated books when one is quite young. And one feels the same sort of deep ambiguity in reading the novella Youth, the longer Heart of Darkness and the even longer Lord Jim. - Also, one has perhaps begun to doubt the greatness of a writer whose THIRD language was English. - Let it be said: It is always reaffirmed. The "unreliable narrator" ambiguity herein is the subject of many a dissertation. I'm not covering it here because there is always - it has always struck me - a deeper ambiguity. With whom does the reader identify? Which character captures his/her imagination? It has become almost a truism that one comes to identify with the older Marlow as one ages rather than be captivated by the subjects of his stories: the younger Marlow in Youth, the mad Kurtz or the idealistic Jim. The catch lies, of course, in the fact that this older narrator is himself captivated by his younger doppelganger, in some form. I suppose one might dub it the transitive property of narration. That is to say, you perhaps identify with Marlow now, but Marlow is fascinated with "X", ergo, you are still fascinated with "X," only removed, like Marlowe, by your own life experience.Right. Why is Marlowe, why does the reader become so fascinated with Jim? I think primarily because, as Marlow continually intones throughout the book: "I only knew that he was one of us." - Meaning many things, but primarily for the reader, that his soul is a noble tabula rasa embarking on life before experience and defeat have crippled his idealism. It's not as simple as the question of "lost illusions" - for one thing Jim never loses his - It's more the question of whether they are illusions in the first place. As Stein (my personal favourite character herein) says:"A man that is born falls into a dream like a man that falls into the sea."The novel is ultimately asking us what, if anything, is real. Marlow says of his last visit to Jim on Patusa:"It was a strange and melancholy illusion, evolved half-consciously like all our illusions, which I suspect only to be visions of some remote unattainable truth, seen dimly."The power of Conrad's writing is nowhere more apparent than when in posing this question:"It is when we try to grapple with another man's intimate need that we perceive how incomprehensible, wavering, and misty are the beings that share with us the sight of the stars and the warmth of the sun. It is as if loneliness were a hard and absolute condition of existence; the envelope of flesh and blood on which our eyes are fixed melts before the outstretched hand, and there remains only the capricious, unconsolable, and elusive spirit that no eye can follow, no hand can grasp."As we stretch out the tendrils of our imagination towards Jim and Marlowe throughout the book, we, like them, are continually dogged by, well, life. Conrad doesn't proffer any answers to the complex issues to which the book gives rise. As Marlow addresses the auditors of his story:"You may be able to tell better, since the proverb has it that the onlookers see most of the game."In other words, the reader must find his or her own way on the high narrative seas. But it would be disingenuous of me not to reveal what kept coming back to this reader, as it does to Marlow - Those words of Stein:"Ah! He was romantic, romantic."

Written as it is plain English, this book is useful for beginners.I really like this redition and the book is really interesting, so I recommend it to everyboby.

I first read this book in literature at University. It's stuck with me and I re read it again recently as a senior citizen. It is interesting how one's perception changes with age.

Just wonderful: a must read. A fascinating story of an incredible young man within an adventurous and exotic background, who will not hesitate to meet his fate at the end.

this is evidently a re-translation or some kind of AI-produced drivel, and not fit for sale

Provo angoscia solo a rileggere questo capolavoro, Conrad ti fa vivere l'abisso della mente umana, Peccato che la traduzione di Mursia si sia interrotta molti anni fa. Comunque questa è più che accettabile

Empecé a leerlo en inglés. Pensaba que no me estaba gustando por la barrera del idioma y lo empecé en castellano. Me resultó igualmente aburrrido.Es el segundo libro que no termino. El anterior fue el Ulyses de Joyce