The Heart of Darkness

By Joseph Conrad

Heart of Darkness is a novella by Polish novelist Joseph Conrad, about a voyage up the Congo River into the Congo Free State, in the heart of Africa, by the story's narrator Marlow. Marlow tells his story to friends aboard a boat anchored on the River Thames, London, England.

This setting provides the frame for Marlow's story of his obsession with the ivory trader Kurtz, which enables Conrad to create a parallel between London and Africa as places of darkness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joseph Conrad
• Release date: Oct 2, 2015
• ISBN: 9788893157001

Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) was a Polish-British writer, regarded as one of the greatest novelists in the English language. Though he was not fluent in English until the age of twenty, Conrad mastered the language and was known for his exceptional command of stylistic prose. Inspiring a reoccurring nautical setting, Conrad’s literary work was heavily influenced by his experience as a ship’s apprentice. Conrad’s style and practice of creating anti-heroic protagonists is admired and often imitated by other authors and artists, immortalizing his innovation and genius.

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THE BOOK

Heart of Darkness is a novella by Polish novelist Joseph Conrad, about a voyage up the Congo River into the Congo Free State, in the heart of Africa, by the story's narrator Marlow. Marlow tells his story to friends aboard a boat anchored on the River Thames, London, England.

This setting provides the frame for Marlow's story of his obsession with the ivory trader Kurtz, which enables Conrad to create a parallel between London and Africa as places of darkness.

THE AUTHOR

Joseph Conrad was born on 3 December 1857 in Berdychiv, in a part of Ukraine that had belonged to the Kingdom of Poland before 1793 and was at the time of his birth under Russian rule. He was the only child of Apollo Korzeniowski and his wife Ewa Bobrowska. The father was a writer, translator, political activist, and would-be revolutionary. Conrad was christened Józef Teodor Konrad after his maternal grandfather Józef, his paternal grandfather Teodor, and the heroes (both named Konrad) of two poems by Adam Mickiewicz, Dziady and Konrad Wallenrod. He was subsequently known to his family as Konrad, rather than Józef.

Though the vast majority of the surrounding area's inhabitants were Ukrainians, and the great majority of Berdychiv's residents were Jewish, almost all the countryside was owned by the Polish szlachta (nobility), to which Conrad's family belonged as bearers of the Nałęcz coat-of-arms. Polish literature, particularly patriotic literature, was held in high esteem by the area's Polish population.

The Korzeniowski family played a significant role in Polish attempts to regain independence. Conrad's paternal grandfather served under Prince Józef Poniatowski during Napoleon's Russian campaign and formed his own cavalry squadron during the November 1830 Uprising. Conrad's fiercely patriotic father belonged to the Red political faction, whose goal was to re-establish the pre-partition boundaries of Poland, but which also advocated land reform and the abolition of serfdom. Conrad's subsequent refusal to follow in Apollo's footsteps, and his choice of exile over resistance, were a source of lifelong guilt for Conrad.

Because of the father's attempts at farming and his political activism, the family moved repeatedly. In May 1861 they moved to Warsaw, where Apollo joined the resistance against the Russian Empire. This led to his imprisonment in Pavilion X of the Warsaw Citadel. Conrad would write: [I]n the courtyard of this Citadel – characteristically for our nation – my childhood memories begin. On 9 May 1862 Apollo and his family were exiled to Vologda, 500 kilometres (310 mi) north of Moscow and known for its bad climate. In January 1863 Apollo's sentence was commuted, and the family was sent to Chernihiv in northeast Ukraine, where conditions were much better. However, on 18 April 1865 Ewa died of tuberculosis.

Apollo did his best to home-school Conrad. The boy's early reading introduced him to the two elements that later dominated his life: in Victor Hugo's Toilers of the Sea he encountered the sphere of activity to which he would devote his youth; Shakespeare brought him into the orbit of English literature. Most of all, though, he read Polish Romantic poetry. Half a century later he explained that The Polishness in my works comes from Mickiewicz and Słowacki. My father read [Mickiewicz's] Pan Tadeusz aloud to me and made me read it aloud…. I used to prefer [Mickiewicz's] Konrad Wallenrod [and] Grażyna. Later I preferred Słowacki. You know why Słowacki?… [He is the soul of all Poland].

