CONRAD’S VICTORY AND THE END OF AN ERA

 

Though it remains a divisive work, Victory is almost universally classified as Joseph Conrad’s last significant novel. The varied responses themselves reveal much about the regard he held in critical circles at the time of publication, his use of literary devices (not altogether uncommon for Conrad) and the global state of affairs. The latter, perhaps, was a misunderstanding between author and readers; Conrad began writing Victory in April of 1912 and finished in May of 1914, a month after the assassination of the Arch Duke of Austria, often marked as the catalyst for the war. By the time the novel was published in October of 1915 it was greeted by a very different world than the one in which it began life. England was facing off the Central Powers and the Lusitania had met its watery grave. Victory, thus, came about as a relic of a bygone literary era. Conrad’s only explicit acknowledgement of the new world stage was the very title. He had rejected “Victory” originally precisely because of its connections to war and had decided instead on “Never”, which becomes significant upon finishing the novel. He settled on “Victory” between completion of the work in the spring of 1914 and its publication over a year later. His change of plans indicates and acknowledgment that things would not be the same, though he compromised by subtitling the novel “An Island Tale”, a subtle reminder that the work was not a product of wartime.

Victory is in many ways a throwback novel with a quintessential Conrad protagonist in Axel Heyst, a young Swedish baron who stars a coal company in Southeast Asia and then goes into reclusion when it collapses and his life becomes shrouded in mystery and scandal. Heyst is the descendant of at least two other Conrad subjects, the titular character of Lord Jim and in manners less horrific but nonetheless destructive of Kurtz of Heart of Darkness. All three men isolate themselves in a remote part of the world coveted for its resources, make it their own and, gradually, by turns superficially benevolent, increasingly exploitative and ultimately brutal, madness takes over before leading to tragedy. All would later become the talk of merchant sailors, the stories being told in flashbacks, but unlike the preceding works in which Victory has its roots the narrator is not Conrad’s avatar Marlow but the kindly Captain Davidson. However, through the progress of all three there is a unifying message observed by Conrad scholar Edward Said, for better or worse, “imperialism-as doomed by impossible ambition.”

Said went on to write that although Conrad could never fully transcend writing about exploitation as an outsider looking in, nevertheless, “…lest we think patronizingly of Conrad as merely the creature of his own time, we had better note that we today appear to show no particular advance on his views. Conrad was able at least to discern the evil and utter madness of imperialism, something many of our writers and certainly our government is still unable to perceive. Conrad had the wherewithal to recognize that no imperial scheme—including “philanthropic” ones such as “making the world safe for democracy”—ever succeeds.”

In Victory the tragedy is that Axel Heyst is an idealist, a humanitarian raised by a revolutionary father in London. When his father dies, he sets off to sail the seas and forms a partnership out of pity for a down on his luck merchant seaman named Morrison. Out of this partnership the Tropical Belt Coal Company is established in Java. While on a visit to his native England, Morrison dies of a cold and the Coal Company collapses. Heyst finds solace living as a hermit on the volcanic island where the company was based, housed in the ruins of the industry.

But back in Surabaya, word is spreading that Morrison was deliberately sent off to England, where the dreary weather was bound to disagree with a man accustomed to the tropics, as a scheme by Heyst to eliminate his partner.

The perpetrator of this take is Schomberg, owner of a hotel in Surabaya frequented by sailors, who had long held “that Swede” in disdain for the perceived insult of Heyst shunning his establishment.

Things get worse when Heyst visits the hotel on a trip to the city and meets Alma, one of the dancing girls hired as part of a troop to entertain guests at the hotel. Heyst takes pity on the young lady after witnessing the physical and verbal abuse bestowed on her from her manager and upon learning of her pitiful background offers her a chance to run away with him on the island he has made his home.

Schomberg is enraged but his anger seems to stem more from a wounded heart than concern for a damaged business. It’s a bruised in either case but his confidence as a man rather than a career benefactor is what is hurt.

Soon, however, another problem arises at Schomberg’s establishment that temporarily takes his mind away from his problem with Heyst. Three mysterious unsavory characters arrive and take abode at his hotel. There is the “spectral” and taciturn leader known only as Mr. Jones, his chatty but vicious “secretary” Ricardo and their hulking companion Pedro. Their mere presence and manner make Schomberg quiver and relinquish power to them to take over his hotel and run it as a card house. He gradually comes to learn that they are “desperadoes” who had been stirring up trouble in Mexico and then South America before arriving in Java.

The wily Schomberg concocts a scheme that will rid him of the three disagreeable characters in his hotel and will allow him revenge on Heyst. Filling Ricardo’s head with a tale of a plunder Heyst has hidden on his remote island after the death of Morrison, Schomberg promises him and his associates a share of it if they travel to the island and retake Alma, he knows Heyst’s life won’t be worth consideration to these brutal men.

And so the main events are set in Victory. The most vivid parts of the novel involve Schomberg’s dismay and the bumbling hotel proprietor descending to despair. Schomberg, with a displaced ego, is more pathetic than evil and his attempts to avenge himself more pitiful than alarming.

When the narrative shifts to Heyst’s island it becomes muddied, and Conrad’s vision crowded. This, the latter half of the novel, is at its weakest when focused on Alma (who has renamed herself Lena to mark her new life) and Heyst’s relationship. Conrad has always had difficult writing women and they are noted for their relative scarcity in his work. But if anything, he is at his most awkward depicting relationships between men and women and in Victory, as this is the heart of the work, the problem is magnified. We learn little of Lena as an individual and her motivations remain something of a mystery.

What is fascinating here, then, is the duality of Heyst and the enigmatic Mr. Jones, a topic Conrad explored in his masterpiece The Secret Sharer. The latter is a hired assassin the former was said to have sent off his partner to his death. Mr. Jones is ultimately not responsible for the death of Heyst, though not out of compassion. Heyst, however, is indirectly responsible for the death of the people he took pity on and brought to the island. As Heyst vows he cannot kill anyone, not even the men hired to kill him, Mr. Jones is a calculated man of violence.  But they are both angels of death. When Jones tells his intended victim, “It's obvious that we belong to the same—social sphere,” the truth of his words hit home.

Heyst may be only learning who he really is but Mr. Jones could be speaking for both of them when describing himself as, “In one way I am—yes, I am the world itself, come to pay you a visit. In another sense I am an outcast—almost an outlaw. If you prefer a less materialistic view, I am a sort of fate—the retribution that waits its time.” Even if for Heyst it be just a mirror.