Victory

Heart of Darkness is where most folks start their journey through Joseph Conrad’s books. I read it ages ago and remember being confused and unimpressed by it. This would have been after viewing the movie Apocalypse Now, which was inspired by Conrad’s book, and when I was likely in my early twenties. I don’t think I’d lived enough of life to understand what made the book or the movie so special to so many others.

So, even though I'm much older now, it was with a bit of trepidation that I approached Conrad’s Victory, which I really knew nothing about. I honestly didn’t expect much from this book. Actually, I was half expecting to be let down by this, the last of my Modern Library Classics Challenge books for 2022.

Boy was I show more wrong. I’ll grant you that this book shows its age with some of the pejoratives and racial stereotypes of its 1910s colonial setting. But Conrad’s language is so expressive and so evocative that I was pulled right in.

The story is a slow burn that builds into a suspenseful psychological thriller. The setting is colonial Indonesia in the 1910s. Axel Heyst, the book’s protagonist, is an odd man, a loner and a hermit. He has rescued a young woman who he calls Lena from the sexual improprieties of the local hotel keeper, in whose hotel she was a member of a visiting orchestra, trapped under the control of the evil orchestra conductor's wife. Together he and Lena have escaped to the island of Samburan, to the remains of an ill-fated coal company that Heyst once managed.

As the story unfolds, a trio of devious characters come to Samburan in pursuit of what they believe to be a fortune belonging to Heyst. The plot twists and turns and in the end the corpses pile up. For a book titled Victory it's hard to determine just who or what has emerged victorious.

Conrad builds strong characters with Heyst, Lena and the trio of scoundrels. The dynamics between them all, alone together on the island, are the heart of the book. Lena, who starts out as somewhat of a cypher of a character, in the end defies convention and shows self-assurance and a fierce will. Even Wang, Heyst’s Chinese “house boy” shows original life choices and an individuality that helps move the story along.

There is a lot more going on in the book. Heyst’s back story with his cold and unsentimental father is meant to help us understand his wandering spirit and hermit tendencies. I don’t think it has aged as well as the rest of the book.

Then there is the shifting narrative. At first the story is told from the perspective of a local sailor, then later through the eyes of Heyst, and still later from the view of an omniscient narrator.

So, I really enjoyed this book and turned out to be pleased with the last entry in my Challenge. In fact, with the exception of the autobiography of Disraeli, which I found to be just so-so, I have enjoyed all twelve of the Modern Library books I read this year. It’s easy to see why they are all considered classics. show less

This was a somber and dark book and gives us an example of how sheer gossip can ruin lives. There is a lot of philosophy and life lessons contained in this novel. It is the story of mild-mannered Swede, Heyst, who "inherits" a coal company. He is a loner, hence the gossip. His philosophy is that all men are devils and to get involved in life will cause nothing but pain. He lives his life by that philosophy. This book was a product of its time and depicts Germans as the bad guys and uses racial epithets for the Chinese. I believe that the story takes place on island(s) of Indonesia. This novel was definitely easier to read and more enjoyable that Conrad's other works (Lord Jim and Heart of Darkness--which I abandoned). 410 pages

This is sometimes talked about as Conrad’s popular book. It is an adventure story for sure, and the tensions in the story’s action will carry you along. But it’s certainly not just a story of simple-minded action.

The early part of the story sets up a kind of battle played out over the second half of the book, pitting two thieves, Mr. Jones and Martin Ricardo, against the sometimes idyllic life of a couple, Axel Heyst and Lena, on a secluded island. Heyst and Lena are living an almost Adam-and-Eve-like life on the island of Samburan, until they are disturbed by the thieves and their plan to steal some non-existent “plunder” from Heyst.

Ricardo is secretary and partner in crime to his “gentleman”, Mr. Jones. Ricardo is a show more conniving, extremely confident thief, ambitious in his way, and maybe ultimately guilty of hubris. He is matched against Heyst, a recluse whose only apparent need is met by his rescue of Lena from a traveling musical show ruled over by a tyrannical couple.

