I’ve just finished reading Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim. It was a tough slog.
Jim was an ambitious lad who daydreamed about heroism, but always hesitated when he needed to be heroic. He knew that he would be a great hero, if only he would be given the chance. He prepared himself mentally for the moment, whatever the catastrophe may be. One night Jim is serving as a crewman on a rusty old freighter full of Muslim pilgrims when the ship strikes a rock. The disreputable white members of the crew panic and contrive to escape into a lifeboat, leaving the pilgrims to go down with the ship. Jim accidentally (in his mind) finds himself in the lifeboat with them. The ship doesn’t sink, and all are rescued. There is a hearing, and the blackgaurds in the crew run off. Jim is determined to go through the process because he feels he deserves it.
Jim cannot live with himself and bounces from port to port. Whenever anyone finds out his identity, he runs off to the next port. While there are people who “remember” the incident, the people he works for don’t care. Jim is only running away from himself.
The narrator, who won’t give Jim a berth on his own ship, arranges a job for Jim in a remote part of Southeast Asia. Jim lands in the middle of a nasty feudal situation and is nearly killed. He proves himself though, and becomes Tuan Jim – “Lord Jim”. There are factions against him, but he governs well for some time. Then pirates try to “invade” the village. Jim decides to let them go, figuring that if they would just leave there would be no more bloodshed. Unfortunately Jim has an enemy, an obsequious little white man who is convinced Jim has stolen “everything he owns” from him. He contrives to reinvigorate the pirates’ attack, and Jim’s best friend – a chief – is killed. Jim must accept the responsibility for the attack, even knowing what the consequences would be.
The story is told in a parlour by the Narrator, who had befriended Jim during the hearing. The scene is a bunch of people sitting around, drinking brandy and smoking cigars while the man tells the story of Jim. It is told in the style of the successful class, in the somewhat florid language of the late-19th/early-20th Century. It’s a bit tedious. I felt that too much time was taken in describing every detail about why someone would do something. I haven’t had souch a tough read since Moby Dick (which, again, got bogged down in the details).
I understand why this is a “Great Book”. The theme is one of personal responsibility and how one meets the responsibility. I enjoyed Heart of Darkness and The Open Boat; but I don’t see myself reading Lord Jim again.
I understand why you think this is hard work but I loved Lord Jim. Then again I also love Moby Dick so maybe I’m just a glutton for punishment.
It’s about moral decisions and why we make them. I think part of the tedium that you see is the endless rolling over of each action, trying to see whether they are right or wrong, or even if this question has any meaning.
I’m going from memory but the defining quote for me is when Jim tells the narrator that they was a hairs-breadth between the right and wrong in a situation. The narrator (who is Marlow from Heart of Darkness BTW) asks him how much more of a dividing line is needed?
I’m not saying you should have liked it , just telling others that I think it’s well worthwhile IMHO.
Of course, if you can’t face the novel, there’s always the movie version, with Peter O’Toole as Lord Jim. (Aside: it also gives you some wonderful scenes of what the temples around Angkor Wat looked like before they cleared away several centuries of jungle growth).
The best, however, was Mad Magazine’s version of the movie, titled “Lord Jump.” A bit of vaguely-remembered dialogue:
Yes. I found myself saying, “Dude. I get the point. Move on, now.”
The situation seemed a bit artificial as well. Jim took the incident too seriously. Yes, I know that a hundred years ago honour played a more important role in people’s lives; but I thought it would have been more honourable for Jim to stand up and say, “Look. I made a mistake. I own up to it.” Instead, he runs away from his past. Jim is a coward. And Marlow (I’d mis-remembered his name as “Marley”, so that’s why I avoided posting it) could have solved things in an instant by signing Jim onto his ship. (I think Jim lost his seaman’s papers in the hearing, though.) Marlow seemed to think that Jim had made a mistake but was capable of redeeming himself. He could have done a lot more toward Jim’s redemption than he did. And he did not tell Jim about the excursion to the “guano island”. Yes, Jim would have been killed; but at least he would have gone down fighting.
Basically I wanted to tell Jim, “Get over yourself!” I wanted to tell Marlow that if he cared so much about Jim’s welfare, he should take a more active role than to just write letters saying “Hire this guy.”
I think it’s worth reading once; but I did find it a tedious read.
I read it over the course of a week the summer after 6th grade. Or, I should say, I slogged tediously through the first chapter and flipped through the rest. I’ve always had a poor impression of the book, but never managed to bring myself to it again. After reading your comments on it, I think I’ll give it another shot and try to gain a better appreciation of it.
, just telling others that I think it’s well worthwhile IMHO.
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