Victory: An Island Tale

by
Joseph Conrad

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Victory: An Island Tale (Collected Works of Joseph Conrad)

by Joseph Conrad

3.83 of 5 stars 3.83 · rating details · 1,120 ratings · 99 reviews

In Victory (1915), Conrad returns to the Malay Archipelago, to the setting of his first mature novel, Lord Jim, and in Axel Heyst he creates a hero who is in many ways similar to Jim, a noble altruist destroyed by his ideals. It is a story of action and high adventure coexisting with an exhaustive study of the psychology of a man who's philosophy of life is summed up in th...more

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Published 2000 by Classic Books (first published 1915)

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Feb 01, 2012 Patrick McCoy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics

One of my favorite writers is Graham Greene and one if his favorite writers is Joseph Conrad-thus I feel he deserves my attention for that reason alone. But Conrad casts a much larger shadow than that. I read Heart of Darkness in high school and was impressed by the artistry of the story as much as the film it later inspired. I felt the need to read more Conrad in my post-college days and read Lord Jim and in recent years and The Secret Agent since it was referenced heavily in the post 9/11 days...more

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Jan 17, 2009 James rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Conrad fans

Shelves: favorites, fiction, lincoln-park-group

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 in...more 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 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(less)

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Jan 05, 2009 Zinta rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Now and then, we must leave the literature of our day and delve deeper--in time and in literary style. Joseph Conrad has survived time as a classic, because his work is of classic quality. I submerged into Victory as into cool, deep water, to emerge refreshed and moved by the literary experience.
Woe, yes, to the man whose heart has not learned to hope or love (and is love without hope possible?) or trust in life. Without hope, without love, without trust, life is but a living death. Axel Heyst,...more Now and then, we must leave the literature of our day and delve deeper--in time and in literary style. Joseph Conrad has survived time as a classic, because his work is of classic quality. I submerged into Victory as into cool, deep water, to emerge refreshed and moved by the literary experience.
Woe, yes, to the man whose heart has not learned to hope or love (and is love without hope possible?) or trust in life. Without hope, without love, without trust, life is but a living death. Axel Heyst, Conrad's hero of Victory, is a complex man we are deeply drawn to--for he has the heart and he has the high ideals, if not the hope or trust. In his vulnerable youth, Heyst's father stripped him of these tools without which living a meaningful life is a barren if not futile prospect. Yet a man's heart is a stubborn thing in its will to beat with red blood. Even in his willful isolation, a woman's love finds the hermit. Conrad indulges in a little formula damsel-in-distress rescue, and Heyst brings Lena to his solitary island of Samburan, where they slowly develop a kind of haven.

Life has a way of being messy and intrusive, Conrad knows, and so he brings the conflict of the story to the island, undeservedly bad reputation following Heyst there in the often comic and villanous figures of Ricardo and Jones. This showcases the figures of Heyst and Lena. If Heyst's heart does indeed love, and passionately so, then Lena's heart has within it the unconditional devotion perhaps only a woman can fully express. And so woman gives life. The tragedy of Heyst is that he so rarely knows how to express his love. Perhaps the story ends, then, in the only way it can, in sacrifice.

The true victory of this novel is the gift of Conrad's writing. Characters have depth and motion; plot is not overwhelming, but enough to hold suspense; dialogue is real and revealing. Conrad does plenty of tell, not show, which writers are today admonished not to do, but I loved every moment of the skillful telling. He is a master, taking on themes and characters that have lasting value. I plan to read and reread his other works.

