Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

With Lord Jim, as with many of Conrad’s books, the background is surely auto-biographical. In describing Jim’s background he tells of precisely the sort of experiences of seagoing and sitting masters’ and mates’ exams that Conrad himself knew. Much of the material from the Bangkok trilogy, for example, (Falk, The Secret Sharer and The Shadow Line, a definite trilogy though written at different times in his life, and only the last as a full novel) is thought to be lifted straight from his very earliest experiences of seafaring in Asia, with little more then the names having been changed.

Jim is first mate of the “Patna”, but when danger looms he abandons ship in panic, abandoning his crewmates to the unknown. This single moment of cowardice comes to define his life as he seeks atonement or, as a religious rather than a humanist novelist might have put it, redemption. Finding himself a white man in the tropical jungle, the Lord Jim of the title, he seeks to regain his lost honour, even at the expense of needlessly sacrificing his own life in recompense for a broken promise.

So far, so good. What I have just outlined could be the staple fare of any 1900 melodrama, replete with colourful native characters, heroic derring-do and a determined, noble sacrifice made in pursuance of the white man’s burden. Except, of course, that Conrad is an incomparably greater writer than that, perhaps even the greatest English novelist ever, and certainly the greatest of his time. His contemporaries included Wells, Conan Doyle, Ford/Hueffer, James, Galsworthy, and Bennett, all of whom he knew, incidentally, and many of whom formed a circle of writers who all lived within a few miles of each other on the south coast at places such as Sandgate (Wells), Rye (James) and Winchelsea (Ford/Hueffer and, at various times, Conrad). Yet though Galsworthy would be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, a decision that seems difficult to justify today, and Conan Doyle would perhaps sell more books than all of them put together, it is in my view Conrad who has the strongest claim to greatness.

There are certain composers whose music sounds unmistakeably their own, as well as something that nobody else could possibly have written, and perhaps something that nobody else will ever emulate; Wagner would be an obvious example. So it is with literature. In modern times one might think of the Rushdie of Midnight’s Children, or the Durrell of The Alexandria Quartet, for example, but with Conrad this is true perhaps even more so than with any other writer. T.E. Lawrence said that Conrad wrote in paragraphs rather than sentences, and that his books always felt much bigger then they really were. That is why he has always been a novelist’s novelist; apart from his contemporaries, who instantly recognised his genius, his fans have included Anthony Powell, Evelyn Waugh, Kinglsey Amis, A.N. Wilson and Graham Greene. Greene, indeed, was so obsessed with Conrad that on his travels he used deliberately to target hotels where Conrad himself had stayed, and insist on being given the same room.

Conrad speaks to us down the generations of the essential human condition. Jim, having literally jumped ship from one world, tries to construct another for himself, one in which he plays a part of the “tuan”, the “Lord Jim” of the title. Life, as Conrad knew, is composed of fresh starts and new directions as individuals try to rebuild their lives to move away from past troubles. Usually, of course, they are ultimately unsuccessful, as is the case inevitably with Jim.

“Then Jim understood. He had retreated from one world, for a small matter of an impulsive jump, and now the other, the work of his own hands, had fallen upon his head … without a word, he came out of his room and sat before the long table, at the head of which he was accustomed to regulate the affairs of his world, proclaiming daily the truth that surely lived in his heart … the girl he loved came in and spoke to him, but he made a sign with his hand and she was awed by the dumb appeal for silence in it. She went out onto the veranda and sat on the threshold, as if to guard him with her body from dangers outside.”

This is a perfect example of Conrad’s unique prose style. It speaks of simple, almost mundane actions, yet it does so in a way which brings out the true hopelessness of the human condition, and transforms the trivial into the tragic, the mawkish into the overpoweringly emotional.

There are those who feel this represents an essentially negative view of the world, one in which there are few happy endings. A world in which there is ultimately but one pre-ordained ending, which is rarely happy for anyone, and in which the only comfort for which one can hope is that one might reach that ending at least without havng learned the true awfulness of which man is capable. Remember that by the time of Lord Jim Conrad had already written Heart of Darkness, perhaps the most influential work of fiction in the English language, with Kurz’s famous last words echoing as its ending: “the horror, the horror!”

