Lord Jim (Joseph Conrad, 1900)
From Commonplace Book
General notes
- published serially in Blackwood's 1899-1900
- 6: why the short précis of the story?
- 7: repeating that he was generally liked -- why? This plural locus of character evaluation?
- 29 so far the reading tends to be in the metaphorics of the story, Jim's sense of advenuture and Marlie saying "before the end is told"
- 31 Patna captain keeps getting compared to objects, objectified
- 49 significant objects in the figurative patterning of the novel too, people being compared to their luggage on 61 or Brierly's pocketwatch as an indicator of his forethought in his suicide here
- 81 "he wanted me to know he had kept a distance": how differently narratorial mediation functions here in the narrative fabric than formal mediation of different media in Dracula
- 82 Marlow's description of Jim's "burlesque" trial -- Eliot is supposed to be more didactic than this proto modernism?!
Theme tracking
Shakespeare allusions
- 44 "there's some sort of method in his raving" (doctor to Marlow abt Patna engineer, Hamlet)
- 64 Jim paraphrases "the readiness is all" (Hamlet)
- 79 make angels weep (measure for measure)
- 84 this might be too far but Jim's histrionic "Ha, ha, ha!" Recalls Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy
