Heart of Darkness
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What can Conrad teach writers about the uses of landscape description?
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Hi --I can't get to the link, Tim. Can you make a 'TinyUrl' for it?I'd like to read this. Just went through your 'imagery systems' essay.
cheers
FD
Thanks!First impression: I like it--perhaps read through it too fast--but I found (reassuringly) that it covers the basics and places the newcomer on good footing to start thinking about environment.
'Setting as character' is a concept I've heard prior to this; and I know one screenwriting tutor who makes it the centerpiece of her theory - Mary Buckham's Writing Active Setting: Characterization and Sensory Detail, and Writing Active Setting: Emotion, Conflict and Backstory.
Are you familiar with her? There's certainly room enough for all sorts of different interpretations of 'setting' in storytelling--I'm seeing it emerge more and more in the genre--curious though if you've read her and how would you say your ideas differ, or perhaps match hers? I can't speak towards her efforts yet; her titles are on my 'to-read' list.
But as to your fine musings, yes--I would agree that Conrad probably found it useful to increase the menace of the jungle as the story proceeded along. Although you identify the setting as a character, you can also go farther and identify it as: the antagonist in the story. If you mentioned this and I missed it, sorry.
However, even if this is recognized; I'm still not sure whether this imbues the jungle environment with an 'arc'. Becoming more menacing..becoming 'vengeful'..its certainly something 'near' an arc. But a true arc? Not so sure. Does the arc of the jungle ever complete? Or is it more of a fragment of an arc?
And isn't it really that all these impressions of the changing jungle are still in Marlowe's perception? Once he departs, what happens?
Thanks Feliks. Haven't read Buckham. I do think there's a danger in taking as given the common trope of "character as setting." In most stories I know, even those where the setting is finely wrought and very present, it's not actually a "character" in the sense that I believe it is in Conrad's story. And yes, I do agree that the setting in Heart of Darkness fills the role of an antagonist.
Yea. I just suggest its something you're going to see talked of more and more as time goes on. The tutorial market is increasingly turning to focus on it.Conrad's writings all ooze paragraphs about the environment surrounding his characters but he seems to have varying success with this obsessive technique, book-to-book. Sometimes its actually annoying; sometimes he seems like he's trying too hard; sometimes lesser-known works show off his ability better even than what he accomplished in 'HoD'.
Still, he's as good a writer as any to serve as a prompt for beginning authors to remember not to overlook this important part of storytelling. As you know from our earlier conversation, I think writers over-focus on the 'bones' of the story these days' and forget the flesh and the skin.
He can teach them how well it can be done, as can L M Montgomery (Emily of New Moon series).
Yes, Conrad is a master of "setting as character," but I also think he can be an object lesson in overdoing it. I love Conrad, but his insistence on saying in three pages what could be said in one makes reading him a bit of a chore at times.
Conrad is the master of overdoing it. I couldn't read Heart of Darkness; the stultifying and unending repetition just wore me down.
Conrad's settings certainly had strong characterization. So much so, that they rivaled the human characters for focus - and this may have acted as a detriment for some readers. Yet as a whole, he's a good example to look to for ways of livening up the scenery.
Good job, Tim. I agree with your analysis and particularly how you point out the wilderness describes the narrator's state of mind. The main narrative is a story within a story so you have to read this as character development of the main character and character development of place.
I haven't found Conrad's place descriptions compelling, though. They don't feel immediate.
Thanks Jackson, I appreciate that you took the time to read it and respond.
Conrad was a major influence in my early development as a writer. He was born in Poland and so spoke Polish (and French) and did not learn English until his twenties. (I'm 1/4 Polish, and two of my grandparents came to the U.S. as young children and learned English here.) I think Conrad's background with two languages before coming to English, learning it, and then writing in it (mastering it), influenced deeply how he used the English language to tell his stories.Nice work on the post, Tim. I've not returned to Heart of Darkness in too long a time. May be time to return to the river journey. Would be interesting to see how I react to reading it these many years later.
Thanks for your feedback, Robert, and continued good luck with the writing.
Good luck with your writing, too, Tim. I had a peek at your website. Looks like you're very busy!
Indeed. Nice to make the connection.
Meanwhile, I've discovered an awesome book which can assist any writer in describing characters better, in terms of their physical bodies. You know how when you're reading a novel and a character enters and he has a set of quirks going on with him? he's got the sniffles, he's grumpy, his feet hurt, he has gout or a poor complexion, etc. How to quickly ascribe such qualities in a way they make sense?This is an awesome compendium of human bodily frailties to have as a handy reference:
The Anatomy of Melancholy
Tim wrote: "In the first four pages of Conrad’s masterwork the words “gloom” and “brooding” appear six or seven times each in reference to the landscape. As the story advances, the same words and variants appe..." Having lectured on Conrad in Poland by invite - oh, where to start. Gloomy is how he saw colonialism. Conrad was Polish by birth. His parents captured by Imperial Russia. He was a notorious gambler and even tried shooting himself (unsuccessfully in France). His uncle bailed him out. Now, is Achebe right re racism? in a word - NO. Conrad is very sneakily counter-colonial. Why? Roast dog meat. Read it in his non-fiction and fiction works. "Dog in a parody of breeches" points to this that troubled him from childhood. Why? His great uncle Bobrowski ate dog in Lithuania while retreating from the Russians with the French. You will find the same image in Lord Jim. Conrad was told that story aged 5. It haunted him throughout childhood. So no wonder it appears in 3 different areas of his works. Look at A Personal Record for starters. His version of his life. having fled France to come to UK to avoid being sent back to Poland and then Russia, even books like The Secret Agent are telling. Ossipon (the Russian) an anagram of Poisons. Conrad tells a story but has many facets. In HOD (Heart of Darkness)the cannibals are paid with wire. They do not eat the hippo meat. It has gone off. Conrad is pointing the finger at the colonialists of which he is one. But he is merely trying to avoid the Russians in Shanghai and Africa etc. After all they essentially killed his parents.
Joining this discussion very late. Read the Darkling Thrush. The picture Hardy paints shares much with Conrad's landscapes. They evoke a similar desolation . . . "his crypt the cloudy canopy, the wind his death lament" . . . .I wonder what Conrad thought of Hardy.
Yes. I know that Hardy is describing the northern precincts of England while Conrad is describing exotic locales. I am talking about something different.
Read my answer here: http://weedlit.blogspot.com/2013/04/s...
What do you think?