(less)

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Aug 15, 2012 Franz rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A masterpiece, in spite of its rather untidy ending. The first part is told calmly by an anonymous sailor, who seems to remember things as his story unfolds. He will interrupt the recollection of the main events to reflect upon Heyst's (the hero) character, then resume it but not quite at the point where he had left it, and not quite even from the very same perspective. He has lived in that part of the world (around the Java sea) for many years, and so has Heyst. It is a very unique landscape, a...more

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Feb 16, 2012 Mike Robinson rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I will in all likelihood remember "Victory" as one of the more inconsistent reads I've ever encountered, not in terms of tone, style or plot but in terms of my fluctuating interest in the tale Conrad spun and what he wanted to say with it. Often I felt myself pushed away by a lumbering pace and wooden caricatures to the outer ionosphere of reader absorption, nearing a point where the thin gravity of my interest in its grander themes was the only thing keeping me from snapping off into orbit and...more

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Jul 13, 2011 Jeremy Allan rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: modern-fiction

Strange to read a classic, be caught up in its story, only to find myself surfacing two thirds through and realizing that the thing is flawed. Heavy-handed Christian allegory, bizarre and artificial conceptions of gender (even for the time), unresolved narrative gaps—Victory is a book that wants to be beautiful, but stumbles too much in being meaningful. Yes, this isn't out of character for contemporary works (or even some unfortunate books of our moment), but the further the narrative carries,...more

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Jul 03, 2011 Jan Szczerbiuk rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read pretty much everything Conrad wrote back in the 80's but having booked a holiday in Indonesia I had to take one of his far-eastern novels. Great to read about the "dead-calm Java Sea" while looking out over the dead-calm Java Sea. Anyway,
1. No-one writes better than Conrad in English. Some are as good (but different - Pynchon, Dickens, even Updike) but no-one is better.
2. Only those that haven't read him associate him with adventure books for boys. What he is really about is the psycholog...more

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Mar 23, 2010 Frank rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: thrillers-and-other-pulp

This is okay, esp. the first two parts. When Heyst starts smooching & having stilted dialogues with his gal, things sag a little. But the villains are an interesting threesome, the evil genius Schomberg is a creation of genius, Heyst in himself is an interesting enough character, a kind of Humphrey Bogart avant la lettre, and the narration starts interestingly.

That's what struck me most, in the first part: that the narration has some of the same wry humour that I remember from hard-boiled no...more

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Aug 30, 2012 Jim Leckband rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Conrad really nailed it with this one. In the preface he writes that he wrote it as a single piece - not as a serial published in periodicals - and it shows. The narrative hijinks that he deployed in his earlier novels has been tamed. This makes this novel succeed as a thriller.

But like the books of John le Carré, another author I'm reading the complete works of, "Victory" is a thriller with benefits. These benefits are astounding characters, unmatched psychological depth and the best writing fr...more

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Feb 02, 2011 1.1 rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This novel is somewhat of a slow-cooker, but it boils up to a rather astounding, yet eminently plausible finale. Things are subtle, and if the reader is not much of an admirer of Conrad, the book can be slow going, but mark my words: this one is worth your time.

If you are looking for an early 20th century work with strong, active, but not entirely modern depictions of women – for a dissertation or research – this book is a fairly good pick if you can't find any others. There is a bit of racial...more

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Jan 28, 2012 Richard Orange rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

An absorbing, well-spun tale, as you'd expect from Conrad. But I didn't think this was him at his peak.

The character of Axel Heyst, or at least the conceptual underpinning of it, didn't really work if you ask me. He's supposed to be someone disillusioned with values and ideas before even embarking on life, who then has to find a way to live. Pretty much the question covered by novels of Camus and Sartre 30 or 40 years later.

But Heyst seemed almostf happy-go-lucky, and overly cheerful for someo...more

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Apr 03, 2013 Lyn rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Victory by Joseph Conrad is a dark, psychological thriller. Like all of Conrad’s work, his mastery of the English language is immediately evident and he uses descriptive language of which D.H. Lawrence would be envious, especially when describing the villains. Victory is also reminiscent of Shakespeare’s The Tempest and in turn may have influenced Mikhail Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita. Conrad created two of the most devilish, animalistic and brutish villains that ever plagued a story and are a...more

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Jun 24, 2012 Marts (Thinker) rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, 2012-reads

Victory. From life, from pain, from heartache... Conrad's Victory is a bit thought provoking according to how you really view after contemplating its plot. As usual, the varying sea voyage adventure depictions are quite vivid based on his own sea experiences.
In this tale Conrad introduces us to Heyst and expounds on this rather unique fellow... the adventure is quite a page-turner also!

