Lord Jim

About the book

Jim has imagined a life of courage at sea, but an emergency aboard the Patna exposes a gulf between imagined heroism and action. The inquiry that follows gives his conduct a public meaning from which he struggles to escape. Marlow becomes interested in Jim and gradually assembles his story through conversation, observation, and other people's accounts. Conrad makes that indirect narration central to the novel: sympathy and judgment depend on evidence that never feels entirely complete. Jim's search for a fresh beginning carries the narrative into another community, where responsibility acquires new forms. The question is not simply whether one failure defines a person, but what it would mean to prove otherwise to oneself and to people who must rely on one's decisions.

• Honour and failure
• Judgment
• Second chances

Why read it

For a searching account of responsibility whose layered narration makes the reader participate in the difficulty of judging another person.

English text