In December 1867, Apollo took his son to the Austrian-held part of Poland, which for two years had been enjoying considerable internal freedom and a degree of self-government. After sojourns in Lwów and several smaller localities, on 20 February 1869 they moved to Kraków (till 1596 the capital of Poland), likewise in Austrian Poland. A few months later, on 23 May 1869, Apollo Korzeniowski died, leaving Conrad orphaned at the age of eleven. Like Conrad's mother, Apollo had been gravely ill with tuberculosis.

The young Conrad was placed in the care of Ewa's brother, Tadeusz Bobrowski. Conrad's poor health and his unsatisfactory schoolwork caused his uncle constant problems and no end of financial outlays. Conrad was not a good student; despite tutoring, he excelled only in geography. Since the boy's illness was clearly of nervous origin, the physicians supposed that fresh air and physical work would harden him; his uncle hoped that well-defined duties and the rigors of work would teach him discipline. Since he showed little inclination to study, it was essential that he learn a trade; his uncle saw him as a sailor-cum-businessman who would combine maritime skills with commercial activities. In fact, in the autumn of 1871, thirteen-year-old Conrad announced his intention to become a sailor. He later recalled that as a child he had read (apparently in French translation) Leopold McClintock's book about his 1857–59 expeditions in the Fox, in search of Sir John Franklin's lost ships Erebus and Terror. He also recalled having read books by the American James Fenimore Cooper and the English Captain Frederick Marryat. A playmate of his adolescence recalled that Conrad spun fantastic yarns, always set at sea, presented so realistically that listeners thought the action was happening before their eyes.

In August 1873 Bobrowski sent fifteen-year-old Conrad to Lwów to a cousin who ran a small boarding house for boys orphaned by the 1863 Uprising; group conversation there was in French. The owner's daughter recalled:

He stayed with us ten months… Intellectually he was extremely advanced but [he] disliked school routine, which he found tiring and dull; he used to say… he… planned to become a great writer…. He disliked all restrictions. At home, at school, or in the living room he would sprawl unceremoniously. He… suffer[ed] from severe headaches and nervous attacks…

Conrad had been at the establishment for just over a year when in September 1874, for uncertain reasons, his uncle removed him from school in Lwów and took him back to Kraków.

On 13 October 1874 Bobrowski sent the sixteen-year-old to Marseilles, France, for a planned career at sea. Though Conrad had not completed secondary school, his accomplishments included fluency in French (with a correct accent), some knowledge of Latin, German and Greek, probably a good knowledge of history, some geography, and probably already an interest in physics. He was well read, particularly in Polish Romantic literature. He belonged to only the second generation in his family that had had to earn a living outside the family estates: he was a member of the second generation of the intelligentsia, a social class that was starting to play an important role in Central and Eastern Europe. He had absorbed enough of the history, culture and literature of his native land to be able eventually to develop a distinctive world view and make unique contributions to the literature of his adoptive Britain. It was tensions that originated in his childhood in Poland and grew in his adulthood abroad that would give rise to Conrad's greatest literary achievements. Najder, himself an emigrant from Poland, observes:

Living away from one's natural environment – family, friends, social group, language – even if it results from a conscious decision, usually gives rise to… internal tensions, because it tends to make people less sure of themselves, more vulnerable, less certain of their… position and… value… The Polish szlachta and… intelligentsia were social strata in which reputation… was felt… very important… for a feeling of self-worth. Men strove… to find confirmation of their… self-regard… in the eyes of others… Such a psychological heritage forms both a spur to ambition and a source of constant stress, especially if [one has been inculcated with] the idea of [one]'s public duty…

Conrad was a Russian subject, having been born in the Russian part of what had once been the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In December 1867, with the Russian government's permission, his father Apollo had taken him to the Austrian part of the former Commonwealth, which enjoyed considerable internal freedom and a degree of self-government. After the father's death, Conrad's uncle Bobrowski had attempted to secure Austrian citizenship for him – to no avail, probably because Conrad had not received permission from Russian authorities to remain abroad permanently and had not been released from being a Russian subject. Conrad could not return to Ukraine, in the Russian Empire – he would have been liable to many years' military service and, as the son of political exiles, to harassment.