The male characters seem to believe that they are playing out a contest among themselves, Ricardo and Jones plotting against Heyst, and Heyst defending the life that he and Lena have together. But it is really the female characters, not only Lena, but also Mrs. Schomberg, who determine the outcome and whose very existence determine the space of forces that define the story. Mrs. Schomberg, an innkeeper’s wife, has aided Lena’s escape from the musical show, motivated by her husband’s obvious attraction to Lena. Lena’s need to be rescued gives Heyst his only reason for doing anything at all, and her attractiveness drives a wedge into the partnership of Ricardo and Jones. From there, everything plays out. It isn’t really the men who set the conflicts in place, or even who drive the resolution in the end.

It’s a entertaining story, with those and other aspects that make it more than just a forgettable drama. It all takes place in the context of unabashed classism, sexism, and racism of the time. Like other Conrad stories, colonialism furnishes a setting in which all of those thrive, but, here, all are usurped in various ways.

The play of the characters, especially the mostly background contributions of those female characters, give us as readers plenty of material for reflection.

I think this is a test of a novel. Fun reads entertain. Really good books entertain, but then you carry away from them something that makes life more interesting for having read them. show less

In the first part we get an outsider's view of Axel Heyst's character, actions and motives without being certain who he is or what actually drives him. I found this off-putting until the second part shared Heyst's perspective and we discover he's oblivious to being the centre of so much attention. In retrospect the first seems a case study foreshadowing what will come: Axel finds happiness through distance, but succumbs to connecting with the world through bouts of empathy that reward in the short term but later steer towards disaster. When real danger threatens it remains to be seen what else can stir him to action and whether he will prove to be 'wild' or 'tame'. What happens when the perpetual observer's hand is forced to commit show more action?

The joys of this novel come through in the dialogue, the divulging of character through confession and interplay. Being able to relate personally to Heyst's philosophy didn't hurt my enjoyment any, thrusting me into contemplating how I would react to similar pressures. Heyst lacks self-awareness, not realizing the advantage that he has in his opponents being unable to get a read on him. The disarray this lends to their plans is almost comical as they struggle to answer his supposed moves. The ending was a fitting answer to that comedy, tying everything together.

Conrad in this period was facing the difficult challenge of retaining literary value while appealing to a broader audience and achieving greater sales. I found this to be a wonderful addressing of both objectives, very suspenseful and yet extremely engaging in its character portrayals. show less

I enjoyed this novel from the pen of Joseph Conrad - it may be my favorite of his works although Conrad has the knack for writing consistently good novels that makes it hard to rank them. Victory's most striking formal characteristic is its shifting narrative and temporal perspective with the first section from the viewpoint of a sailor, the second from omniscient perspective of Axel Heyst, the third from an interior perspective from Heyst, and the final section. I found the character of Axel interesting primarily due to his complexity. On a superficial level the novel reads like a melodrama more suited to a muddled opera libretto than a serious work of literature. But upon reflection the allegorical and psychological implications of show more the action, landscape and narrative structure redeem it as a modern novel worthy to be included with the best of Conrad. I am always more impressed when the author can make a serious work of literature appear on the surface, to be merely a "good story" (eg. Moby-Dick). The story line follows: through a business misadventure, the European Axel Heyst ends up living on an island in what is now Indonesia, with a Chinese assistant Wang. Heyst visits a nearby island when a female band is playing at a hotel owned by Mr. Schomberg. Schomberg attempts to force himself sexually on one of the band members, Alma, later called Lena. She flees with Heyst back to his island and they become lovers. Schomberg seeks revenge by attempting to frame Heyst for the "murder" of a man who had died of natural causes and later by sending three desperadoes (Pedro, Martin Ricardo and Mr. Jones) to Heyst's island with a lie about treasure hidden on the island. The ensuing conflict does not end well and has been compared to the ending of an Elizabethan drama where the stage is littered with corpses. The robust romanticism of Axel and Lena's story continues to haunt the reader long after one puts the novel down.
Another of my favorite writers, Joan Didion, had this to say about Victory:
"I often reread Victory, which is maybe my favorite book in the world… The story is told thirdhand. It’s not a story the narrator even heard from someone who experienced it. The narrator seems to have heard it from people he runs into around the Malacca Strait. So there’s this fantastic distancing of the narrative, except that when you’re in the middle of it, it remains very immediate. It’s incredibly skillful. I have never started a novel — I mean except the first, when I was starting a novel just to start a novel — I’ve never written one without rereading Victory. It opens up the possibilities of a novel. It makes it seem worth doing.” — From a 2006 interview in The Paris Review show less

For a few moments in Victory, Conrad seems to try too hard to capture again some of his most effective preoccupations. The volcano, frankly, at times is painful, a cliche before it was even a cliche. And some of the cooing between Heyst and Lena spins out into absolute nothingness, something perhaps that to be emphasized, if the end of the novel is any clue.

