Victory: An Island Tale (Penguin Classics)

I got this after reading that it influenced Bob Dylan profoundly, which made me curious. It's a great story, written in the late 1800's in a sort of old English style. The characters are each so unique and well portrayed that you really get to know them. The sense of place is also well developed. As many books, it starts a little slow, an the writing style is challenging to get used to, but the story line is really good and the ending is one you'de never expect.One of the characters, Mr. Jones, was said to be the inspiration for Dylan's ballade of the Thin Man.

I did not finish reading yet but I am a fan of Conrad. He is a basic, a classic of the twentieth century, a soul reader, a narrator of human weaknesses and strengths. All these traits he deals with in a very interesting, rich, prose. His works can be read as simple tales, descriptions, and narrations but they truly give room to a deeper understanding of human souls.

The book came in new condition with no damage.

Joseph Conrad writes long, boring sea stories where the word count is pushed up when nothing happens. This is not one of those. This one the writing is taught and the action is quick. This one will have you on the edge of your seat.The hero, and he is a hero because of what he does, is your typical Conrad protagonist. He is the detritus of a grand scheme which fails, and he lives on an island which had been the headquarters of the grand scheme. He goes to civilization once in a while for supplies and mail. And on his last visit he does something heroic.He stays at the one hotel, which is run by a monster. The Hero has in some weird way has offended the monster, who hates him. No good reason, he just does. Maybe he sees his nature, and compares it to his own and hates him for that reason'The monster, in order to drum up business, has hired a female orchestra. A bunch of women who go from place to place. The monster has decided he wants to seduce a violinist in the orchestra, who sees him for what he is, and wants nothing to do with him. He conspires with the orchestra leader to get her to his bed, but our hero has run off with the violinist.While the two of them make beautiful music together the monster hotel keeper seethes with frustration.A card sharp comes to the hotel, and the card sharp terrifies the monster hotel keeper. Who tells the card sharp that the hero has a ton of cash squirreled away. He convinces him to go to the island of beautiful music, and that is where the action begins.This book is A very fast read. A very good read. It is not a happy ending, but a logical one. Typical Conrad story, told in an untypical style.

It may be that it is enough to say about Victory that it is lush prose that wraps around your mind and leaves you sated at the end of every chapter.Conrad’s style, I dare to say, is not for every modern taste. It is dialogue-rich. The action is spare. For me, the essential appeal of Victory is the reflective context of the characters’ state of mind: their imaginations, their aspirations, their candid self-assessments.In Victory, there is enough honesty, enough resignation, enough disappointment, enough yearning to make you feel like you want to claim that your life is good.At least, good enough. of my book reviews hererichardsubber.com

The book is a bit wordy and took me a long time to grow a bit interested however I could have easily put this book down at any point in the story and never returned to it without a second thought. I did finish it though....it was a struggle but I did.It's set in a tropical location so the beachy vibes are nice enough but it wasn't enough to really keep me wanting to pick the book up again.I was completely indifferent to every character which made the story fairly boring. There wasn't even a character that inspired me to greatly dislike him/her enough for me to want to see some vengeance.3 stars is probably WAY too generous but I am in-between books in the Outlander series (I like having an unrelated buffer book to read between the books of a series) and the Outlander books are FAR more riveting so maybe the stark contrast is what has me being so hard on this book.Give this book a go if you have nothing better to do or read. It's not TERRIBLE but it's not great.

The plot moves way too slow. There is nothing really that profound either about this book which is supposed to be a classic. It's over-rated. The character development is lame also.

generally I didn't care for Conrads writing