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Heart of Darkness

3.36 of 5 stars 3.36 · rating details · 142,576 ratings · 4,774 reviews

Adopted at more than 1,000 colleges and universities, Bedford/St. Martin's innovative Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism series has introduced more than a quarter of a million students to literary theory and earned enthusiastic praise nationwide. Along with an authoritative text of a major literary work, each volume presents critical essays, selected or prepared especi

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Paperback, 315 pages

Published February 15th 1996 by Bedford/St. Martin's (first published 1899)

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Mar 21, 2009 Megha rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: reviews

It was a breathtaking read. There are few books which make such a powerful impression as 'Heart of darkness' does. Written more than a century ago, the book and its undying theme hold just as much significance even today. Intense and compelling, it looks into the darkest recesses of human nature. Conrad takes the reader through a horrific tale in a very gripping voice.

I couldn't say enough about Conrad's mastery of prose. Not a single word is out of place. Among several things, I liked Marlow ex...more

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Nov 24, 2012 Riku Sayuj rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Tanuj Solanki

Shelves: favorites

This was probably the toughest book I've read to date.

Revisiting The Heart of Darkness

After passing past that Castle of Ego,

Laying siege on the very borders of Mind,

We entered the vast and bristling forests,

Of that strange, strange land, that Id,

Which doth divide the knowing, waking,

From the land of dreaming, unknowing.

But this way is much too hard to follow;

And is harder even to describe to you:

We are more likely here to perish,

Here in these vast, dense hinterlands;

For these woods that we see a...more

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Sep 18, 2011 Hayes marked it as celebrity-death-match · review of another edition

REVIEW FOR CELEBRITY DEATH MATCH ONLY

The Essential Calvin and Hobbes (8) versus Heart of Darkness (25)

*cue music*

C: Hobbes... where are we?
H: Africa.
C: Why?
H: Before all that smoke came out of the tape recorder the man's voice said that we had to knock out somebody called Kurtz and then find and save Marlow. Did you bring your little red wagon?
C: Ask a stupid question....
H: Shhhh... there's Kurtz!
C: OK... I’ll jump out to surprise him, and you jump out of the tree... overpower him with a tiger...more

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Apr 30, 2013 Richard rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Book Circle Reads 19

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: More than a century after its publication (1899),Heart of Darkness remains an indisputably classic text and arguably Conrad's finest work.

This extensively revised Norton Critical Edition includes new materials that convey nineteenth-century attitudes toward imperialism as well as the concerns of Conrad's contemporaries about King Leopold's exploitation of his African domain. New to the Fourth Edition are excerpts from Adam Hochschild's r...more

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Mar 15, 2012 Elizabeth rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Elizabeth by: Sandy Tjan

Shelves: reviewed, 2012, in-by-of-england, in-of-africa, modern-love, virginia-woolf-recommends

Every moment of this book I hoped it would be as good as its opening again. The opening of the dusky scene of a worn ship at rest on the Thames, the images of the Roman soldiers stationed out at the edge of the Empire, staring into the dark night, waiting for attack, and longing for home.

I'm struggling with this. The writing is so wonderful. That first set of images -- but then the story is told again, like the Romans, the story of one man going out to the edge of the empire, into the unknown,...more

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Jul 10, 2007 Sonanova rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: someone who enjoys a good tenth level of hell

Proving yet again that doing a concept first will get you immortalized, while doing it WELL will make you an unknown and forgotten writer at best, I also learned that in Conrad's time, people could drone on and on with metaphors and it wasn't considered cliched, but "art." I blame this book and others like it for some of the most painful literature created by students and professional writers alike.

It was like raking my fingernails across a chalkboard while breathing in a pail of flaming cat hai...more

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Sep 30, 2011 Paul rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novels

CELEBRITY DEATH MATCH review for Round 2

**

“Anything approaching the change that came over his features I have never seen before, and hope never to see again. It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that furry visage the expression of somber pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror — of an intense and hopeless despair. 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 honey! The honey!’

“I blew the candle out and left the c...more

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Jun 02, 2009 Richard rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Everyone: required reading.