In a letter of 9 August 1877, Conrad's uncle Bobrowski broached two important subjects: the desirability of Conrad's naturalisation abroad (tantamount to release from being a Russian subject) and Conrad's plans to join the British merchant marine. [D]o you speak English?… I never wished you to become naturalized in France, mainly because of the compulsory military service… I thought, however, of your getting naturalized in Switzerland… In his next letter, Bobrowski supported Conrad's idea of seeking citizenship of the United States or of one of the more important Southern Republics.

Eventually Conrad would make his home in England. On 2 July 1886 he applied for British nationality, which was granted on 19 August 1886. Yet, in spite of having become a subject of Queen Victoria, Conrad had not ceased to be a subject of Tsar Alexander III. To achieve the latter, he had to make many visits to the Russian Embassy in London and politely reiterate his request. He would later recall the Embassy's home at Belgrave Square in his novel The Secret Agent. Finally, on 2 April 1889, the Russian Ministry of Home Affairs released the son of a Polish man of letters, captain of the British merchant marine from the status of Russian subject.

In 1874 Conrad left Poland to start a merchant-marine career. After nearly four years in France and on French ships, he joined the British merchant marine and for the next fifteen years served under the Red Ensign. He worked on a variety of ships as crew member (steward, apprentice, able-bodied seaman) and then as third, second and first mate, until eventually achieving captain's rank. Of his 19-year merchant-marine career, only about half was spent actually at sea.

Most of Conrad's stories and novels, and many of their characters, were drawn from his seafaring career and persons whom he had met or heard about. For his fictional characters he often borrowed the authentic names of actual persons. The historic trader William Charles Olmeijer, whom Conrad encountered on four short visits to Berau in Borneo, appears as Almayer (possibly a simple misspelling) in Conrad's first novel, Almayer's Folly. Other authentic names include those of Captain McWhirr (in Typhoon), Captain Beard and Mr. Mahon (Youth), Captain Lingard (Almayer's Folly and elsewhere), and Captain Ellis (The Shadow Line). Conrad also preserves, in The Nigger of the 'Narcissus', the authentic name of the Narcissus, a ship in which he sailed in 1884.

Conrad's three-year appointment with a Belgian trading company included service as captain of a steamer on the Congo River, an episode that would inspire his novella, Heart of Darkness.

During a brief call in India in 1885–86, 28-year-old Conrad sent five letters to Joseph Spiridion, a Pole eight years his senior whom he had befriended at Cardiff in June 1885 just before sailing for Singapore in the clipper ship Tilkhurst. These letters are Conrad's first preserved texts in English. His English is generally correct but stiff to the point of artificiality; many fragments suggest that his thoughts ran along the lines of Polish syntax and phraseology. More importantly, the letters show a marked change in views from those implied in his earlier correspondence of 1881–83. He had departed from hope for the future and from the conceit of sailing [ever] toward Poland, and from his Panslavic ideas. He was left with a painful sense of the hopelessness of the Polish question and an acceptance of England as a possible refuge. While he often adjusted his statements to accord to some extent with the views of his addressees, the theme of hopelessness concerning the prospects for Polish independence often occurs authentically in his correspondence and works before 1914.

When Conrad left London on 25 October 1892 aboard the clipper ship Torrens, one of the passengers was William Henry Jacques, a consumptive Cambridge graduate who died less than a year later (19 September 1893) and was, according to Conrad's A Personal Record, the first reader of the still-unfinished manuscript of his Almayer's Folly. Jacques encouraged Conrad to continue writing the novel.

Conrad completed his last long-distance voyage as a seaman on 26 July 1893 when the Torrens docked at London and J. Conrad Korzemowin (per the certificate of discharge) debarked. When the Torrens had left Adelaide on 13 March 1893, the passengers had included two young Englishmen returning from Australia and New Zealand: 25-year-old lawyer and future novelist John Galsworthy; and Edward Lancelot Sanderson, who was

Reviews for The Heart of Darkness

[firewild · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book has been recommended to me by a friend and was sitting on my to read list for years. When I saw that most of its reviews are either 5 star or 1 star I was intrigued. The book did not disappoint. Beautiful, evocative, mesmerizing, horrifying, revolting, it describes an abyss of a human soul. A story within a story, narrator's description sets the stage and his story takes you away into then disappearing and now non-existent primal world thus forcing you to see the events through his lenses.

