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From the Bookshelf of Never too Late to Read Classics…

Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad

Start date: October 15, 2016

Finish date: November 14, 2016

Discussion: "Let us Chat a Moment!"

Why we're reading this: Novella came in second in Poll.

[close] Novella came in second in Poll.

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What Members Thought

May 18, 2015 Sara rated it really liked it

Shelves: classics

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Contemplating my rating and my review. Has certainly left me with things to ponder.

Having collected my thoughts, rated 3.5, rounded up to 4.

It is difficult to say you like this novel. It is full of reprehensible people and situations, things you could not ever like, but that is truly irrelevant, because all of its ugliness is part and parcel of the point Conrad is trying to make about colonialism. To label the book racist is to miss the fact that it deals with the truth of attitudes and actions Contemplating my rating and my review. Has certainly left me with things to ponder.

Having collected my thoughts, rated 3.5, rounded up to 4.

It is difficult to say you like this novel. It is full of reprehensible people and situations, things you could not ever like, but that is truly irrelevant, because all of its ugliness is part and parcel of the point Conrad is trying to make about colonialism. To label the book racist is to miss the fact that it deals with the truth of attitudes and actions in colonized Africa, which was full of racism and, if not slavery, at least forced labor.

The better part of the novel takes place either in the first station of Marlowe’s trip into Africa or on the steamboat trying to get to Kurtz. The kind of men who comprise the “company” and conduct the “trade” becomes evident almost immediately. They are a sorry bunch who are eager to paint themselves as superior and who deal in euphemisms for the dirty work they do. Kurtz, who has lost himself in the jungle and become one with the natives, is labeled a “madman”, but as we watch the progress of the steamboat toward Kurtz’s station, we cannot help wondering whether he is any more mad (or perhaps less mad) than those who condemn him.

The only character I find painted in any admirable fashion is the native woman who is Kurtz’s mistress and stands defiantly as Kurtz is being hauled away on the steamboat to his obvious death. She is seen briefly, but the image is clear and memorable.

”She walked with measured steps, draped in striped and fringed cloths, treading the earth proudly, with a slight jingle and flash of barbarous ornaments. She carried her head high; her hair was done in the shape of a helmet...She was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent; there was something ominous and stately in her deliberate progress.

She is the only person who is given majesty everyone else is squalid and tattered. She is where she belongs. Everyone else is out of place.

What Marlowe finds in the person of Kurtz is the ugly truth, unvarnished, cruel and savage. The heads lined up on the fence posts are symbolic of how far off the grid Kurtz has gone and how little any of these men understands or belongs in this country, the country they are trying to convince themselves that they have conquered.

The opening scene is set on the Thames and Marlowe remarks that it must have been somewhat the same for the Roman soldiers who came first up the Thames and encountered the “savage” population of England. ”And this also,” said Marlowe suddenly, “has been one of the dark places of the earth.” Is he not saying the people of Africa are the same as the people of England once were? Is he not acknowledging that treating these people with so little humanity or concern is a moral wrong? I think he is. I think he shines a bright light upon the atrocities he has witnessed and I think he finds the greater darkness in the soul of the colonizers than in the depths of the African jungle or the faces of the African people.
...more

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Dec 03, 2016 Jen from Quebec :0) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, classics-i-ve-read

I book I was forced to read at school, but GLAD because of it. :0)

4 likes · Like · see review

Aug 09, 2014 Christine rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: short-story-novella, british-literature, classics, africa, audiobooks, radio-bbc-4, read-in-2014

BBC 4 Extra Debut.

4 Extra Debut. Sea captain Marlow is ordered to sail up the Congo to find the mysterious ivory trader, Mr Kurtz. ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Sep 14, 2020 ULa rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: randefu, blue-ranger, shrek, plus-ultra

Ceritanya sebenarnya menarik walaupun saya gak begitu paham juga sih wkwk, tapi gaya penulisannya membuat saya ingin njedotin kepala ke tembok. :/

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Oct 01, 2021 Neil rated it it was amazing

breathtaking fever dream that unfolds like a brief nightmare, written by a man possessed. a ghost story that haunts the reader with the atrocities of colonial Congo. I don't think that this book serves imperialism and colonialism as some have in order to reject it. Conrad is criticizing colonialism in the only way he knows, which is to haunt the contemporary reader. I also could not help but think of the atrocities of the 20th century, which Coppola saw, in this novel with Kurtz's insane proclam ...more

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