Shelves: classic, fiction, my-best-reviews

First of all, get this straight: Heart of Darkness is one of those classics that you have to have read to consider yourself a well-educated adult. That's the bad news; the good news is that this is a very easy book to read -- tremendously shorter than Moby Dick, for instance. And the prose is easy to swallow, so you don't really have an excuse. And having watched Apocalypse Now doesn't count -- if anything, it ups the ante, since that means you have to think about the similarities and difference...more

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Jun 04, 2007 Sarah Fisher rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Never in all my life has 100 little pages made me contemplate suicide...violent suicide. i had to finish it. i had no choice (yay college!). every page was literally painful.

am i supposed to feel sorry for him? because i don't. i feel sorry for all of Africa getting invaded with dumbasses like this guy. oh and in case you didn't get it...the "heart of darkness" is like this super deep megametaphor of all metaphors. and in case it wasn't clear enough, conrad will spend many many useless words cle...more

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Jul 30, 2012 Melissa (ladybug) rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Classics Readers; Horror Readers

Shelves: fiction, 1001-books, 50-books-lists, western-classics, classics, modern-librarys-best-novels, audio-books, kindle, brain-pain, radcliffes-best-novels

From Goodreads:

Dark allegory describes the narrator's journey up the Congo River and his meeting with, and fascination by, Mr. Kurtz, a mysterious personage who dominates the unruly inhabitants of the region...

My feelings on Heart of Darkness:
The book is suspense filled and very descriptive, almost too much description. Joseph Conrad really didn't leave anything to the imagination on this dark tale of Europe's Colonialism period. The tale took place in Africa, and I found it to be a good read....more

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Apr 10, 2007 Jenny Zhang rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This guy's message is so subtle: Africans are depraved/we are all depraved/since I don't care about black people I'm going to let them serve as a metaphor for the depravity of human existence/I like writing sentences that yawn with the utter boredom of pretension, pomp, and waste/I have no heart/that's why I had to put the word heart in the title, etc, etc, etc.

Where's the negative one million stars option, again?

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Nov 07, 2012 Les rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone-It is a classic with wonderful prose.

Shelves: classics, favorites, audiobook, mr-novembers-fall-to-remember

I am happy to say that I have finally read this and that at least one gap in my wall of classics has been filled. Truthfully, I listened to it. It is probably the only reason I read it at this point and might be the only reason I initially enjoyed it so much.

I have seen the arguments about whether HoD is a deeply symbolic novel or a skewed autobiographical tale. I'm sure the truth is in the middle. It will take several rereads (or listens) to grasp much of the symbology. What blew me away was Co...more I am happy to say that I have finally read this and that at least one gap in my wall of classics has been filled. Truthfully, I listened to it. It is probably the only reason I read it at this point and might be the only reason I initially enjoyed it so much.

I have seen the arguments about whether HoD is a deeply symbolic novel or a skewed autobiographical tale. I'm sure the truth is in the middle. It will take several rereads (or listens) to grasp much of the symbology. What blew me away was Conrad's language. It is beautiful, powerful, and each word is perfectly placed. I did not have an actual copy of HoD while listening, but went to Gutenberg's online edition (Thanks, Dan!) to actual see the prose or to copy lines into my loved quotes. The power of Conrad's language is all the more impressive to me because Polish was his first language.

As brilliant as the prose is, this particular recording seemed to perfectly capture Conrad's style. The narrator is the late Michael Thompson. His timber, tone, and pacing pull you in to the story with ease. I believe I could now reread Heart of Darkness and sit in awe of the language, but I don't believe I would have had the patience to read HoD right now. I am also not alone in my praise of Mr. Thompson's narration. Other comments include this one:

"When you hear the late Michael M. Thompson read for Recorded Books you are in the grips of both a great writer and a man whose easy, confidential voice is perfect for this story … Listen to it on a long drive or late at night on a Walkman [Good luck finding one of those. This was recorded in the 1980s. It also works well while running.-LTH]so that you can savor it and never lose the marvelous thread."

