Jimgrim and the Woman Ayisha

Jimgrim/Ramsden/Ommony #5

by Talbot Mundy

Jimgrim and the Woman Ayesha is a short novel by Talbot Mundy (William Lancaster Gribbon) featuring his great hero James Schuyler Grim, better known as Jimgrim. Jimgrim is an American secret service agent employed by the British and stationed in the Mid-East. His adventures, protecting British interests against the French and other countries meddling in the region following World War I, comprise one of the most interesting creations from the pulp magazines of the early 20th century.

Genres: Literature, Historical Fiction, Classics, Adventure, Action

128 pages, Paperback

First published April 20, 1922

About the author

Talbot Mundy (born William Lancaster Gribbon) was an English-born American writer of adventure fiction. Based for most of his life in the United States, he also wrote under the pseudonym of Walter Galt. Best known as the author of King of the Khyber Rifles and the Jimgrim series, much of his work was published in pulp magazines.

Reviews

[Paul Cornelius · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 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.