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291st out of 4,639 books
—
31,439 voters
Heart of Darkness/The Secret Sharer
Heart Of Darkness. The story of the civilized, enlightened Mr. Kurtz who embarks on a harrowing "night journey" into the savage heart of Africa, only to find his dark and evil soul. The Secret Sharer. The saga of a young, inexperienced skipper forced to decide the fate of a fugitive sailor who killed a man in self-defense. As he faces his first moral test the skipper disco...more
Paperback, 176 pages
Published
September 1st 1997
by Signet Classics
(first published 1902)
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read this book for the first time in high school. we explored the novella from the perspective of a young adventurer wandering into the congo...hated it
read it in my death in lit class...provoked some interesting discussions on race...still hated it
read it again for brit lit...talked again about race and imperialism and my professor was so awesome i almost enjoyed the book for a smidgen of a second...but no.
rivets rivets rivets...boring boring boring...this 75 page novella takes more time to rea...more
read it in my death in lit class...provoked some interesting discussions on race...still hated it
read it again for brit lit...talked again about race and imperialism and my professor was so awesome i almost enjoyed the book for a smidgen of a second...but no.
rivets rivets rivets...boring boring boring...this 75 page novella takes more time to rea...more
Joseph Conrad makes me think of a Edgar Allen Poe on serotonin re-uptake inhibitors. (Although he is said to have attempted suicide in his late teens so he couldn't have been all that jolly) Most say his writing is dark but I find it funny. Bless my soul! By jove!
What makes me think of Poe is the narrative which is like a constant paranoid obsessive-compulsive interior chatter. But I love the way the characters are outwardly totally in control and collected.
"I smiled urbanely"
Yes he smiled urban...more
6 likes · like · see review
Just fantastic. Not that anything less from Conrad was expected. But regard for something special should never be taken for granted, nor should it be deprived of its appropriate kudos when time allows.
Masterful narrative. Better than average characters. An amazing story of a place that time may always forget.
I find it funny that many critics cite Conrad's "racism" in regard to the African natives.
For one, frankly, criticizing someone from that era and background for holding black people in lo...more
Masterful narrative. Better than average characters. An amazing story of a place that time may always forget.
I find it funny that many critics cite Conrad's "racism" in regard to the African natives.
For one, frankly, criticizing someone from that era and background for holding black people in lo...more
Apocalypse Now is my favorite film and it is an excellent adaptation of Conrad's Heart of Darkness. I've seen the movie around 80 times and have read the novella at least 12 times. It is a powerful examination of the fine line between civilization and madness and what these things mean to the soul of the individual. In many cases the so-called civilized characters are the most decadent and debased. The story works on you on a subtle but powerful level. A must read for any age.
A side recommendati...more
A side recommendati...more
3 likes · like · see review
The horror! The horror!
I never understood exactly why this book has been termed a classic and why we still torture school children with it.
I never understood exactly why this book has been termed a classic and why we still torture school children with it.
Nov 25, 2008
Rosemarie
rated it
2 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
advanced readers
Recommended to Rosemarie by:
Mr. Carson
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad would have to be one of the most complicated books I have ever read so far. I would have to be honest and say that the vocabulary used is advanced and I did have to reread pages a few times to remember what I was reading/understand. At times during the book I had no idea what was going on which made me reread over again. This book was challenging and is good at some points. Througout the book a character called Marlow is on a journey to find Kurtz. This book st...more
1 like · like · see review
Because my high school was phobic of non-American authors or history, I never read Heart of Darkness as a teenager. Although now, having thoroughly relished its pages, I'm glad I waited for a maturer age. Years after I first scanned Dante and gorged on Apocalypse Now, I see HOD is a very different work. It surprised me in countless ways, and I'm grateful to have explored its jungles when I did.