Heart of Darkness has always been presented to me as boring and impossibly unreadable . . . much like a shorter version of Moby Dick. I failed MD, but know that those harpoons thrown at the whale are simply untrue. And now I see that HoD has been equally smeared. Read Heart of Darkness for at least the beauty and power of the language.

Bring on The Whale!

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Dec 29, 2012 midnightfaerie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics

The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is an inspiring piece of work, worthy of some of its criticisms but also of its often listed as a classic piece of literature. Taking place mostly in Africa, it tells the story of Europeans going to the Congo in search of goods to bring back, mostly ivory. They do this in the name of "Imperialism", but Conrad makes it very clear from the beginning that there is no civilization creation going on. Through corruption and exploitation of the blacks, the Europea...more The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is an inspiring piece of work, worthy of some of its criticisms but also of its often listed as a classic piece of literature. Taking place mostly in Africa, it tells the story of Europeans going to the Congo in search of goods to bring back, mostly ivory. They do this in the name of "Imperialism", but Conrad makes it very clear from the beginning that there is no civilization creation going on. Through corruption and exploitation of the blacks, the Europeans gain as much ivory as they can. However, it seems there is another process going on. The deep recesses of the jungle do something to a man, change him, and somehow demoralization begins. The men who go to the jungle, and often die there, are not the men who first went there. Something changes them. There are many underlying themes here, but to me, the main one seems to be the duality of human nature. Marlow, our main character, is appalled and at the same time drawn in by the corruption he sees. This short book is graphic and disturbing on many levels, which is why its had so many criticisms. One of the most common seems to be racism, where it is said that Africa is only used as "a backdrop which eliminates the African as a human factor." (Chinua Achebe) Then you have your typical feminist criticisms which were at their height in the 70's, going on about the sexism. I am in firm belief, that these critics use books like this only as a platform for their ideology and a soapbox to stand on. I think the treatment of the blacks and women are only used to help depict the imagery and setting. It's a different country with a different culture and customs. I think there was more justification in the claim Conrad was portraying the denationalization of Europe. Although, again, I don't think this was the main point of the book. Some critics even try to explain the corruption of Conrad's unmoral white man by saying in a corrupt world one is bound to commit a corrupt act. Is that truth? I think only the reader can decide. It's also often deemed 'politically incorrect', but we must remember it was published in 1899, which coincidentally is another justification that this is a classic, due to longevity and how long this book has been making an impact on society. As for the critics that condemn this book due to racism, sexism, and the like, it must be said that due to this book, many were influenced about the injustices happening in Africa, and eventually it led to an outcry and resulted in reform. To me though, the criticism is unfounded, and the main theme here is duality. The good and bad of Marlow's soul constantly at war with each other, and this is evident throughout the story. But again, there are multiple themes at play here.

As I read the story, I found myself having to concentrate a little harder than I would normally, due to the way Conrad writes, but enjoyed it immensely, even noting certain areas that held a particular interest for me. Sentences such as "It gave me the notion of an exotic Immensity ruled by an august Benevolence." gave me pause, but touched me with the beauty of the words. A few others that I must mention, because they touched me so were "There were moments when one's past came back to one, as it will sometimes when you have not a moment to spare yourself" and "When you have to attend to things of that sort, to the mere incidents of the surface, the reality - the reality, I tell you - fades. The inner truth is hidden - luckily, luckily." And another - "The manager displayed a beautiful resignation." And still one more, and probably the best - "I don't like work - no man does - but I like what is in the work, -the chance to find yourself. Your own reality - for yourself, not for others - what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really means." There are more, but you must read it for yourself.

I must also mention a few of the influences for Conrad. It continually amazes me how many classics are influenced by other classics. When Conrad describes Mr. Kurtz's vampiric qualities, it's believed he was influenced by Dracula, which was published only two years earlier. There are also many biblical references throughout the story. I also found it interesting that E.D. Morel, who spoke to Conrad at length and was greatly influenced by him, founded the Congo reform Association and then discussed with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle how 'Heart of Darkness was (to him) the most powerful thing ever written on the subject.' It's amazing how words can touch so many people.

