Book Review: Lord Jim, by Joseph Conrad (1900)

Cover of the 2004 Barnes & Noble edition of Lord Jim, by Joseph Conrad. Lord Jim was first published in 1900. 

Joseph Conrad’s 1900 novel Lord Jim is regarded as one of his finest achievements. Largely narrated by Charles Marlow, who also narrates Conrad’s novella “Heart of Darkness,” Lord Jim tells the story of the titular character, a British sailor who abandoned a ship he thought was sinking. The only problem was the ship didn’t actually sink.  

Conrad’s use of Marlow as a partially involved narrator was a brilliant choice, and I thought it made the novel more interesting than if it was told by an omniscient narrator. Conrad was an astute observer of the human condition, and the novel shows us Jim’s attempts to outrun a cowardly act in his past.  

Marlow listens to Jim spin his tale of the disaster aboard the ship. In a beautiful sentence, Marlow narrates “It is my belief no man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self-knowledge.” (p.71) The ship that Jim abandons in the novel is called the Patna, and Conrad based it on what happened to the actual ship SS Jeddah. Both the real Jeddah and the fictional Patna were “pilgrim ships,” bringing Muslims on their way to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. The ships were both manned by white officers, and there’s an obvious racial overtone as one wonders if the officers would have been so quick to abandon ship if their passengers were white Europeans. Both ships made it into port, much to the shock and chagrin of the officers who had abandoned ship.  

Lord Jim is full of Conrad’s beautiful language. One of my favorite passages was this one: “It’s extraordinary how we go through life with eyes half shut, with dull ears, with dormant thoughts. Perhaps it’s just as well; and it may be that it is this very dullness that makes life to the incalculable majority so supportable and so welcome.” (p.118) 

Another favorite sentence of mine was this: “The human heart is vast enough to contain all the world.” (p.251) What a lovely and beautiful image.  

The narrative structure of Lord Jim loses some tension after Jim finishes recounting the official inquiry into his actions during the abandonment of the Patna. With that part of the story complete, there’s less wondering what will happen next. But the rest of the novel is necessary, as the reader learns how Jim establishes a new life for himself, in a new place where he is not defined by a single act of cowardice.  

Conrad wrote Lord Jim for serialization in Blackwood’s Magazine, and it might be the case that the novel expanded as Conrad realized he had more story to tell than just Jim’s abandonment of the Patna. Conrad allows us to see Jim’s redemption as he settles in Patusan, a remote island where no one knows about his past. Eventually, the natives of Patusan start calling him “Tuan Jim,” or “Lord Jim.”  

Like a river, Lord Jim changes course, swirls around, and doubles back on itself. Just like at sea, time expands, as Marlow tell us a story of a hundred pages in a single evening. Like the best literature, Lord Jim takes us on a journey.