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The 1965 movie version of Lord Jim, directed by Richard Brooks and starring Peter O’Toole as Jim is a visually beautiful film to watch. Other notables in the cast include James Mason as Gentleman Brown, Eli Wallach as an oppressive general, Dahlia Lavi as the Patusan girl (Jim calls her Jewel in the book) and […]
The text for The Shadow-Line can be found at Project Gutenberg. Joseph Conrad’s The Shadow-Line is a reminiscence of the narrator obtaining his first command in addition to his first voyage as captain. The young sailor meets all kinds of challenges and crises, overcoming them mostly with help he doesn’t recognize, and advances over the […]
This section covers the Patusan episode of Jim’s life. Reaching Patusan safely, Jim is imprisoned by one of the rival leaders. He leaps twice to safety and renown (as compared to his one leap to dishonor from the Patna), once over the blockade and once over the narrow river between settlements. Jim devises and carries […]
This section covers from the outcome of the court inquiry through Jim reaching Patusan. The verdict was relatively mild, requiring the sailing certificates of the Patna crew cancelled (although you got the feeling it would have little impact for most of the crew). As Marlow put it, “The real significance of crime is in its […]
The text for Lord Jim can be found for free at Project Gutenberg. There are also audio versions there and at LibriVox. The breaks for discussion for Lord Jim are totally arbitrary but I hope they will be at natural points. Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim was written around the same time as Heart of Darkness, […]
Mark Twain’s King Leopold’s Soliloquy engages the atrocities in the Congo differently than Conrad—through satire. While the subject matter hardly seems like it would lend itself to such an approach, Twain does a good job at lampooning King Leopold II and issuing a call to end the hellish arrangement. The American Museum of Natural History […]
I’m sure that almost everything that can be said about Heart of Darkness has already been said (except for someone writing a dissertation on some of the minutiae). But I’ll throw a few things together anyway. First, the text can be found on Project Gutenberg. A free audio reading of it can be found on […]
There is a lot available online about Joseph Conrad and his work. This doesn’t pretend to be a comprehensive list, but the links (to date) I’ve found helpful: Joseph Conrad’s Wikipedia entry. While I already knew some about him, his personal life is as interesting as his works. Conrad’s online texts at Project Gutenberg Free […]
A central post with all the links to Kim and other Kipling-related material: Kim discussion: Chapters 1 – 5 Kim discussion: Chapters 6 – 10 Kim discussion: Chapters 11 – 15 Kim (1950 movie) Online Kipling resources Kipling’s imperialism As with other summaries, this is also probably the best place to post thoughts on Kim […]
Before I leave Kipling and move on to other works, I wanted to try and articulate my feelings on Kipling’s imperialism. David Cody’s short entry at The Victorian Web does a good job of summing Kipling up as well as putting him in the context of his time. It is easy to dismiss Kipling because […]