One of my favourite films is "Lord Jim", a majestic adaptation of one of my favourites of Joseph Conrad's many classic tales chronicling the exploits of adventure-seeking seaman Lord Jim as he joins the crew of a merchant vessel travelling the Orient. After abandoning ship during a fierce storm, the Englishman becomes overwhelmed with feelings of guilt for his cowardly act. But when he has the opportunity to help overthrow a tyrannical general in the jungles of Southeast Asia, will he find the redemption he so desperately seeks? It stars Peter O'Toole who, of course, played so convincingly in another of my favourite movies, "Lawrence of Arabia".
But before you judge a book by its movie, read the book or, as I did today while resting on the old sofa on the verandah overlooking the river, have it read to you. Closing my eyes, I was there, with Lord Jim, in all those places during the height of the British Empire, aboard the fictional Patna, and in that remote outpost Patusan, a fictional location in East Borneo, and on the verandah of the fictional Malabar Hotel.
Reading this book - or, as in my case, having it read to me - is not an easy task. Joseph Conrad was never one to write a perfectly chronological book, and "Lord Jim" is no exception. There are flashbacks, flashbacks within flashbacks, and even flash forwards. There are multiple narrators and a huge cast of minor characters; add to this Conrad's tricky habit of making sentences so complicated that they make your head spin, it's clear that navigating "Lord Jim" is not for the faint of heart. Still, it's a great story and well worth the effort.
If you want to read along as you listen to the audiobook, click here.