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Aug 09, 2011 Jesse rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics

First off, I really liked this book. I would have given this 4 stars, but there were a few things that dropped the rating for me.

First, the plot shifted back and forth through time without giving the reader enough insight. I may not have caught on as quickly if I wasn't part of the post "Pulpfiction" generation, as well as willing to look up summaries and study guides to help me understand what was going on.

Secondly, at points, the story was just too dense. I kept getting lost in the prose and h...more

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May 01, 2010 Brad rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook

Audio book version. George Guidall narrating.

I really wanted to like this more, but I felt that it dropped off in the final third of the book and I found the ending to be somewhat predictable, and beyond that predictability the dénouement felt slapdash and was unsatisfying.

Despite those criticisms the book is a worthwhile read and has many interesting moments and aspects to recommend it. The trio of antagonists are engaging and reminiscent of some of Cormac McCarthy's characters, at least to my...more

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Apr 18, 2013 Will rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Joseph Conrad's output as a novelist and short-story writer is enviable by any measure, especially considering the fact that he didn't learn the language that he wrote in until his twenties. His best novels -- Heart of Darkness, Nostromo, The Secret Agent, Lord Jim -- are windows onto the human spirit at its outer limit, where it comes face to face with its ultimate antagonist: the harsh, godless, largely unknowable world. (I say "world" rather than "universe" because Conrad's characters engage...more Joseph Conrad's output as a novelist and short-story writer is enviable by any measure, especially considering the fact that he didn't learn the language that he wrote in until his twenties. His best novels -- Heart of Darkness, Nostromo, The Secret Agent, Lord Jim -- are windows onto the human spirit at its outer limit, where it comes face to face with its ultimate antagonist: the harsh, godless, largely unknowable world. (I say "world" rather than "universe" because Conrad's characters engage with their surroundings physically rather than metaphysically.) This central theme manifests itself in explorations of the consequences of civilization/society intruding upon the wild/the unknown -- or, as colonialists would have it, "savagery," colonialism being in Conrad's day the concrete example of that intrusion.

Conrad is not usually labeled an existentialist, but his novels depict a world devoid of a higher power and capital-m Meaning. None of his characters are heroic; they must simply react to the overwhelming, confounding world around them. (Conrad's narrators mediate this worldview, of course; it's worth remembering that his novels often contain several layers of narration.) Conrad consistently captures the particular hopelessness and absurdity of human existence. He also happens to write beautifully.

That being said, Victory completely misses the mark. The characters are two-dimensional and their motivations are not believable; the prose tries too hard to be lyrical and ends up stilted; the plot is silly. The theme of a man's detachment from life and humanity is compelling, and has been allegorized many ways in many novels. In Victory that theme is literalized to an absurd degree, and Conrad must introduce a plot that is simply not convincing to disrupt (inevitably; see my first paragraph) his protagonist's quest for that detachment.

This is the only book by Conrad that did not compel me to read it constantly. For a novelist as accomplished as him, that's quite a feat.(less)

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Aug 27, 2009 Thirteenth Peer rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-own, fiction

Like Nostromo, the pacing of this is slowish in the first half and picks up in the second half. Unlike Nostromo there is much less back-story in this novel. While the father of the main character is discussed and is important although dead, most of the rest of the characters have a history only within the scope of the story.

One thing that came to me strongly was an echoing of "The Tempest". Particularly the characters Pedro and Wang seemed to be sort of inverted images of Calaban and Ariel.

This...more Like Nostromo, the pacing of this is slowish in the first half and picks up in the second half. Unlike Nostromo there is much less back-story in this novel. While the father of the main character is discussed and is important although dead, most of the rest of the characters have a history only within the scope of the story.

