The Pequod, she is sunk. The whale lives, and all are drowned except Ishmael. This should come as no surprise, as all in Moby Dick is foretold. But never mind. For more reflections on that tome, reference the moleskin in my pocket. It’s all written there.

Lord Jim, the book, is another matter. As is Lord Jim himself. Lord Jim is rather like me, which is to say he’s rather like Don Quixote, filling his head with adventure stories, manufacturing his vision of himself out these legends. Lord Jim is caught in a moment of fear, out of that fear he salvages indifference, strong, wonderful indifference. An indifference that shall gird him, guide him in times of danger. I do the same. I count myself as above that howling mess (whatever mess that is), but am in fact subject to it, until it rears its terrible head. As is Lord Jim. Until Lord Jim can invent himself anew.

Oh sure, I’m mad to go to sea again, to sail again those same treacherous east Indian waters that I’ve only just come up from, ragged clothes barely dry. But as those who know me know, I’m rarely every dry (with the exception of my wit, which is nearly sun-baked).

Back to Lord Jim. Even if the waters are the same, the winds are decidedly different. Moby Dick, steeped as it is in a kind of agnostic fate, still shows a hand, some directing intelligence (maksed variously as pagan, Christian, narrative, mystic). Lord Jim (the person) is decidedly more his agent. His universe more at the whims of cruel irony, than any higher power. We the secularists, we prefer that cruel irony. But that is just the inverse of fate, of divine intelligence.

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