Kirsten's review

Heart of Darkness and the Secret Sharer
by Joseph Conrad

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/616828.Heart_of_Darkness_and_the_Secret_Sharer?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Heart of Darkness and the Secret Sharer" border="0" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1176357914m/616828.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/616828.Heart_of_Darkness_and_the_Secret_Sharer?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Heart of Darkness and the Secret Sharer</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3345.Joseph_Conrad">Joseph Conrad</a><br/><br/>
  <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/32957410?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
  rating: 3 of 5 stars<br/>"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 there 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 kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. ugly. yes, it was ugly enough; but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself that there was in you just the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspicion of there being a meaning in it which you - you so remote from the night of first ages - could comprehend. and why not? the mind of man is capable of anything - because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. what was there after all? joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valour, rage - who can tell? - but truth - truth stripped of its cloak of time."
<br/>
<br/>"there was no sign on the face of nature of this amazing tale that was not so much told as suggested to me in desolate exclamations, completed by shrugs, in interrupted phrases, in hints ending in deep sighs. the woods were unmoved, like a mask - heavy, like the closed door of a prison - they looked with their air of hidden knowledge, of patient expectation, of unapproachable silence."
<br/>
<br/>"they 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."
  <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/180709?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Kirsten's review
rating:

status: Read in September, 2008

"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 there 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 kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. ugly. yes, it was ugly enough; but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself that there was in you just the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspicion of there being a meaning in it which you - you so remote from the night of first ages - could comprehend. and why not? the mind of man is capable of anything - because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. what w...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 there 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 kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. ugly. yes, it was ugly enough; but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself that there was in you just the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspicion of there being a meaning in it which you - you so remote from the night of first ages - could comprehend. and why not? the mind of man is capable of anything - because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. what was there after all? joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valour, rage - who can tell? - but truth - truth stripped of its cloak of time."

"there was no sign on the face of nature of this amazing tale that was not so much told as suggested to me in desolate exclamations, completed by shrugs, in interrupted phrases, in hints ending in deep sighs. the woods were unmoved, like a mask - heavy, like the closed door of a prison - they looked with their air of hidden knowledge, of patient expectation, of unapproachable silence."

"they 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."...less

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