In fact Conrad’s world view is not so bleak as some would have it. From the female characters in both Lord Jim and Victory we can surmise that, like Goethe, Wagner and Schopenhauer, he believes in the redemptive power of human love. It is Conrad’s greatness that he also recognises, and ruthlessly portrays, the constant ability of the male of the species, of whom Jim is a perfect example, to spurn their last chance of happiness without even really understanding why they are doing so.

He also recognises that life is not just transient but fragmentary. Any single life is but a passing moment in the totality of existence, but that life itself is divided up into a number of fragments which may or may not seem connected, and which simply blur into each other. Death, when it comes, is merely another such moment.

“There is never time to say our last word – the last word of our love, of our desire, faith, remorse, submission, revolt.” (Lord Jim)

It is this view, and his ability to express it at an almost subliminal level in his wonderful prose style, that sets Conrad apart, and gives him that ability to echo down the ages as the definitive portrayer of the essential human condition. Forget the exotic foreign locations, the sea-going tales and the colourful natives, for they are but theatrical props. What matters is his ability to communicate that life is essentially trivial, the odds against individual success huge, and that depravity or even simple chance are always likely to triumph over efforts at heroism, nobility or greatness. Yet none of this really matters, since that one pre-ordained ending will suddenly represent simply the next moment, will come, and be gone again. The last word is never uttered.

As one of Conrad’s biographers, John Stape, puts it:

“resolutely refusing to pronounce that ‘last word’, Conrad speaks for an awareness of fragmentation so quintessentially modern that his voice, a century and a half after his birth, remains powerful and authoritative … his essential loneliness and sense of the horror of existence (found) existence in highly wrought prose and in fiction of coruscating insight…”

Yes.

"Major Benjy" back on the best-seller list

Major Benjy has briefly re-appeared in the best-seller lists (#54 in historical fiction, into which category Amazon have rather quaintly put it). I think this could have something to do with an article in the Ham and High last week, which may have prodded the book-puchasing classes of London NW3 into action.

Two bits of news

First, let us rejoice that there is a new Fred Vargas book available in English, The Chalk Circle Man. I suppose we should be thankful for small mercies, but why on earth could they not have translated them in the right order? This is actually the first in the Adamsberg series.

Second, clcking here should take you to a working URL for my talk at the Sunday Times Literary Festival in Oxford on 1st April. It's principally about E.F. Benson, though onviously my own Mapp and Lucia book Major Benjy may get a passing mention ...

The Egoist by George Meredith

As will probably be apparent already, I am selecting which books to mark with a written review on this blog partly by reference to the criterion of them being in my view an unjustly neglected novelist. Aldington certainly falls into that category, as does Dick, though in his case it is probably fairer to say that his status is unfairly down graded because of the subject matter of his books. So do Murdoch and McGillion, though not in the true sense of what I have in mind, since both are still very much alive (and hopefully will long remain so) and producing new work.

George Meredith, though, lies bang in the middle of the countryside I wish to mark out. Though he died in 1909, he was very much a nineteenth century novelist, and in fact all his books bar one were not only written but also published before 1900. This would place him as a contemporary of the likes of Trollope, Gissing, Kingsley, Besant and Hardy (whose last novel was published in 1895). He is, though, quite dissimilar from all of these in his style, his use of humour, and often even his subject matter. In fact, for me he looks forwards rather back, to the likes of Arnold Bennett, in his compelling story telling and strong characterisation, and Barbara Pym in his use of gentle humour. There is also, in his creation of strong though wronged female characters, perhaps a hint of Dorothy Whipple.

Like various other writers, including incidentally Arnold Bennett, he started out as what would today be called a trainee solicitor but was in those days called an articled clerk, but quickly realised that he wanted to try to earn a living as a full time writer. Then as now, this meant journalism and book reviews, which he supplemented with work as a reader in a publishing house.

His private life was initially almost as lurid as some of his plots. He married an older woman for love, but she then left him for a fairly obscure artist. It is therefore perhaps unsurprising that in the plots of his novels the course of love rarely runs smoothly and, in fact, that in many cases love seems to be conspicuously absent from marital couplings, whether actual or potential (and in at least once case fraudulently induced).

