Victory: Joseph Conrad

Set in the Malay Archipelago, where Conrad spent much of his youth as an officer in the British Merchant Navy, Victory is a sombre yet brilliant study of good and evil in Conrad`s mature manner. The characteristic theme of a man reaching out from his apparently total solitude in sympathy for another human being is explored through the story of Axel Heyst`s attempt to rescue a girl from the machinations of a brutal gang. Conrad`s extraordinary blend of moral profundity, pathos and bitter irony is conjured up in prose which is at once atmospheric and inimitable.