Una novela en la que se percibe la pasión del autor por la navegación. Muy buena, aunque lenta a veces. ( )

I did not finish this book. I think I definitely gave it a fair shot ... I was at 63% on a kindle version before I realized that, not only was I not enjoying it anymore, the words were no longer even registering as coherent thoughts. I thought the earlier part of the book, watching Jim unravel as he internalizes the very essence of courage and cowardice was simply brilliant. To me, the book could have stopped after the trial with maybe one or two chapters dealing with the aftermath. The latter half of the book just didn't do it for me. I wanted Jim's thoughts and perspectives, not the ever-changing point of view that resulted in a messy, unfocused narrative. Life is too short to read books that don't speak to you. And the latter part of this one lost me. ( )

It's extraordinary how we go through life with eyes half shut, with dull ears, with dormant thoughts. Perhaps it's just as well; and it may be that it is this very dullness that makes life to the incalculable majority so supportable and so welcome. Nevertheless, there can be but few of us who had never known one of these rare moments of awakening when we see, hear, understand ever so much - everything - in a flash - before we fall back again into our agreeable somnolence. (p. 105)

He lived surrounded by deceitful ghosts, by austere shades. (p. 113)

Marlowe: I was no longer young enough to behold at every turn the magnificence that besets our insignificant footsteps in good and evil. (p. 136)

Marlowe: I cannot say I had ever seen him distinctly - not even to this day, after I had my last view of him; but it seemed to me that the less I understood the more I was bound to him in the name of that doubt whic is the inseparable part of our knowledge. (p. 162)

... the haggard utilitarian lies of our civilization wither and die, to be replaced by pure exercises of imagination, that have the futility, often the charm, and sometimes the deep hidden truthfulness, of works of art? (p. 206)

That was all then - and there shall be nothing more; there shall be no message, unless such as each of us can interpret for himself from the language of facts, that are so often more enigmatic than the craftiest arrangement of words. (p. 250)

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 in ruins upon his head. (p. 301)
( )

Very uneven, almost as if Conrad patched together two or three unalike books. Rather imbalanced ratio of plot to exposition, and I'm one who likes plenty of exposition. ( )

"Lordy lord," what to say about Lord Jim? In an era of short Tik Tok videos, Instagram feeds, and limited character Tweets, this novel, published on the cusp of the 20th Century, is a bit of a slog, at least at first as the reader slowly gets acclimatized to the denser sentences, weightier themes, slower pace, and stylistic narrative convention. It was choppy waters for me, and I put the book down on page 30 or so, only to give it another try after reading that it is considered one of the best 100 novels of its time. I'm glad I did because the book has its rewards if you put in the time, patience, and concentration. The story of Jim is told by Marlow, an older English seaman himself who encounters Jim at his trial, befriends him, and then helps him get on his feet again after facing official censure. Marlow's perspective and feelings towards Jim are ambivalent and Marlow's long tale, told to an audience of fellow seamen, is supplemented by other characters who at some point cross paths with Jim: his shipmates, the judges, employers, and ultimately the denizens of Patusan, including Jewel his wife, and Captain Brown and his men who intrude upon his rule in the book's final chapters. Critics praise Conrad for innovating the narrative voice of the novel beyond the first-person "I" perspective or the all-knowing, God-like, author's voice. But in Lord Jim this choice, perhaps intentional, distances Jim from the reader. He is and remains something of a mysterious cipher, and his inarticulate stammers do not help you get to know him better. But perhaps that is the point. He doesn't quite know himself. The novel grapples with existential and moral questions about man's highest aspirations and Platonic ideals, embodied by English "codes of conduct" and the crass realities of Darwinistic survival instincts personified by human emotions such as fear and panic. Conrad does not provide many answers to Marlow's obsession with the tale of Lord Jim and the existential questions it raises. Jim, ever a little elusive and mysterious, even to Jewel, is finally told by Marlow the secret reason why she should believe Jim when he says he will not leave, as other Westerners have, to return to his home. "He is not good enough." Then Marlow follows that with an even greater truth. "None of us is good enough." And I believe, that is the crux of this tale and perhaps one of the few concrete conclusions proffered. ( )