Victory (Esprios Classics): An Island Tale

Victory (also published as Victory: An Island Tale) is a psychological novel by Joseph Conrad first published in 1915, through which Conrad achieved popular success. The novel's most striking formal characteristic is its shifting narrative and temporal perspective with the first section from the viewpoint of a sailor, the second from omniscient perspective of Axel Heyst, the third from an interior perspective from Heyst, and the final section has an omniscient narrator. Axel Heyst, the novel's protagonist, was raised by his widowed father, a Swedish philosopher, in London, England, and never knew his mother. The atmosphere of Heyst's home, with his father's ruthless pursuit of truth and pessimistic view of humanity, warps Heyst's mind, and after his father dies, he leaves England and becomes a rootless wanderer. This eventually leads him to the Southeastern Asia, especially to what is now Indonesia, including Surabaya-a port in the then-Dutch colony of Java. The book has been adapted into film a number of times.