Yet there is the form of this novel. Conrad's willingness to shift perspective and even time connects this in a strong way with what I think is his greatest work, Lord Jim. As such, it's an experimental observation of a breakdown in stasis, especially from Heyst's point of view. But it's also about corollary breakdowns among the villains of the piece, Ricardo and Jones. Amidst them show more all is the agent of these chemical and emotional reactions, Lena, herself a static being whose life only takes on color when placed among the others. Most unnerving, however, is the final image that results from putting all these people and the forces of their psyche into play. And that is the eternal void itself. show less

This was an unread book that I have had in my library for some time, I have recently (within the last couple of years) read and enjoyed: Heart Of Darkness, Nostromo and Lord Jim. Victory is one of Conrad's later novels published in 1915 and what struck me most was that the novel in many respects seemed to belong to an age before English language modernism. 1915 was slap bang in the middle of the modernist movement for example James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, D H Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, Djuna Barnes, but Conrad does not read like any of these writers. His choice of subject matter and the fact that English was not his first language is the reason for this. Conrad in 1915 was still writing adventure stories and Victory is typical: it is show more set in the South China Sea and is basically a treasure hunt. It could have been written in the 1870's and although Conrad's use of English is in many ways meticulously correct, it belongs to another era.

Victory is the title of the book, but I can't see a victory for any of the characters in the story, most of the principle characters end up dead in a superbly crafted and intense final chapter. I can only think that Conrad had the idea of Love as being The Victor, but if this is so it is a cruel victory indeed. If all this sounds a little negative then that was not how I felt when reading this novel. I enjoyed it immensely even if I had to slow down to deal with Conrad's prose style (Oh dear looking at that last sentence it it still not completely positive). OK then let's be more positive. The characters are superbly drawn in a tightly woven story that builds to an exciting climax. The social and political themes are redolent of the era in which the story takes place. Conrad knew what he was writing about: the ex-pat colonial communities, the frictions between the various countryman making a living in an exotic and for them a relatively undeveloped part of the world. The omnipresent story teller says of two of the characters:

"Both these white men looked on native life as a mere play of shadows. A play of shadows the dominant race could walk through unaffected and disregarded in pursuit of its incomprehensible aims and needs."

Another recurrent theme is that of the Gentleman abroad. The evil Mr Jones is respected for being a gentleman. Axel Heyst is perhaps jokingly referred to as a Swedish Barron by a number of people. Gentlemen particularly English gentlemen seem have an innate power over others because of their breeding.

There are also two female characters who despite all the disadvantages of the time in which they lived, prove in some ways to know more about life than the bumbling inconsiderate men who shape their destinies. Lena's mental and physical strength is more than a match for the desperate men who want to spoil her and she knows love when she finds it, in Axel Heyst. Mrs Schomberg the battered wife of perhaps the most unlikeable character in the book, can still find ways to help others. These two women against all the odds come near to saving the day for the more worthy men of their entourage.

The island of Samburan is where much of the action takes place and to Heyst it is an enchanted island. He exclaims that;

I am enchanted by these islands..............There are more spells than your commonplace magicians ever dreamed of.

Heyst remains on the island when the business that brought him there collapses and all the workers have left and it is the island that he brings Lena to when he engineers her escape from the Schombergs. The intrusion of Mr Jones, Ricardo and their animal like companion Pedro immediately made me think of Shakespeare's The Tempest and Prospero's island.

Another association for me, and one that could not have been in Conrad's mind was the name Black Diamond Bay, that he gave to the area where the landing stage had been built. Black Diamond Bay is my favourite song from Bob Dylan's "Desire" LP. How could I not like this book when one of my favourite songs and my favourite play was brought constantly to mind 4.5 stars. show less