One thing that came to me strongly was an echoing of "The Tempest". Particularly the characters Pedro and Wang seemed to be sort of inverted images of Calaban and Ariel.

This story is another one fraught with racial images. I have a difficult time making sense of what is to be said on this score, but I think it must be admitted that Conrad means to confront the issue. The parallel with "The Tempest" seems relevant given the reading of that play (reasonable to my mind) that it at least in one dimension concerned with racial relationships or more particularly colonialism. Furthermore, at one point Jones (a villian) says to Heyst (main character) "Do you believe in racial superiority, Mr. Heyst? I do, firmly." Furthermore, the main character is referred to constantly as "that Swede" by his nemesis Schomberg. It is emphasized by Conrad that this word is used in a pejorative sense. (I admit that on the surface this can be read as a merely national rather than racial difference but I'm not sure how much rides on that). Much is made of the irony of the whites who hold themselves in superiority to natives or hold them of no account. Both Schomberg and Ricardo make much of their own whiteness, and both are ironically so.

On the other hand, it also seems true that the characters of any race other than white are portrayed as less civilized. Morrison's clients are objects of charity, Pedro is a half-man savage, the Portuguese are corrupt, Wang abandons Heyst and takes it as a point of pride to deny taking the revolver despite the fact that he obviously has. The people on the other side of the island are savages of a sort who block out society.

But even here these are not so obvious. Heyst laughs at the naivete of Lena when she asks if all Chinese have this mysterious ability to materialize silently. There is also a certain logic to Wang's abandonment of Heyst, in that Wang is married to a local girl and his relationship with Heyst was never portrayed as much other than a matter of practicality. It must be noted however that Wang's theft of the revolver pretty squarely sets him at a lower moral level, as well as his reliance on violence. The question is whether this is meant to reflect a sort of hierarchy of the races or whether it is just that Wang represents a certain sort of moral attitude that could for Conrad have been represented by a white man but that the social context of the story makes the character more convenient to represent by a Chinese.

Furthermore, I think Jones being an inverted Heyst, both being highlighted as of upper class, or gentlemen, is a related question. It seems clear that Jones is a gentleman by birth who is not so in truth. Whereas it seems that Heyst isn't really a gentleman by birth, although he is said to be one, but is very much one by his nature.

I think as far as I can take it right now, it has to be said that Conrad clearly means to confront the question of race, and that his reply to this question is not a simple one. On the other hand, I can also see that it might be possible to see him as presenting a sort of hierarchy of the races and a kind of "white man's" burden take on the moral relationships between them. I am not arguing that this is in fact the case, only that in so far as I can see it at this point this is consistent with what I have seen of his writing. On the other hand I must admit that as it stands now this seems to be the most likely, and that this does diminish to some degree my enjoyment of his work, although I still have a lot of respect for him as an author and still intend to read more of his books.

Notes on this edition: There's a cool map at the beginning showing the locations of many of Conrad's stories and novels. There are many annoying footnotes. Notes seem a little silly to me in the first place and often they are inflated and absurd, but actually indicating the notes with little numbers in the text of a novel is just ugly and annoying.(less)

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Feb 25, 2012 Alissa rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Good God, it took me two whole weeks to force my way through this book. I was rather excited to read it given the level of praise heaped upon it by other reviewers but alas, no. This book and I were not meant to be.

I haven't read any other Conrad and it might be a while before I do because this was uncomprehendingly boring. The first half was slow to the point of ridiculousness, the characters were explained and fleshed out in all the ways I didn't need to know about and none of the ways I did.

