Jimgrim and the Woman Ayisha

At first glance, this fifth in the series of Jimgrim adventure novels appears as simply a continuation of the fourth in the series, The Lion of Petra. But it's not. Neither is The Woman Ayisha very much about the woman, Ayisha. Whereas The Lion of Petra concerned itself with Bedouin lore and the imagery of the desert, The Woman Ayisha is all about Jimgrim. In fact, it is almost a psychoanalysis of Jimgrim. All done through the voice of Jimgrim's partner in adventure, Ramsden.

Now, Mundy is no Joseph Conrad. (And this is not to disparage Mundy, who is quite a good writer and storyteller.) But in this work, in particular, Mundy is coming very near thematically and culturally to the issues that often obsessed Conrad--colonialism and the show more psychology of displaced men. Jimgrim, it seems to me, comes awfully close in motivation and the pursuit of redemption to none other than Lord Jim. It doesn't matter if one book appeared as a major work of modernism and the psychological novel, while the other dwelt on the pages of a pulp magazine. Although note that Conrad, too, appeared on the pages of mass literature magazines, such as The Smart Set, McClure's, and Munsey's. Even the storytelling device is similar: Lord Jim's Marlow both narrates Jim's story and participates in it. Just as does Ramsden in Ayisha--and many other Jimgrim tales.

Quite simply, Jimgrim becomes both a figure of insight into the character of Western man in battle with himself in a culture and climate in which he does not belong and a depiction of modern mystery. The mystery being the most interesting, of course. For as Ramsden notes, Jimgrim could be anything, a millionaire financier, a general of armies, a politician of force. But, as with Conrad's Jim, he is driven by idealism. And although it is not revealed (at least not yet as I read through the Jimgrim series), there is the sense that something has scarred Jimgrim's naivete in the past. The name itself should be enough of a clue. If this is the case, then Mundy's Jim isn't too far from Conrad's Jim in his motivations. show less