[ecataldi-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I was expecting a little more out of this. Overall, I felt it was a little lackluster. I needed more meat to the story, it lacked...... something that I can't quite verbalize. Heart of Darkness describes one captain's journey up the Congo River into the "heart of Africa." It's dark, brooding, and ominous; nothing goes according to plan. The narrator upon arriving at his African destination; has a strange fascination with a man named Kurtz, an English brute with odd ways who is no longer in control of all his faculties. Marlow, the captain, is in awe at the darkness that lurks in the jungle and in men's hearts. Sigh. I'm not doing a very good job describing it because I couldn't really get into it.

[eilonwy_anne · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is so very well written that many aspects of it seem to me to verge on perfection. It springs to mind a hundred times in discussing writing craft, in discussing what a story should do, how framing can work, or indeed, when contemplating John Gardner's theory that novellas at their best have a "glassy perfection". This book manages to be an experience as well as a literary work, and the effect of its final pages is profound, worthwhile, and haunting.

[miaculpa-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One of the finest novels of the twentieth century, "Heart of Darkness" is a moody masterpiece following a man's journey down the Congo in search of a Captain Kurtz. I saw the loose film adaptation "Apocalypse Now" before reading "Heart of Darkness" and feared seeing "Apocalypse Now" would detrimentally affect my reading experience. I need not have worried as the two are different enough to ensure the Congo's Kurtz was still full of surprises.

[xiaomarlo · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Strange and excellent. Conrad's use of the language is masterful. Full of incredible symbolism, and a very powerful anti-colonial screed.

[mhanover10 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This was pretty boring. The reader was fantastic but I just never could get into the story. Not my cup of tea.

[malexmave · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much - Heart of Darkness

This is a book that is difficult to rate. On the one hand, it is very hard to read. The perspective of the book is a person listening to another person telling the story, which means that almost all paragraphs are in quotes, which can and will get confusing if the narrator starts quoting people, and gets worse once he starts quoting people who are quoting people themselves. Add to that the slightly chaotic narration, the long sentences and paragraphs, and an almost complete lack of chapters (the book is structured into only 3 chapters), and then add some jumps in causality in the narration for good measure, and you have a recipe for headaches.

On the other hand, the book has a good story. It has no clear antagonist, all characters except for the narrator are in one way or another unlikeable idiots, brutal savages (and I am talking about the white people, not the natives). It is hard to like any of them, and, strangely, the character who is probably the worst of the lot was the one I liked best, just because he was honest about his actions and did not try to hide behind concepts like "bringing the civilization to these people". He was brutal, yes. He was (probably) racist, yes. But they all are. He seems to show an awareness of his actions, of the wrongness of it, in the end, while all the others remain focussed on their personal political and material gain.

I am not a big fan of books that are considered "classics". They usually do not interest me, and being forced to read them by your teachers will probably not improve your view of the books. I am not sure if I liked this book, and that in itself is an achievement on the part of this book: I am unable to give it a personal rating compared to my other books, because it is so different.

There are many people who have liked the book. There are many who have hated it. I cannot recommend it, because I know that many people will not like it. Some would say that these people "don't get it", but that would be wrong as well. You need a special interest in the topics of the book, or a special connection to the book itself, to properly enjoy it. But I also would not discourage anyone to read it either.

It is part of the public domain, so it is free. If you are interested, start reading it. You can still shout "this is bullsh*t" and drop it at any point.

[solitaryfossil · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I finished Joseph Conrad’s novella, “Heart of Darkness” this morning. I’m really a bit Ho-hum about it, can’t really recommend it.

[santhony_35 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Like most people, I was familiar with Heart of Darkness, both as an acclaimed work of literature and as the inspiration for the remarkable movie Apocolypse Now. For some reason, I recently decided to make an attempt at reading it, despite my concern that it was written at a level beyond my capacity to understand. Upon receipt of the volume from Amazon, I was initially under the impression that I had mistakenly ordered the Cliff's Notes version of the work. I had no idea that the book was essentially a short story, easily readable in 2-3 hours. Even more surprising, was the ease with which I was able to follow and understand the story, though admittedly written in a slightly dense prose. Perhaps this was due to having seen Apocolypse Now and being familiar with the broad outline of the story and having read other works of history on the Belgian Congo. In any event, it was a decent story, filled with some beautifully descriptive language and imagery. I must say, however, that I was not bowled over. Steamship Captain pilots a ragged boat up the Congo, accompanied by colonial agents and support staff (cannibals and other natives) in an attempt to relieve a long stranded station agent (Kurtz) who has "gone native" and become the insane source of worship for the local natives. If you've seen Apocolypse Now, you know the story, just replace the Mekong with the Congo. I go back to my first paragraph in which I related a concern over my ability to understand what is considered a classic work of literature. I fully understood it, but was perhaps not qualified to fully appreciate it.

