"It is always the unexpected that happens", Marlow muses in Lord Jim. In Conrad's texts, the unexpected is at least disruptive, often traumatic. A trivial object, an insignificant event or character crops up, and the course of reality is undone. The symbolic order is shaken at its roots, the truth is glimpsed. One occurence of the unexped won’t make the protagonist wiser, however, there is no ready-made answer. How does Conrad’s fiction deal with the contingent, the traumatic? If we follow Giorgio Agamben’s argument that the contemporary writer always takes us by surprise, how does Conrad remain our contemporary in this respect?