The narrator surprised me most of all, his anti-colonial grumbling, his masochistic drive, and his unse...more
The narrator surprised me most of all, his anti-colonial grumbling, his masochistic drive, and his unse...more
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 Afri...more
I read both of these books at different times. The Secret Sharer is probably one of my favorites, because it carries some absurdity with it. I still can't decide what to make of it, though I'm holding off on going to a professor to ask, "What does this mean?" I'd like to contrive one for myself. The plot is a little hard to follow at first, but then it leveled out somehow. The Heart of Darkness (as I've argued before) is more of a transitionary novel than a 'racist novel' as it's been painted to...more
Jeez, I don't know why so many people hate HoD so much (well, I guess it can be dry for many people, and the layers of metaphors pertaining to 'darkness' /can/ be tiresome). But hey, I read this in high school and I consider it one of the books that shaped the perspective I will carry into adulthood.
The story is not about the narrator, and as I read from someone's review, that person seemed to have not realized this (even though she read it for college...).
The story is largely about Kurtz, a my...more
The story is not about the narrator, and as I read from someone's review, that person seemed to have not realized this (even though she read it for college...).
The story is largely about Kurtz, a my...more
Heart of Darkness is one of the "special" books in my life: a novel (or novella) that is one of a handful that I return to again and again in my lifelong career as a professional author and screenwriter.
Along with books such as John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love In The Time Of Cholera, F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and The Last Tycoon, Paul Bowles' The Sheltering Sky, Albert Camus' L'Etranger and T S Eliot's transcendent Four Quartets, The Heart of Darkne...more
Along with books such as John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love In The Time Of Cholera, F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and The Last Tycoon, Paul Bowles' The Sheltering Sky, Albert Camus' L'Etranger and T S Eliot's transcendent Four Quartets, The Heart of Darkne...more
The story begins with Marlow telling the story of Kurtz, with his disappearance, and how he became a God-like King for the African people in the jungle of the "dark" continent.
The novel itself bored me, since there was barely any "real" action. Though it dragged on for me, anyone may read this and end with deeper analysis of the story. Some may agree with Chinua Achebe and state that Heart of Darkness consists of racism, as the people are primitive, but also compared to evil in their "dark" con...more
The novel itself bored me, since there was barely any "real" action. Though it dragged on for me, anyone may read this and end with deeper analysis of the story. Some may agree with Chinua Achebe and state that Heart of Darkness consists of racism, as the people are primitive, but also compared to evil in their "dark" con...more
I recently read the "Heart of Darkness" portion of the book for my High School AP English class. Overall, I would have to agree with the majority of other reviewers here in saying that this book WAS BORING! Unlike many of my peers, I DO read for pleasure and know a good book when I read one. I'm not lying when I say that I thought that the writing was actually very good. However, the overall storyline was mediocre at best. Yeah, sure, metaphors and a deeper meaning, and all that, blah blah blah...more
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of Heart of Darkness is not the heads on pikes or almost hallucinatory insights into the nature of evil but the fact that the novel was, in essence, the distillation of real events that Conrad had witnessed or heard about during his eight years working as a steamboat captain in the Congo.
The narrator Marlow, of course, was Conrad's alter ego. Kurz, according to Adam Hochschild in King Leopold's Ghost was modeled on Captain Léon Rom, a station chief at Stanley...more
The narrator Marlow, of course, was Conrad's alter ego. Kurz, according to Adam Hochschild in King Leopold's Ghost was modeled on Captain Léon Rom, a station chief at Stanley...more
“The earth seemed unearthly. We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there—there you could look at a thing monstrous and free. It was unearthly, and the men were—No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of it—this suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity—like yours—the thought of your remote kinsh...more
It took me ten years to finally read "Heart of Darkness" and I'm so happy I have. Conrad's grasp of core human similarity regardless of race and culture is kind of mind blowing given the era he was working in. Apparently some have called his depiction of tribal Africans in the colonial era racist, but I found it to be anything but wise and so much more than sympathetic. If he merely elicited pity for their plight in his reader, then his would be an attitude of condescension and therefore one fun...more
I was forced to read these two stories in senior year literature. I distinctly remembered my friend and I rolling our eyes at each from across the room as the teacher tore the book apart for symbolism and depth of meaning when all we wanted to do was READ it. Every now and then I was able to pull some random pithy sentiment out of where ever those things come from -- but I didn't remember one thing about the book except that it involved a river, a nut, and Apocalypse Now was based on it.