So, is this a classic? Yes, there is no doubt. Along with longevity, you also have the characteristics 8, 9, and 10 - Controversial, Underlying Themes, and Substantial Influence. In my opinion, it's definitely a book to have in your collection of classic literature.

ClassicsDefined.com (less)

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Jan 17, 2009 Taka rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: english_lit, japan_jul07-aug10

It's OK--

This is the first time I read Conrad after hearing how much of a prose stylist he is and comparisons to Nabokov (something he himself denied with a characteristic quip, "I differ from Conradically"). He is most definitely a prose stylist of the first rank. But in this heavily symbolic book, he is not much of a storyteller. Nothing really happens in the first half. Granted, the observations Charles Marlow makes throughout are fascinating and I was floored by some of them. The second half...more

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Apr 19, 2008 George Bradford rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: truth, villains

When I was a child, my father caught me frowning at a very small gift wrapped package I'd received. The dashed hopes for a larger package were broadcast across my face.

"Dynamite comes in small packages." My father counseled me. The literal and figurative truth of this statement has revealed itself throughout my life.

This story is specifically relevant to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. It is a small book. (Surprisingly small.) And it is pure dynamite. (Super powerful dynamite!)

Conrad later wr...more

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Jan 10, 2008 Michalyn rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics

This is a book I read twice and will probably never read again. I try to see this as a "great" novel but I have always wished Conrad had achieved a greater separation between his own voice and Marlow's. For me his inability to do so made it difficult to stomach the inherent racism in the book. The passage that will always stick out in my mind is the one in which the narrator muses that an educated black man is as "unnatural" as a dog putting on clothes and walking on its hindlegs.

That said, I do...more

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Mar 12, 2012 Jen rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-fiction

The first time I read this book I was in 12th grade. I hated it at the time and since then I have read numerous reviews of its greatness. I decided to try again.

While the psychological components of the book are riveting, the overt racism that much of it is based on is hard to swallow.

Marlow speaks much of the darkness and in some ways I think he implies that Kurtz's insanity was caused by the knowledge that the natives were naturally subordinate or subservant to him because of the state of the...more

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Jan 08, 2008 Angela rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: everyone

Recommended to Angela by: it's in the canon

This book knocked me off my feet with its weird and evil feel. It is told in an observational style that is perfect. Prior to reading Heart of Darkness, I don't think I'd ever come to terms with the murky depths humanity can sink to. It's sort of about the way a situation can corrupt a person, or an entire group. And it's so true.

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Aug 05, 2011 Angus rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed-and-blogged, modern-library-100, radcliffes-rival-100

Original post at Book Rhapsody.

***

Intro

There are some books that I enjoyed reading but for the heart of me could not really remember. I would claim to have read them but only the vaguest things about them run through me. Coincidentally, some of these books are from the same writer. More so, these books are short works that are either long short stories or short novels. And they say that brevity is a virtue.

I am not questioning Joseph Conrad. He is worthy of being called one of the greatest write...more

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Oct 03, 2011 Marvin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Written for the Celebrity Death Match Review Tournament

I, Marlow, was recently commissioned by Christopher Robin to go into the Hundred Acre Wood to investigate the stoppage of honey exports from the area. It has been rumored that Pooh Bear has become seclusive and was possibly hoarding the honey.

I set out on the Storybook River in a rickety steamer. The trip was dangerous and arduous. At one point, we were attacked by a tribe of Oompa Oopmas who threw chocolate at us. I immediately realized we...more

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Apr 03, 2008 Briynne rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I listened to this book in my car during my daily commute to balance out the fact that I was reading "Outlander" at home. Just to keep my literary karma on an even keel and to prevent the inevitable cognitive dissonance which would occur if I was only reading romantic fluff.

I was surprised by how much I thought this book would be better if I had read it in print, considering that it is meant to be a story the main character is telling aloud to the other people with him. Maybe it was that the se...more

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Sep 26, 2007 Jess rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

This book was grueling the first several times I read it. It somehow turned up on the syllabus for at least 3 classes that I took, starting in high school and extending throughout college. Like a sucker, I kept re-reading it every time.