[pilgrimjess · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

“Your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others.”I remember reading this book many years ago when I realised that one of my favourite all-time books, Thomas Kenneally's "The Playmaker", had taken it's inspiration from it and I remember it having a powerful affect on me. Re-reading years later it still has that same affect.Most readers will know the story centres around Marlow and his journey up the Congo River where he meets Kurtz, an agent for the Belgian Government in Africa. Marlow is beguiled with the image of the River Congo and dreams of travelling up it. To fulfil this ambition he takes a job as a riverboat captain with a Belgian concern organized to trade in the Congo. On his travels Marlow encounters widespread inefficiency and brutality. The native inhabitants of the region suffer terribly from overwork and ill treatment at the hands of their European overseers. The cruelty and squalor of imperial enterprise contrasts sharply with the majestic jungle that surrounds the white man’s settlements, making them appear to be tiny islands amidst a vast darkness.This novella explores the issues surrounding imperialism. On his journey Marlow encounters scenes of torture, cruelty, and slavery. The men who work for the Company describe what they do as “trade,” and their treatment of native Africans is part of a benevolent project of “civilization.” In contrast Kurtz admits that he takes ivory by force nor does not hide the fact that he rules through violence and intimidation. His perverse honesty leads to his downfall, as his success threatens to expose the evil practices behind European activity in Africa. Africans in this book are mostly objects: Marlow himself refers to his helmsman as a piece of machinery so is not totally blameless on this point. However, the brutal honesty shown by Kurtz as compared with the hypocrisy shown by the other Europeans leads Marlow and thus the reader to begin to sympathize with Kurtz and view the Company with suspicion. The insanity that Kurtz is obviously suffering from is explicit and easy to see whereas that of the European Governments, whilst no doubt there, is much more implicit. In this book therefore, madness is linked to absolute power. Up country Kurtz has no authority to whom he answers to other himself and this comes to over-whelm him whereas it is more of a collective madness shown by the other Europeans.As such this book then becomes an exploration of hypocrisy, ambiguity, and moral confusion in as much Marlow is forced to align himself with either the hypocritical and malicious colonial bureaucracy or the openly tyrannical Kurtz. To try and describe either alternative as the lesser of two evils seems to be absolute madness.This is not some rip-roaring read and at times it is hard going but it does challenge some very uncomfortable truths and as such deserves to be regarded rightly as a true classic.

[m.belljackson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Jeremiah 17:9 sums up Marlow's message in Heart of Darkness: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.Who can know it?"Though the book is less gruesome and terrifying than Apocalypse Now,it has a stronger reach for an imagination."...the sea-reach of the Thames..." > ah, how Joseph Conrad lulls us in.If not for the title, we'd feel nice and cozy, sipping our holiday tea by the fireplace. Marlow again tells the story, sounding not as chipperas he did in LORD JIM, leading readers to "...the very end of the world...."There's still the author's trademark racist descriptions of "blacks" andcannibals do not fare as well as in Moby-Dick. No wonder Conrad described Melville as "romantic."Where Melville gives us Cannibal Light,Conrad serves up Cannibals-with-a-Hint.Thanks to both of them for sparring us more.The story feels unfinished without knowing the reasons for the behavior of Kurtz and his descent into madness. Did his base desires and actions propel him or was The Horror in his mind?

[sasham-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the second time I've started this book. I tried to read it in my late teens but could not deal with the brutality toward the Africans by the Europeans. I'm not sure that the "darkness" Conrad refers to is the same "darkness" I see in the book. For me this is about the attitude and actions of the colonists / company men toward the native tribes' people. But I get the feeling that Conrad's contemporary readers (at time of publication) would have been more horrified at the way Kurtz "went native" so to speak.
One paragraph did really stand out for me and in it Conrad says (paraphrase)who would we be if we didn't have the judgement of our neighbours / friends / family / society around us; if we were completely free of all expectations and only had our own morality to guide us? How many people obey the rules for fear of what society would do to them if who they really are were to show?
The darkness that will stay in my head is the wholesale destruction of a native society for greed and profit - a destruction that continues today in that area of the world.