This tim...more
This tim...more
Conrad was extraordinary in many ways. He did not learn English until he was an adult and yet became a great stylist, although he continued to have some difficulties with grammar and structures. Heart of Darkness is of course famous, partly as being the basis for the film Apocalypse Now. It is an exemplary piece of writing. Conrad`s style in it is rich, ironic, adaptable to the various moods of the tale. Few writers convey menace better than Conrad. The lead-up to the encounter with the central...more
I had a really hard time with this book, even though it wasn't very long. First of all, the constant use of quotation mark (it's a frame story) annoyed me. In addition, the prose wasn't particularly awesome. Sure, there were a couple passages that were memorable, but, on the whole, I wasn't impressed. As for the story, it's about a sailor going up a river in Africa to meet the god-like "Mistah Kurtz." This journey, of course, is a metaphor for a journey into the human soul. I read this book beca...more
Everyone talks about Heart of Darkness, and not just Apocalypse Now fans. Sooner or later I had to read it so I could get in on all those 'depths of the soul' analogies one hears everywhere. Sadly, I couldn't quite get a grip on the actual source material - I can partly blame the astonishingly loud Hindipop blasting away right next to my hotel room in Gorakhpur for that, but I also point the finger at Conrad's unrelenting sombre introspection and the way the entire story is told through nested q...more
This book was an all-around good book. The intro was very detailed, but could confuse some readers with the vocabulary. This book is for the higher level readers that are able to comprehend the words and metaphors. For example, in the beginning I had trouble with it and didnt know if he was in Britan or the Congo. Joseph Conrad has an interesting way of using insanity to suit a certain event in the book. For example when Captain Marlow is waiting on the ship. He says that he is waiting, and the...more
This book contains two tales by Conrad, both involving young and inexperienced sea captains placed in difficult life circumstances during their early commands.
In "The Secret Sharer", the narrator is a first-time captain, a stranger on his own ship, surrounded by a cautious crew. Into this world swims a fugitive from another ship, anchored nearby. He is a murderer who has been held captive for some weeks, awaiting the ship's return to port so he can be tried for his crime. The captain develops an...more
In "The Secret Sharer", the narrator is a first-time captain, a stranger on his own ship, surrounded by a cautious crew. Into this world swims a fugitive from another ship, anchored nearby. He is a murderer who has been held captive for some weeks, awaiting the ship's return to port so he can be tried for his crime. The captain develops an...more
Dec 15, 2012
Newengland
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
classics-newly-read,
finished-in-2012
"The Secret Sharer" part of the book was fascinating. New captain on a ship fishes in a man holding on to a rope dangling over ship side. Turns out, he's a murderer on the run from another ship. And he appears to be the double of our hero, the protagonist, who must keep both doppel and ganger secret. The cool part is deciding if this guy really exists. Is he a manifestation of one man, some primal, id-like urge at play, or the real deal? It's no secret that I like unreliable narrators. Or that I...more
I believe the book's tagline says it all: "The horror, the horror."
I hated this book. HATED. I remember one day when I had done my reading section for English class, not understood a thing, except that they were on a boat and things were happening. Maybe they were being attacked. But in class we kept talking about the man in pink pajamas. I didn't remember any mention of pink pajamas. I could barely force my eyes continue reading the words on the page.