It turns out it was worth it. Normally, I'm the type of person who will force myself to finish a book that I don't really like, but will never bother picking it up again. But more than circumstance caused me to keep going at this one. There's something there. I do...more

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Sep 20, 2008 Naeem rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorite-books-of-a-lifetime

In the Western Canon, the best book I have read on colonialism. Despite what Chinua Achebe says about its racism, this is a towering achievement -- perhaps the apex of the Western canon. (It is pretty much downhill from Conrad onwards, I would say. Although Orwell's Burmese Days gets there somewhat implicitly.) It shows that it is possible to be a Westerner and have a very deep and accurate understanding of colonialism. Conrad lays bare the barbarity of modernity, especially the necessary role...more

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Apr 18, 2008 Dave rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm sure there are many redeeming qualities and philosophies to be absorbed from this book. However, it really is the absolutely most boring read I have ever attempted to undertake. I should probably give it another chance before condemning it to 2 stars...but, this book seriously made my mind drift away to unrelated places and topics more frequently than any other book I can remember. I would almost rather read Shakespeare backwards on a rollercoaster than pick this one up again.

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Aug 02, 2007 Izajane rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: hated-with-passion

I twice got an A on a paper written about how much this book sucks. The first time was in high school and the ever assigned Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now. Thank the cosmic gasses that the movie is actually good or Seniors would be committing heinous wet acts of self-subterfuge in droves. But I digress...
The second was in college when I had to read this poor excuse for a novel again to compose a little Conrad/Faulkner homily. What an insult to Faulkner.

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Feb 28, 2009 John rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: readers who want to know the world in its noisy entirety

Recommended to John by: a teacher

Shelves: novellas-edgy-magnificent, avatars-gods-energy-sources, fine-strange-foreign

Morally questionable & structurally shaky, a tragic shaggy-dog story, HEART OF DARKNESS nevertheless is one of those books I just can't get beyond. Every three or four years I find myself swooning again at the redolence of its goopy roux: part exoticism, part outrage, part high drama, & no small part prophecy. Conrad never brought off a "well-made novel," though THE SECRET AGENT comes close -- while anticipating the terrorist neuroses of the century that followed (the book appeared in 19...more Morally questionable & structurally shaky, a tragic shaggy-dog story, HEART OF DARKNESS nevertheless is one of those books I just can't get beyond. Every three or four years I find myself swooning again at the redolence of its goopy roux: part exoticism, part outrage, part high drama, & no small part prophecy. Conrad never brought off a "well-made novel," though THE SECRET AGENT comes close -- while anticipating the terrorist neuroses of the century that followed (the book appeared in 1907). Then too, NOSTROMO ('04) is a glorious, prescient mess; every plotline lays out some vicious exploitation that Central America would soon suffer in fact. HEART OF DARKNESS, from 1899, likewise works from exploitation. The story depends on the way the Belgians (w/ the rest of Europe's tacit approval) worked their Congo colony to death, claiming it was for the natives' own good while reaping fortunes in ivory. Early on, the novella's narrator Marlowe puts the point bluntly: "The conquest of the earth... is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much." Thereafter Marlowe proves a deserving forebear of Raymond Chandler's L.A. detective; Conrad's man navigates the jungle labyrinth just as Chandler's hacks through SoCal corruption. The corruption in DARKNESS is that of "the Company," the ivory-traders, though early 21st-Century ears need retuning in order to catch the sardonic growl w/ which Marlowe treats these bean-counters -- or bone-counters. Indeed, the style's an old-school muscular by-product of a moving hand & arm, & readers have to get *into* it, stuff like: "the stillness of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention." Once you get w/ the rhythm, you get w/ Marlowe's rising antipathy to his assignment, as a freelance river-pilot who works hands-on. He swiftly comes to rely on his Congolese mate, & the only white man he trusts in-country is the maddened Kurtz. This guy was formerly the best ivory provider up-river, & a noble Christian to boot, but now he seems to care more about his tribal labor force than about bringing in the product. Kurtz arrives late on the scene, story-wise, but he erupts as one of the great conflicted missionaries in all literature, the debacle of his illusions rendered w/ an interiority unmatched by the screen portrayals (Malkovich in the made-for-TV version, & Brando of course in the Coppola adaptation). Nor have the movies ever gotten the edge-of-apocalypse intensity of the climax, when Marlowe's quick-thinking crawl through the brush holds off a mass slaughter. Amazing stuff, a challenge to any creative sensibility that seeks to work on a large canvas -- & I say this knowing the objections of that splendid African writer Chinua Achebe. Achebe argues that Conrad overlooked Africa's complexity, that he reduced a whole continent to the backdrop for the moral struggle of two white men. I say, yes, okay, but that's what novels do. See Tolstoy on the battlefield, Austen in the drawing room, DeLillo in the ballpark. It's always a world on a thumbnail, & in the case of an imagination like Conrad's, we see again how the nails can go on growing long after the rest of the carcass is gone. (less)