[rontyler-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I finished Joseph Conrad’s novella, “Heart of Darkness” this morning. I’m really a bit Ho-hum about it, can’t really recommend it.

[laura.w.douglas · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

My favorite book!

[bookomaniac-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Uiteraard een klassieker, maar desondanks zeer intrigerend. Sterk accent op stemming en sfeerschepping: duister, mysterieus.Maar stilistisch meestal grote omhaal van woorden en daardoor niet helemaal geslaagd.Te lezen als ultieme explorie van het innerlijk van de mens in extreme omstandigheden

[geraldlange · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Damn good catalyst.

[katibruneau · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I ended up sparknoting it because my English teacher expected us to read the entire thing between two classes. Based on that, I didn't think it sounded too great. I know this is a ridiculous claim to make without actually reading the book but I did read parts of it and just couldn't get attached.

[alcracka · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Jaysus, this book is a brutal little thing.

[a_reader_of_fictions · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Review of the audiobook narrated by Kenneth Branagh:

If you have to read Heart of Darkness, I heartily recommend letting Kenneth Branagh read it to you. Actually, this is not the firs time I have listened to this book. In high school, I read it out loud to myself, because that was the only way I could make the page-long sentences resolve into meaning for me at the time. While I am one of the best narrators ever, I probably preferred Branagh.

I mean, his voice is amazing! The editing of this audiobook was unfortunately not perfect. They didn't do a great job with the breathing, but that's pretty easy to tune out. More disconcerting were the constant changes in volume. I would realize that Branagh had gotten very quiet and would be thinking about turning up the volume when suddenly Bam! it would be all extra loud. Do not turn up the volume or it will be REALLY loud. You have been warned.

[lord_boris-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The longest 100 pages I have ever read. After several abandonments over the years I managed to discipline myself to stick with it. Allegorical and dense prose, dealing with imperialism, exploitation, racism and moral corruption. However, not much actually happens to a handful of characters none of whom I could readily empathise or care for. It was a struggle. That said, having finished it several days ago the story and fundamental imagery has stuck with me. Initially gave this 2 stars but upped it to 3 as there is something about this book that is quite haunting and it probably deserves another read and a better understanding.

[p_s_patrick · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is short novel (~100 pages), following an adventure up the Congo to the deepest darkest part of Africa. It is set in the 19th Century when the continent was relatively unknown to European explorers. The main character Marlow is from London, and he narrates his adventure, starting from the time when he decides he wants to explore the continent (being interested in maps from a young age), through his finding a job as a steamboat pilot, and the ensuing voyage. The company employing him has set up stations along the river, with the object of trading and obtaining ivory from the natives. The adventure reaches its finale after he finds the final station and realises what has been going on there.Though this obviously deals with colonialism and imperialism, what is perhaps a more dominant theme is the banality of evil, and the psychology of being in an extreme and often alien environment. Conrad, despite English not being his native language, writes in a finer literary style than many of his contemporary English language novelists of adventure. Indeed, his use of English here being subtly non-native provides some quite expressive and poetic turns of phrase, which in a sense heighten the exotic atmosphere and the sense of strangeness. This is very easy reading, and highly recommendable due to both its depth and its compactness.

[rsubber · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I just finished re-reading “Heart of Darkness,” it’s short, very readable, very dark of course, the protagonist Marlowe (picture Mickey Rourke in a Panama hat) dives pretty deep into the abyss of human nature, give it a shot if you’re not looking for light reading…..

[mikemillertime · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This book lacks any subtlety in its transparent meditation on morality and purpose. Perhaps this book was a bold, groundbreaking novel in its heyday for its bleak observations about human nature and the ways men abuse each other. But the novel reads more as a philosophy dissertation than as the jungle river expedition of its premise. There are numerous scenes where the narrator is so involved with his longwinded diatribes about the way the world works, that the actual world of the book becomes impossibly imperceptible to decipher what is actually happening to the characters. This story is certainly a overhyped classic, and deserves to be best remembered at this point as just the brilliant "Apocalypse Now."

