I didn't much like Joseph Conrad's novels when I first tried to read them at university. They're long, and dense, and because it takes him so many words to tell you what's going on, his work isn't really conducive to reading four novels and writing an essay about them in the space of three days.
I decided to give him another chance, and read Lord Jim in Borneo. For such a long book, it has a very simple plot. At the turn of the twentieth century, Jim is part of the crew of a ship full of Muslim pilgrims. The ship is holed, and believing it will sink and all on board are beyond rescue, he abandons ship. The ship is saved by a passing vessel and Jim is put on trial. Unable to bear the disgrace, he accepts a post on the island of Patusan, and finds redemption. Many people believe that the fictitious island is actually Borneo, and that Jim is based on James Brooke, an Englishman who became Rajah of Sarawak in 1841.
When I stopped trying to read Conrad for the plot, and took time over his discursive way of saying things, I realised that his descriptions of "the Eastern sea and sky" are beautiful. From "the blue peaks inland to the white ribbon of surf on the coast", he expresses what this place is like far better than I ever could.
Our encounter with the sea was much less dramatic than Jim's. Tammie and I met in Kota Kinabalu, and from there we flew to Tawau and went to Mabul island, off the east coast. We went on a whim, deciding that it might be fun to try scuba diving, completely unaware that it's one of the top ten best places to dive in the world. We also inadvertently found ourselves staying in a pretty chalet by the beach and spending the evenings, to steal Conrad's words, "on a verandah draped in motionless foliage and crowned with flowers, in the deep dusk speckled by fiery cigar ends."
Learning to dive was hard work - I knew that something had gone horribly wrong with my trip when I found myself taking an exam on Day Three - but brilliant. There were no disasters at sea: our most perilous moment was when Tammie didn't notice the turtle swimming directly for her head and I, being a bad diving buddy, was too far away to point it out and had to wait for it to startle her, trying not to giggle underwater.
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Jim goes to Patusan as an employee of Mr Stein, a European naturalist who, when discussing what can be done with Jim, ponders the nature of man's desire to conquer the world:
"Sometimes it seems to me that man is come where he is not wanted, where there is no place for him; for if not, why should he want all the place? Why should he run about here and there making a very great noise about himself?"
There is one thing I now know for sure. There is no place for the Irish in the jungle.
From Mabul, we went north to Sandakan, and spent two nights at Uncle Tan's Jungle Camp on the Kinabatangan river. Throughout Lord Jim, a number of people refer to Jim's posting in Patusan as a terrible punishment. By midday on our only full day in the jungle, I was beginning to understand why. It was *hot*. And very humid. After many layers of suncream, multiple paranoid applications of bug repellent and a river water bucket shower, we weren't quite "beplastered with filth out of all semblance of a human being", as Jim is on his first trip into the jungle, but we felt pretty close.
So why would you go? Westerners have historically been drawn to "the East" not just for the adventure of a strange land, but for what they can take from it. On this lust for resources, Conrad points out that
"for a bag of pepper they would cut each others throats without hesitation, and would forswear their souls, of which they were so careful otherwise: the bizarre obstinacy of that desire made them defy death in a thousand shapes - the unknown seas, the loathsome and strange diseases; wounds, captivity, hunger, pestilence and despair."
Jim's redemption comes from finding his place in a community, and the love of his wife, who he calls Jewel, in Patusan. But those already there are convinced that he only stays because he's found some great material treasure; they assume the jewel is real. You can see the volume of resources still being taken out of Borneo as you drive past plantation after plantation of trees planted in perfect rows. Our jungle guide told us that they now mainly produce palm oil, which is highly unsustainable, but as it seems to be in so many of the things I eat, and as my life wouldn't be complete without daily doses of tea and chocolate, other key exports, I don't feel like I'm in a position to be morally outraged...
We went in search of different riches of the jungle. We spotted the elusive orang utan. We watched gibbons swing between trees and sat underneath a proboscis monkey tucking into his dinner in a tree. We seriously considered taking up ornithology as an extracurricular activity after watching eagles and kingfishers. We saw a monitor lizard lumber along the river bank, like a prehistoric creature clambering out of the primordial ooze. We drew the line at going into the jungle in the dark to be eaten by mosquitoes in search of snakes and frogs. We crashed a Norweigan couple's river cruise and looked for owls and crocodiles instead.
This is why you go to the jungle, so you can see
"Nature - the balance of colossal forces. Every star is so - and every blade of grass stands so - and the mighty Kosmos in perfect equilibrium produces - this. This wonder; this masterpiece of Nature- the great artist."
A twilight trip on "the shining sinuousity of the river like an immense letter S of beaten silver" made the hateful day of heat worthwhile. After "the sun, whose concentrated glare dwarfs the earth into a restless mote of dust, had sunk behind the forest... the diffused light from an opal sky seemed to cast upon the world without shadows and without brilliance the illusion of a calm and pensive greatness."
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With two nights in the jungle behind us, we returned to civilisation in Sandakan. And promptly checked into a rather nice hotel. Don't judge us too harshly, I'm a beginner backpacker.
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Conrad, Joseph, Lord Jim (1917)
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