T...more

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Dec 27, 2011 Lindsey rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, classic-monster-and-dystopian

I love Joseph Conrad, I forgot how much until I picked this up :) He has really interesting insights into the dark side of human nature- a theme that I find absolutely fascinating for some reason. His representations of women and minorities leave something to be desired, but his representation of humanity as a whole is well worth researching. I put this book in my classic monster books because, like the count in The Woman in White, Mr. Jones is a monster although in human form. I'm looking forwa...more

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Mar 16, 2009 Rebecca rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009, british-classics

In the end, I liked this novel. Conrad can be so difficult to penetrate that joy is lost in the strain of comprehension, but this novel is far less dense than many of his earlier works. I can see why this was a commercial success as well as a critical one. I am using Victory for the second chapter of my dissertation so I am sure that I will come to know it fairly extensively over the next few months. If you are already a fan of Conrad, give this lesser known work a try. If you are not already a...more

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Apr 28, 2012 Jrohde rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sea-tales

another of Conrad that I have read and enjoyed before. a tragic tale of a wonderful set of people who might have lived that idylic life on a tropical isle away from all the corruption of society but victimised by greed and jealousy of a horrid hotel keeper in Surabaya and a wicked soldier of fortune who comes to their island convinced that they have money (which they dont). Conrad is a master of character and environment and the tragedy that afflicts many of higher motives yet not left alone to...more

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Dec 29, 2010 Isa rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Initial reactions: Instantly draws you in. Conrad's powerful command of description and forward-moving plot make for a smooth read. What I liked the most was his thorough study of each important character. The relationship between Lena and Heyst is complex and not a simple love story. Ricardo and Mr. Jones offer beguiling studies of evil. I also got a sense of how one cannot ever be too sure of another body's intentions and vice versa, making for uncertainty, and the cause of all of Heyst's unlu...more

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Oct 20, 2012 Eleclyah rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 4-stelle-bellissimi, autori-britannici, autori-polacchi, classici, prestito, commentati

Non è stato facile addentrarsi in questo libro.
Conrad ha una scrittura a cui non ero abituata, non avendo mai letto nessun'altra sua opera in inglese, e l'approccio è stato difficoltoso; ma, più di tutto, ogni volta che iniziavo rimanevo come ipnotizzata dalla prima pagina, da quell'incipit così... beh, stranamente ammaliante.

La storia si dipana lentamente agli occhi del lettore, dapprima narrata tramite un noi collettivo non specificato che a volte diventa un io e che non esprime alcun giudizio...more
Non è stato facile addentrarsi in questo libro.
Conrad ha una scrittura a cui non ero abituata, non avendo mai letto nessun'altra sua opera in inglese, e l'approccio è stato difficoltoso; ma, più di tutto, ogni volta che iniziavo rimanevo come ipnotizzata dalla prima pagina, da quell'incipit così... beh, stranamente ammaliante.

La storia si dipana lentamente agli occhi del lettore, dapprima narrata tramite un noi collettivo non specificato che a volte diventa un io e che non esprime alcun giudizio o commento sulla vicenda; in seguito raccontata dalla bocca del capitano Davidson, una sorta di amico del protagonista, e dell'albergatore Schomberg, il suo nemico; e solo infine vissuta in prima persona dal protagonista del romanzo, Axel Heyst.

Il modo in cui la vicenda è narrata rispecchia perfettamente la natura solitaria di Heyst.
Heyst è un uomo che vive della sua solitudine, distaccato dal mondo e isolato nella Baia dei Diamanti, dove è rimasto a vivere dopo il fallimento della compagnia che lì estraeva il carbone e di cui lui era socio; e infatti all'inizio del romanzo, lui, che ne è il protagonista, appare solo come una figura intangibile, distante, irraggiungibile nel suo volontario isolamento. Gli sporadici suoi contatti con il mondo vengono raccontati in flashback che posticipano l'inizio della storia che Victory vuole raccontare.
Così, per circa metà libro, vediamo Heyst con gli occhi degli altri, in un ruolo in bilico tra quello di protagonista e di personaggio marginale alla vicenda.
Poco alla volta, però, Heyst diventa più visibile, in particolare dal momento del suo incontro con una giovane violinista inglese. La narrazione finalmente gli si avvicina, diventando incentrata su lui e perdendo di vista la collettività attraverso i cui occhi l'avevamo visto all'inizio; mano a mano che si prosegue la lettura lui esce dal suo isolamento, entra in contatto con altri esseri umani e ne viene coinvolto, si scontra con loro e viene convinto ad agire.

