Had been meaning, not very actively, to re-read this for some time, partly to remind myself of the plot. It is actually very good.
What struck me, and I will check this out next, is that it is the antithesis of ‘Heart of Darkness’ told, I think, by the same narrator (Marlow).
Jim flees western civilisation out of guilt, having abandoned ship, with less disastrous consequences than he fears, and is shamed to return anywhere where white maritime culture will have heard of him.
He ends up somewhere in the Far East going completely native, and becoming a heroic figure amongst the natives until cruelly undone by the intrusion of that same culture into his world.
It is a better book than I remember; I think FR Leavis put me off it.
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