It should also be remarked that, apart from a few wonderfully repellent exceptions, Meredith’s women are usually far more sympathetically drawn than his men, who seem often to view the female of the species as a marriage token, and a quiet and attentive audience for their opinions. Sir Willoughby in The Egoist is no exception. Self-obsessed to the point of failing to stop talking when someone else replies to him, he is secure in the knowledge that all women must necessarily be in love with him and that he has therefore but to choose between them. That this view is deluded is, of course, self-evident, not least because he has already had one engagement broken off by a fiancée, and now seems in imminent danger of repeating the experience.

While much of the narrative is richly comic, particularly as Meredith mocks sir Willoughby, there is also a darkness to the book. The mounting horror of Clara, as she realises the full implications of what it is going to be like being married to a man she does not even like, is all too real. This dramatic tension is heightened by the claustrophobic setting of a large house in the country from which the characters cannot escape, which in turn means they cannot escape from each other (I will not reveal the ending). This all has overtones of Jane Austen, of course, though Dorothea in Middlemarch is probably a closer parallel.

At the heart of Meredith’s writing is of course the relationship between men and women and he was an early advocate of sexual equality and the emancipation of women. In his Essay on Comedy, for example he says that what he calls “the comic spirit” is only possible where there is equality of power and influence between men and women, mutual regard and mutual respect. His women are mostly strong, and try to make their own decisions, though often hamstrung by their financial and domestic situations.

In his day, or at least towards the end of his life, Meredith was recognised as a great novelist. Conan Doyle, for example, has Holmes say to Watson at one point: “let us talk about George Meredith”. Oscar Wilde was another fan, saying “His style is chaos illuminated by flashes of lightning”, which sounds like an Alan Bennet parody but isn’t. Interestingly, he was also one of the favourite novelists of George Orwell, almost certainly because of his strong narrative lines; Orwell loved a good story, and his other favourites included Arnold Bennett and Jack London. Forster refers several times to The Egoist in Aspects of the Novel.

Like other writers who appear in this blog, Meredith, who seems to languish largely unknown today, surely deserves to be read and appreciated afresh by a new audience. If nothing else, his deftness of touch when it comes to sly but subtle humour is probably unsurpassed by any except Austen and Benson. Who else could talk about a “phantom half crown glittering in one eye of an anticipatory waiter”?

Book list with a Parisian flavour ...

I have been asked to come up with a suggested reading list for a bookclub, and have put the following together, all of which have a "sort-of Parisian" theme. I lived in Paris for a while, so I suppose there may be an element of nostalgia here. I miss visiting Shakespeare's bookshop and the wonderful little independent cinemas in the Latin Quarter; Paris has got to be the best place in the world to live if you are a film buff. Sadly my sons got wise to this some time ago and now in response to a film recommendation always ask suspiciously "is it in black and white?"

But to the list (see what you think - suggestions welcome):

The Three Evangelists by Fred Vargas (304pp)

Three historians live next door to an opera singer who finds one morning that a tree has suddenly and mysteriously appeared in her garden. A novel that lies parallel to the better known series by the same author (a lady, despite her pen name, and an architect to boot) featuring the cranky detective, Adamsberg. An interesting view of French life, particularly the high regard in which any form of cultural or intellectual activity is held.

The Scapegoat by Daniel Pennac (256pp)

The first in what has become known as the Belleville series by Daniel Pennac, one of the most original and imaginative novelists to have emerged in France in recent years. Set in a multi-racial suburb of Paris, the books focus in particular on the North African community. Be prepared for a highly original view of Paris and some larger than life characters.

The Thought Gang by Tibor Fischer (311pp)

A philosophy professor begins a new career as a French bank robber. Another quirky view of France and the French by this highly acclaimed novelist.

The Dumas Club by Arturo Perez-Reverte (336pp)

A fitting recommendation for a book club, containing as it does references to many, many books, and being loosely set around (and possibly within) The Three Musketeers. Set partly in France, but also Spain and Portugal. Part whodunnit, part literary novel, part bibliophiles’ handbook.

A Man’s Head by Georges Simenon (144pp)

Not the first, but the earliest of the famous Maigret series which I can find in print in English translation, portraying Paris society of a bygone age. Simenon was a serious literary novelist, but achieved popular acclaim for this wonderful detective series, which he wrote over a period of about 40 years. Maigret was most famously portrayed on screen by Jean Gabin.