Più che di azione, però, Victory è un libro fatto di personaggi, di riflessioni, di passioni: tutto il resto è sullo sfondo, e non è che una mera scusa per fare interagire, evolvere, cambiare i protagonisti della storia. Conrad si è dimostrato, con Victory, un eccellente pittore dell'animo umano.(less)

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Jul 22, 2012 Kent rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Kent by: came across it in the library, and it looked interesting

Shelves: fiction-classics

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Nov 21, 2009 chris rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book has, as usual for Conrad, a very interesting plot, with fairly interesting characters, with a good deal of strange racist dialect involved in describing them. The Chinese cook, through a large part of the novel, gets described as "the chink" and repeatedly has his "slanted eyes" referred to as a defining point of his personality, despite the fact that he is central to the plot and one of the most interesting of the people we come across in the story. Also, Pedro, the crocodile hunter i...more

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Jul 17, 2008 Tahseen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

He had listened. Then, after a silence, he had asked--for he was really young then:

"Is there no guidance?"

His father was in an unexpectedly soft mood on that night, when the moon swam in a cloudless sky over the begrimed shadows of the town.

"You still believe in something, then?" he said in a clear voice, which had been growing feeble of late. "You believe in flesh and blood, perhaps? A full and equable contempt would soon do away with that, too. But since you have not attained to it, I advise y...more

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May 30, 2007 علی rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novels

The New York Times, called it "more open to criticism than most of Mr. Conrad's best work". The novel'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….
Through a business misadventure, the European Axel Heyst ends up living on an island in what is now Indonesia, with a Chines...more

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Apr 11, 2012 Jessica rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle-reads, 2012, guardian-one-thousand

What a strange novel! It began so incongruously, so slow and plodding. I didn't know where it would go. I had nothing to tie me to it. I didn't care about the characters - their tale was being told by a strange narrator, separately.

And then the characters met - and suddenly the narrator vanished, and the novel really began for me. Halfway through!

It became exciting and a mystery to solve! What were the motives? Who's lying to who? Who should he trust? Who should she follow? I really, really love...more

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Sep 05, 2010 Cait rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book could have benefited from a harsh editor. The POV makes a couple of major shifts- we start out with a second hand account being shared with the narrator, who disappears two chapters in, and NEVER COMES BACK. Then we move to omniscient narration.

I am pretty sure if I had read this back when it was originally written, all of the characters would have seemed like clever political commentary about ... something! But now, it just seems hackneyed.

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Mar 16, 2013 Jordan Miller rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My first thought to write about Victory was how well-written it was. Conrad is an incredible vivid author. The book itself was mildly depressing. The protagonist decides to leave without the burden of earthly feelings, such as love or any spirituality, any commitments. At the end, he regrets this decision and chooses to connect himself to valuable things. I believe I read Heart of Darkness in college - I should read it again.

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by Rosamond Lehmann

About Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski ) was a Polish-born English novelist who today is most famous for Heart of Darkness, his fictionalized account of Colonial Africa.

Conrad left his native Poland in his middle teens to avoid conscription into the Russian Army. He joined the French Merchant Marine and briefly employed himself as a wartime gunrunner. He then began to work aboard Bri...more

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Books by Joseph Conrad

Heart of Darkness and Selected Short Fiction

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Trivia About Victory

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Quotes from Victory (Everyman's Li...

“dreams are madness, my dear. It's things that happen in the waking world, while one is asleep, that one would be glad to know the meaning of.” — 3 people liked it

“The use of reason is to justify the obscure desires that move our conduct, impulses, passions, prejudices and follies, and also our fears.” — 2 people liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/729371.Victory?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]/assets/nocover/111x148.png[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/729371.Victory?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Victory: An Island Tale by Joseph Conrad[/url]

Victory: An Island Tale (Collected Works of Joseph Conrad)

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