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Feb 20, 2009 Daniel rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: re-read, 2009

Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" was one of my favorite books when I was a teenager, and I'm happy to report that after another reading a couple decades later -- at least my third time through the book -- nothing has changed. In fact, as the years wear on, parts of it seem to gain new significance. One small example I feel I could reference on almost any given day, especially those days when I'm at work, though you'd have to have read the book to understand the context:

`Do you,' said I, looki

...more Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" was one of my favorite books when I was a teenager, and I'm happy to report that after another reading a couple decades later -- at least my third time through the book -- nothing has changed. In fact, as the years wear on, parts of it seem to gain new significance. One small example I feel I could reference on almost any given day, especially those days when I'm at work, though you'd have to have read the book to understand the context:

`Do you,' said I, looking at the shore, `call it "unsound method?"' `Without doubt,' he exclaimed hotly. `Don't you?' . . . `No method at all,' I murmured after a while. `Exactly,' he exulted.

But I don't feel much need to write a proper review of a book so widely read and studied. There's likely little new I could add to the discussion. Instead, I'm going to indulge my misanthropy and post quotes from a bunch of one-star reviews from Amazon.com. Screw these morons:

"This was a very hard book to read unless you had a lot of caffeine. The author uses so many descriptive phrases it is hard to follow. This is not a book you would willingly read it has to be forced upon you."

"Everybody has always told me this book was great. Everybody I've ever talked to is an idiot. This book was terrible, it made no sense. I have loved other classics, thats what i read most. But this book was just bad, it was some guy rambling on and on. I think conrad was on acid when he wrote this book."

"Not so hot; phony intellectuals are told this is a great work so they make up all sorts of lies about layering and craftsmanship, when it's really just a so-so story and the ending with the guy Marlon Brandon played in the movie (Apocalypse Now) going crazy and Conrad never explaining why there should be such a fascination with him. It might be a nice book if there was a story here. But these modern phonies do not understand that writing is supposed to be enjoyable."

"If your idea of a good time is reading a book that feels like it's entirely exposition (eschewing such literary novelties as, say, rising action, or a real climax), then 'Heart of Darkness' is for you and stay away from me! The gist of the book is that white people who think they're civilized are actually far more savage than the 'barbarians' they try to 'civilize.' I could've got the same lesson by listening to a Midnight Oil song and gotten on with my life, rather than wading through this detail-drenched, pompously 'symbolic' waste of time."

"This novel is a testament to the fact that Joseph Conrad's first language was not english. Easy to comprehend and inordinately difficult to read. It's emphasis on visual clarity means that you spend so much time imaging dark gloomy and oppresive that the story (what little there is) is quickly subsumed by the over descrpitive nature of Conrad's descent into the darkness of the human soul."

"Heart of Darkness was the most boring book I've ever read. I would have never finished the thing had it not been a requisite for my English class. English being his non-native language, Conrad lulls the reader to sleep. I could not extract any value from the plot due to his vagueries."

"Did you ever read a book, only to realise that you haven't paid attention to a single thing? That it wasn't engaging at all? Well, this is how this novel affected me. The only thing it had going for it was its length. Boring and dull."