[booklove2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Joseph Conrad begins his 1902 novella by having the sub-narrator, Charlie Marlow, talk about the Romans conquest of England centuries before. "And this also has been one of the dark places of the earth." I found this a bit odd. The only thing I could think Conrad (or Marlow) was doing, was to justify invading Africa, since this was not first instance of colonization. That goes along with a doctor telling Marlow he would love "to watch the mental changes, on the spot" of people who travel to Africa. But I'm thinking... what about the Africans? They're the people being kidnapped and murdered and sold into slavery. What about THEIR mental changes? The book is pretty darn racist, but I guess some people still are today, a century plus later. I think Conrad was either ironically OR unconsciously matching the general racist thoughts of early 20th century people. If he went out pointing most reader's inherent racism in 1902, he might have lost a lot of his readers at the start. They wouldn't have finished the book. But it is hard to say what writers were thinking, especially writers so far in the past. I'm not entirely sure that the book is ABOUT even Africa, since the book mainly seems to be about a character named Kurtz (he is the only character actually given a name except for the sub-narrator), even if Kurtz is first met twenty pages near the end. The book seems to say the "wilderness" has affected him (and certainly not stealing large amounts of ivory and using less that savory means to go about doing that). So instead of Africa, the book is about a pretty horrible guy. Maybe that is why the book is so short. The modern library edition I have has an excellent piece by Chinua Achebe who can sum it up better than I can: "..there is a preposterous and perverse kind of arrogance in thus reducing Africa to the role of props for the breakup of one petty European mind." I'm glad that the modern library edition included Achebe's piece, even if he wasn't entirely complimentary to the book. He is one of the famous Afican writers, after all. The writing was wonderful at times, which is why I guess the book has survived so long. And it's still quite a puzzle.

[crazymamie · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have a confession to make. I bought this book simply because I loved the cover, which you actually have to see in person to fully appreciate, and because it has deckled edge pages. Shallow, I know. However, after reading Katie's thoughts on it over on her thread, I decided to give it a go sooner rather than later. Lucky me - this is one of those rare books that pull you into its pages and won't release you until you have finished the last word on the final page. Entrancing...riveting...without one misplaced word. A tale of dark adventure..."Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. An empty stream, a giant silence, an impenetrable forest. The air was warm, thick, heavy, sluggish. There was no joy in the brilliance of the sunshine. The long stretches of the waterway ran on, deserted, into the gloom of overshadowed distances. On silvery sandbanks hippos and alligators sunned themselves side by side. The broadening waters flowed through a mob of wooded islands; you lost your way on that river as you would in a desert, and butted all day long against shoals, trying to find the channel, till you thought yourself bewitched and cut off for ever from everything you had known once- somewhere- far away- in another existence perhaps. There were moments when one's past came back to one, as it will sometimes when you have not a moment to spare to yourself; but it came in the shape of an unrestful and noisy dream, remembered with wonder amongst the overwhelming realities of this strange world of plants, and water, and silence. And this stillness of life did not in the least resemble a peace. It was the stillness of of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention. It looked at you with a vengeful aspect."

[mariamsultana · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Beautifully written, but I've read too much about international development to actually feel for the narrator. It's too much of a pity party for him.

[shadowofthewind · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The main argument of this story, is that without society's pressure to determine good and evil and an appropriate way to behave, there is the potential to act in a truly evil way. This story is a good analogy to unchecked power as well. The story itself doesn't carry the weight since I watched Apocalypse Now before reading this story. The elements are there and the unchecked aggression and evil are great, but there is a difference between controlling an area for profit, to obtain ivory, and a soldier using natives to butcher an enemy. My perception is a bit tainted because of the order. However, even without the extreme elements, it is a demonstration of how those who have power unchecked can lead to horrible behavior. Favorite Passages:"You should have heard him say, 'My ivory.' Oh yes, I heard him. 'My Intended, my ivory, my station, my river, my--' everything belonged to him. It made me hold my breath in expectation of hearing the wilderness burst into a prodigious peal of laughter that would shake the fixed stars in their places. Everything belonged to him--but that was a trifle. The thing was to know what he belonged to, how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own. That was the reflection that made you creepy all over. It was impossible--it was not good for one either--trying to imagine. He had taken a high seat amongst the devils of the land--I mean literally. You can't understand. How could you?--with solid pavement under your feet, surrounded by kind neighbors ready to cheer you or to fall on you, stepping delicately between the butcher and the policeman, in the holy terror of scandal and gallows and lunatic asylums--how can you imagine what particular region of the first ages a man's untrammeled feet may take him into by the way of solitude--utter solitude without a policeman--by the way of silence, utter silence, where no warning voice of a kind neighbor can be heard whispering of public opinion? These little things make all the great difference. When they are gone you must fall back upon your own innate strength, upon your own capacity for faithfulness. p. 123They only showed that Mr. Kurtz lacked restraint in the gratification of his various lusts, that there was something wanting in him--some small matter which, when the pressing need arose, could not be found under his magnificent eloquence. Whether he knew of this deficiency himself I can't say. I think the knowledge came to him at last--only at the very last. But the wilderness had found him out early, and had taken on him a terrible vengeance for the fantastic invasion. I think it had whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till he took counsel with this great solitude--and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating. It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core. p. 200And for a moment it seemed to me as if I was also buried in a vast grave full of unspeakable secrets. I felt an intolerable weight oppressing my breast, the smell of the damp earth, the unseen presence of victorious corruption, the darkness of an impenetrable night...p. 170"Anything approaching the change that came over his features I have never seen before, and hope never to see again. Oh, I wasn't touched. I was fascinated. It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that ivory face the expression of somber pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror--of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision,--he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath--"'The horror! The horror!'p. 223

