Lord Jim

#411
Title: Lord Jim
Author: Joseph Conrad
Publisher: Bantam
Year: 1900/1981
271 pages

Audiobook here. This relatively short novel was stretched to almost 14 hours, a slow reading rate.

At its heart, this is a novel about attempting to overcome one's own haemartia, or tragic flaw. While the Greek audiences of Aristotle's time found the hero sympathetic because of his important error. Setting aside the complexities of the term itself, it would seem that by the time in which Marlow narrates Jim's tale, the tone is a combination of horror, amused contempt, and pity. Were Jim not "one of us," an often-repeated sentiment, I assume there would have been more Schadenfreude than pity. If the story and highly predictable plot about seeking first escape from, then redemption for, one's misdeeds are set aside, the more interesting aspect of the novel is the question of "one of us" versus one of them and how identification or rejection of commonality affects Marlow's storytelling. Since Marlow's narration is the frame for several of Conrad's novels (including Heart of Darkness), it would be interesting to compare his reasons for and degree of relationship to the people whose stories he animates. In some ways "one of us" is a theme for Conrad's The Secret Agent as well.