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Jun 18, 2008 Leslie rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I know as an English major I am supposed to find this work brilliant and important, but I just don't. I hate it. I hated it the first time I read it, the second time I read it, AND the third time I read it.

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Feb 24, 2012 Bonnie rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, 1001, bbc-said-so, audiobooks, read-in-2012, literary-fiction

"The horror! The horror!"

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Feb 03, 2011 Laysee rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Heart of Darkness is a slim novel that belies the immense profundity it reveals about human nature. I re-read it after many years and understood again why it left me sober, tearful and broken when the last page was turned. Marlow, the seaman narrator, told the story of his journey into the heart of the African interior and his encounter with the natives and most notably, Kurtz, the ivory agent, a much revered white man. To me, the journey into the heart of darkness is the unraveling of what...more The Heart of Darkness is a slim novel that belies the immense profundity it reveals about human nature. I re-read it after many years and understood again why it left me sober, tearful and broken when the last page was turned. Marlow, the seaman narrator, told the story of his journey into the heart of the African interior and his encounter with the natives and most notably, Kurtz, the ivory agent, a much revered white man. To me, the journey into the heart of darkness is the unraveling of what is inscrutably at the core of human nature.

One of the most dominant themes is the human need to dream. Conrad said it well, “We live, as we dream – alone.” A dream has an energizing quality that propels the way forward. It has an all-consuming life of its own. Yet for better or worse, it is an illusion that keeps a man alive. Marlow, newly appointed as skipper of a steamboat, was drawn by an alluring dream – to follow the river like “a silly bird” to the “lure of a snake”, to a destination that was to become for him the heart of darkness. The sinister nature of this dream was suggested by the powerful associations with death early in Marlow’s journey: his arrival at the white sepulchre city, the decaying rot of a murdered captain, greetings by two black hens and two women knitting black wool. Perhaps, the most poignant depiction of the false redemptive power of a dream was in Kurtz’s beloved, “My Intended”. She saw in Kurtz the embodiment of inspiration and goodness, the sum total of all her happiness. Her quest to Marlow for Kurtz’s last words was heartbreaking. Would the truth have saved her?

Perhaps, another theme is deception. Conrad successfully built suspense surrounding Kurtz, the gifted ivory trader. Kurtz was portrayed as larger than life and invested with demi-god status. He was the Voice to be heeded. Yet, Kurtz’s gift of expression was described as "the pulsating stream of light, or the deceitful flow from the heart of an impenetrable darkness." Kurtz was in fact a ruthless ivory vampire who plundered the natives. Interestingly too, Marlow’s first glimpse of Kurtz was incongruently, a fragile wisp of a dying man. Conrad let it be known Kurtz was “hollow at the core”. Kurtz’s evil was symbolized by the human heads drying on staves outside his windows. Yet, the seduction of Kurtz’s power was so strong that the natives were grossly deluded even when they were victims of his rapacious savagery.

Lastly, there is the unmistakable theme of death. The map that guided Marlow into the interior revealed a yellow patch that was described as “dead in the centre”. The ictus of the heart of darkness is death. Life is but a riddle. No pathos is more eloquent than in Kurtz's final words, "The horror! The horror!"

Conrad’s prose may not be immediately accessible but it is finely wrought. There is much one can relish in the palpable beauty of the African jungle rendered in hushed, almost hallowed tones. There is also subtle humor that lifts the looming shades of darkness that close in gradually as the story unfolds. Read this novella. I cannot recommend it highly enough.(less)

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About Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski ) was a Polish-born English novelist who today is most famous for Heart of Darkness, his fictionalized account of Colonial Africa.

Conrad left his native Poland in his middle teens to avoid conscription into the Russian Army. He joined the French Merchant Marine and briefly employed himself as a wartime gunrunner. He then began to work aboard Bri...more

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Books by Joseph Conrad

Heart of Darkness and Selected Short Fiction

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“I don't like work--no man does--but I like what is in the work--the chance to find yourself. Your own reality--for yourself not for others--what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really means.” — 262 people liked it

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