[fch123 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Better than I remembered it, from my reading as a teen. I'll set myself on Achebe's side, though, when it comes to Heart of Darkness in relation to Africans.

[meredy_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Six-word review: Not sure what I just read.Extended review:Most likely it was very good. But enigmatic, or so they say. Not that I'd know; maybe it's just me. I've read some fairly tough stuff in my reading career, but this one made me feel like a borderline idiot.I followed the narrative, or thought I did--a frame tale with one Marlow being the narrator of the adventure and all his remarks being written down by his unnamed listener. I couldn't make out the reason for the use of this device in this instance. What would have been lost--what would even have been different--if the putative narrator had penned a first-person account of his experiences going upriver into the African jungle to find Mr. Kurtz? Why deliver it all as if second-hand? I don't see it.As for the narrative itself, I am not accustomed to having any difficulty with nineteenth-century prose, American or British or even (translated) Russian, no matter how quirky, rambling, vocabulous, or convoluted. The half-crazed internal monologues of Poe's characters and Dostoevsky's haven't slowed me down. I can handle the archaic styles of George Eliot and Walter Scott and Nathaniel Hawthorne, not to mention poetry of earlier centuries. There's nothing in Conrad's diction or syntax that I can't understand. I've read plenty of literature that goes for mood and atmosphere and allegorical meaning without actually having anything resembling what we'd think of as a plot.And yet I'm holding my copy of Heart of Darkness, open to the two-thirds mark, where I'm rereading passages for the third or fourth time and asking: What is this really saying? What am I missing? What's going on?Is it a ghost story? Are we supposed to take references to Kurtz's disinterred remains and his skeletal appearance as meaning what they seem to mean? I could make some sense of that, but the commentaries I've looked up don't seem to bear me out. I must have read it wrong.Swallowing my pride, I've just been reduced to reading the entire SparkNotes summary and analysis, which are damned near as long as the book itself, and received very little enlightenment. Yes, that's definitely the novella I just read. Now I'm wondering what the story is about and what the SparkNotes are about, if they're not just about the evils of European colonization of so-called primitive societies and the looting of their treasures.One thing I'll testify that it isn't is a character study. To me it seems to conceal more than it reveals, pointing with gestures and symbols and geographical landmarks to the places where disclosures of information ought to be but aren't. Is that the point? Is that the horror at the core? Is that why Eliot chose a line from this story as the epigraph to his poem "The Hollow Men"?I concede defeat. I'll take my lumps for being too lowbrow for Conrad. But what I'd like to know is, what in the world was my high school English teacher thinking when he assigned it to a room full of sixteen- and seventeen-year-old American kids? I was reading Dostoevsky on my own then, for pleasure, but I didn't make anything of this. Fifty years later, I still don't.

[booksfordinner · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Odd that I've never read this before. Yes, yes, good and evil, light and dark, the souls of man, etc. Brilliant and visionary, but all a bit ponderous for me. Also, the guy who narrates this audio book edition, Scot Brick, he's American evidently and puts on a fairly awful English accent for the entire book. Tedious. Four stars if not for Mr. Brick.