Lord Jim

Yes, it took me a long time to finish this book, but I took a little side journey and read my favorite book, For Whom the Bell Tolls.  It was supposed to get me geared up through the our baby moon vacation and the last couple of months of Beth's pregnancy, which it did beautifully.  So I let Robert Jordan rest in the pine needles and I started in on Lord Jim.  Conrad is very good at visualization.  When you read his books, you really feel that world of the British empire, of pith helmets and martini henry rifles, of a time when the entire coasts of Africa and Asia were the back yard of Britian.  The details of the places and people have a dream like quality.  There is a heavy nautical theme that seems to run through all of his books that I have read so far. Even Heart of Darkness, a book about the jungle, takes place mostly on a boat in a river.  Lord Jim was told in a narrative form that rambled more than any other narrative book that I have ever read, but it was done in a way that made the story from Marlow even that more real.  Often an outcome would be alluded to fifty or more pages before it was actually revealed. 

Jim fights his way back from his disgraced fortune of cowardice (making a decision that any of us would have likely made), becomes the benevolent "ruler" of a primitive land in Malaysia, and is ultimated murdered by his evil "foil" character, Gentleman Brown.  There was still that dark overtone that was so blarringly present in "Darkness", but it was not as refined or obvious at all times.  It was a good book by a brilliant British writer, but it was a lot of work to read.  I am going for a little something easier for my fall reading, which usually has to include some horror for the season.  I have read "The Shining" and "Pet Sematary" by Stephen King, so for my next try at King work, I am reading "It".  The made for TV movie scared the crap out of me as a kid so I can't wait to see what the book can do.