内容简介
When Lord Jim first appeared in 1900, many took Joseph Conradto task for couching an entire novel in the form of an extendedconversation--a ripping good yarn, if you like. (One critic in TheAcademy complained that the narrator "was telling that after-dinnerstory to his companions for eleven solid hours.") Conrad defendedhis method, insisting that people really do talk for that long, andlisten as well. In fact his chatty masterwork requires nodefense--it offers up not only linguistic pleasures but a timelessexploration of morality.
The eponymous Jim is a young, good-looking, genial, and naivewater-clerk on the Patna, a cargo ship plying Asian waters. He is,we are told, "the kind of fellow you would, on the strength of hislooks, leave in charge of the deck." He also harbors romanticfantasies of adventure and heroism--which are promptly scuttled onenight when the ship collides with an obstacle and begins to sink.Acting on impulse, Jim jumps overboard and lands in a lifeboat,which happens to be bearing the unscrupulous captain and hiscohorts away from the disaster. The Patna, however, manages to stayafloat. The foundering vessel is towed into port--and since theofficers have strategically vanished, Jim is left to stand trialfor abandoning the ship and its 800 passengers.
The eponymous Jim is a young, good-looking, genial, and naivewater-clerk on the Patna, a cargo ship plying Asian waters. He is,we are told, "the kind of fellow you would, on the strength of hislooks, leave in charge of the deck." He also harbors romanticfantasies of adventure and heroism--which are promptly scuttled onenight when the ship collides with an obstacle and begins to sink.Acting on impulse, Jim jumps overboard and lands in a lifeboat,which happens to be bearing the unscrupulous captain and hiscohorts away from the disaster. The Patna, however, manages to stayafloat. The foundering vessel is towed into port--and since theofficers have strategically vanished, Jim is left to stand trialfor abandoning the ship and its 800 passengers.