Joseph Conrad Victory

About Victory

Joseph Conrad's Victory (1915) is his most romantic and most metaphysical novel — the story of Axel Heyst, a philosophical recluse who retreats to a remote Malay island, and the woman he rescues from a hotel orchestra. When three violent men arrive on his island, Heyst's philosophy of detachment — his conviction that the best strategy is to leave no trace — is tested against the full violence of human desire. Conrad's most sustained exploration of whether a life lived in non-attachment can survive.