Lord Jim
Joseph Conrad (1900)
“A man spends his entire life trying to redeem one moment of cowardice — and the novel asks whether redemption is possible, or just another story we tell ourselves.”
At a Glance
Jim, a young British officer on the pilgrim ship Patna, jumps overboard when he believes the ship is sinking — abandoning 800 passengers. The ship doesn't sink. Jim is stripped of his officer's certificate at a public inquiry but refuses to disappear. Captain Marlow, fascinated by Jim's case, befriends him and eventually arranges for Jim to manage a remote trading post in Patusan, where Jim reinvents himself as a heroic leader the natives call 'Tuan Jim' — Lord Jim. He finds love, builds a just community, and seems to have achieved the redemption he craves. Then the pirate Gentleman Brown arrives, Jim lets him go in a fatal act of misplaced mercy, Brown betrays him and kills Jim's closest friend Dain Waris. Jim walks unarmed to face the dead man's father, Doramin, who shoots him through the chest. Jim dies 'with his hand over his lips' — inscrutable to the end.
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