Victory: An Island Tale [Versión Kindle]

Victory presents a philosophical story of a man who learns that his own philosophy has robbed him of a life worth living. The novel is Conrad's answer to the prevailing view that only facts matter, that emotions such as love have no basis in reality.

The protagonist, Axel Heyst, is the son of a philosopher who once wrote, "Of the strategems of life, the most cruel is the consolation of love." His philosophy Conrad compares to a "terrible trumpet which had filled heaven and earth with ruins..."After his father dies, Heyst wanders the globe, looking "only for facts" until he becomes enchanted with a South Sea archipelago. Therafter, he is drawn to two people who provide models of friendship and love. Morrison, a small craft owner whose generosity has left him bankrupt, Heyst helps out of his bind only to fail to understand why the man is so grateful and anxious to repay him. But it is the girl Lena who fills him with an emotion that he cannot express or understand until the novel's end. After rescuing her from a life of exploitation, Heyst takes her back to his island where he is determined to live apart from the world.

It's only after his island is invaded by two criminals that Heyst discovers how much his actions toward Morrison and Lena were motivated by love. When he learns that the jealous hotelkeeper, Schomberg, has told everyone that "the Swede" had swindled his friend out of all his money before sending him to England to die, Heyst becomes upset, even though he had never cared what the world thought of him. When the malefactors Jones and Ricardo threaten Lena's life, he at last becomes involved in the world that he had left behind.

Suspenseful and chilling, Heyst's fight with the criminals ends with a victory having multiple meanings. Unlike with his other work, Conrad falls back on the plot device of coincidence to make a satisfactory ending, but the artifice only slightly mars a book that should be read as much for its message as for its story.

"Victory" is not so much a conventional novel as a fable, with strong influences of the Bible, Milton's "Paradise Lost" and Shakespeare's "The Tempest". This story is absolutely marginal, that is, it occurs to people who inhabit the margins of the world, the margins of society, and within the margins of a common life. The characters also operate in one or the other of the two extremes of morality. Axel Heyst, a Swede son of a bitter and disenchanted philosopher, is extremely influenced by the parental way of thinking, to the point that he follows the advice provided by his dying father. When Heyst, disconcerted at the foot of the bed, asks him what is the proper way to live, Heyst senior answers: "Look on, and make no sound". So, after his father dies, Axel emigrates to the colonies in Southeastern Asia, where he makes a living as a merchant, coming and going about the islands. Heyst is a distant but kind guy, always with a smile on his face and willing to help others, but always refusing any kind of intimacy. One day, he enters a business about a coal mine with an associate, the death of whom (not a murder) he is later accused of provoking, which gives him a reputation throughout the islands as a mysterious, somewhat mischievous man. His main detractor is a hotel keeper, one Schomberg, a hateful, coward, and calumnious man. After the business goes broke, Schomberg escalates his tirades about "that Swede", slowly developing an irrational hatred towards him. Meanwhile, unaware of his reputation and of Schomberg's hatred, Heyst decides to stay on the remote island where the coal mine used to be, totally isolated from humanity, except for the silent and shadowy company of his servant, Wang.

One day, on account of old business affairs, Heyst travels to the island where Schomberg's hotel is, and stays there. There he meets a young woman who plays in a "ladies orchestra", managed by a sinister couple who practically treats their employees as slaves. The girl, Lena, tells Heyst that the hideous Schomberg has been sexually harassing her, and begs him to get her out of there. Heyst, attracted by the beauty and mystery of the girl, manages to smuggle her out of the hotel and take her to his island. This, of course takes Schomberg's hatred to extremes. A little time later, three criminals arrive to the hotel. They force Schomberg to host illegal gambling, and make his life hell, practically taking over the place. As the secretary of the boss (one Mr. Jones), Martin Ricardo, reveals their past (true or imaginary, but certainly scary), Schomberg comes up with an idea. He tells them that Heyst keeps vast amounts of money on the island. Ricardo convinces his boss to go there and assault him. He hides from his boss the fact that there is a girl, for Mr. Jones has an irrational hatred and fear of women. Meanwhile, Heyst and Lena lead a loving, peaceful life. It's easy to see here the metaphor of Adam and Eve. One day, the three thugs arrive, almost dead, and Heyst rescues and shelters them, but with a gloomy feeling of something bad to come.

It would be foolish to reveal anything more. The rest is a hair-rising game of psychological chess, where suspense and tension are almost unbearable. The intruders in Paradise and the primeval Man and Woman struggle to achieve their ends, in sequences of undescribable beauty and sadness.

As I said at the beginning, this is more a fable than a common novel. I think it is wrong to do what another reviewer here, Bruce Kendall (otherwise an excellent one) did: to concentrate on novelistic technique. Yes, the narrator begins by being a casual follower of the story, and ends by being omniscient. Yes, some of Heyst's and Lena's dialogues are almost corny. Yes, the allusions to Paradise Lost are too obvious. But that's not the content nor the point. This is a powerful, moving, unforgettable tale of innocence violated, of pure evil against goodness, of the pain stupid and useless people can inflict on persons who are only minding their own business. It is also a cautionary tale about the perils of isolation. About the dangers incurred on by giving up on people, on love, on trust. At some point, Heyst wishes he had learned to hope and to fight as a young man. So many subjects, the quality of character development, so beautiful a literature (you will find passages and sentences that are real poetry), make for a great piece of art. Joseph Conrad grows in time as one of the quintessential writers of history.

Victory is the story of a man named Heyst who leads an isolated life in the South Pacific. However, he is drawn out of his isolation when he brings a woman to his island home. A chance encounter between a dishonest German who dislikes Heyst and two criminals sets up the dramatic ending. Conrad's style is as fluid as in his better known books, such as Lord Jim, and it is amazing that someone could write English so well who did not learn it until later in life and who always spoke it with a heavy Polish accent. Victory is similar to Conrad's other works in that the plot flirts with melodrama, but always is rooted in realism. Those who read the book will find the title apt.