I hated this book. HATED. I remember one day when I had done my reading section for English class, not understood a thing, except that they were on a boat and things were happening. Maybe they were being attacked. But in class we kept talking about the man in pink pajamas. I didn't remember any mention of pink pajamas. I could barely force my eyes continue reading the words on the page.
May 04, 2010
Jeff Ballew
rated it
1 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Masochists
Recommended to Jeff by:
LOST
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
I definitely liked it/understood it better the second time around. Especially when read in the "psychological novel" perspective. The Secret Sharer was hardly the "piece of crap" I had pegged it for back in 12th grade. It's actually a very insightful story about a man who learns who he really is by watching and admiring the actions of another man, a stranger, a mirror-image of himself. He is motivated to change his own life by watching and wishing he could be like his mirror-self. He saves the s...more
I love allegories, but Joseph Conrad is just so damn hard to get into.
Seriously, I just don't understand him. He's a MAJOR rambler and a big fan of referencing to that-one-character-who's-the-uncle-to-that-one-person-you-met-20-pages-ago-and-who-turns-out-to-be-a-major-part-of-the-plot. Which can get pretty annoying after a while. I mean, it was only about 150 pages; I shouldn't have spent nearly as much time on it as I really did.
But besides the horrendous and terribly dry writing, the story...more
Seriously, I just don't understand him. He's a MAJOR rambler and a big fan of referencing to that-one-character-who's-the-uncle-to-that-one-person-you-met-20-pages-ago-and-who-turns-out-to-be-a-major-part-of-the-plot. Which can get pretty annoying after a while. I mean, it was only about 150 pages; I shouldn't have spent nearly as much time on it as I really did.
But besides the horrendous and terribly dry writing, the story...more
Required high school reading. Oddly did ok in the class. It seems I did really had no idea what is really going on here yet was able to extract what was required to get the requisite "A" grade. For example, I really did not get the historical and political significance of the Belgian Congo at all. I later learned was a large scale mass murder, purely for profit without any significant ideology unlike later examples. See King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Afri...more
I should have read this in a day. I read Crime and Punishment in less time.
Perhaps it was because I'm tired of Russian literature. Or maybe excessive use of internal monologue. But I'm thinking it's about the boats. The one thing I hate more than books about horses are books about boats and sailing.
Because lets face it, this was about sailing. Or more specifically a about a sailor. A story told by an old sailor about this time he met a strange man. Perhaps this might have been an interesting vie...more
Perhaps it was because I'm tired of Russian literature. Or maybe excessive use of internal monologue. But I'm thinking it's about the boats. The one thing I hate more than books about horses are books about boats and sailing.
Because lets face it, this was about sailing. Or more specifically a about a sailor. A story told by an old sailor about this time he met a strange man. Perhaps this might have been an interesting vie...more
Oct 03, 2011
Veronica
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommended to Veronica by:
Modern Library's 100 Best Novels
Visions from Apocalypse Now swirled steadily in my head whilst I read Heart of Darkness and when the much sought after Kurtz exclaimed, “The horror! The horror!”, I had my suspicions put to rest. I must plead ignorance here as I was unaware that Coppola did indeed base his film on Conrad’s novella.
Unfortunately, I was rather disappointed in what is hailed by many as a work of art. Ironically, upon embarking upon Conrad’s Nostromo, I feared a book like this; a seafarer’s adventure, yet what worke...more
Unfortunately, I was rather disappointed in what is hailed by many as a work of art. Ironically, upon embarking upon Conrad’s Nostromo, I feared a book like this; a seafarer’s adventure, yet what worke...more
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| SPSV Mrs. Rodgers...: Gerime Prado | 1 | 4 | Feb 28, 2013 11:02am |
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
More about Joseph Conrad...
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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“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 much.”
—
17 people liked it
“I slipped the book into my pocket. I assure you to leave off reading was like tearing myself away from the shelter of an old and solid friendship.”
—
10 people liked it
More quotes…
I never had the misfortune of being f...more
Feb 27, 2012 07:34am