| Title | : | Heart of Darkness and Other Tales |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0192801724 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780192801722 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 225 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1902 |
Heart of Darkness and Other Tales Reviews
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Kylie Minogue, Joseph Conrad, the fascist state that was Queensland and how I came to realise that the star rating system may not be appropriate for this book. Part two.
As I have reviewed elsewhere in The Delinquents Lola (Kylie Minogue in the film of the book) liked Joseph Conrad and so do I, but not as much as some. I suspect that Lola was reading Conrad as boyfriend Brownie was away at sea in the early days of their relationship and perhaps she was attracted to the fact that Conrad wrote about the sea and sailing. This book of 3 short stories was all about that subject. One could imagine Lola wondering what it was about this attraction to the sea hence her reading Conrad. What I find interesting is that the author of The Delinquents, Criena Rohan, should have her books heroine reading such a dense author. I mean let’s be true to ourselves here, Conrad is no easy read. I came into this book expecting what I got, dark and dense paragraphs that had me rereading constantly. Is having to reread a good thing? Yes and no. Typical of books like this they can tend to pass over my tiny mind, the nuances as it were. Of the three tales Youth and The End of the Tether were easy to read and interesting stories in themselves without having me think I was reading classics. The Heart of Darkness on the other hand……… dense and deep. I was happy to reread passages but I wish it was not so. It can take away from the experience I suppose.
Though a noted classic in truth not for me personally. I get the reputation but something just did not grab me. Again it makes the star system kind of redundant in truth. How can I not give it 5 stars considering what it makes one think about? I finished The Heart of Darkness a good few days ago and have been thinking about it. In fact I played an audio version (something I had never done before) after finishing the read so as to get another voice as it were. In The Delinquents Brownie had snorted that if Joseph Conrad was a sailor he should have known better than to go writing about the sea – and who wanted to read about the sea anyway? Brownie would not have had the patience to even get past the first few pages I suspect. I can find no reference to Heart Of Darkness in the banned books lists in Qld. I presume that Lola may have got it from the library. I am going to give my copy to a young lass who I work with who is studying English Lit with a view to getting into the publishing industry. Hopefully she enjoys it. -
"The horror! The horror!"
— Heart of Darkness
Have you ever tried any meditation technique? Well, just last year I began to make some research about it. What I found was truly compelling, so I decided to try some of the exercises I read about, which I still practice sometimes on my spare time. There's a great gamma of those techniques and regardless of your religious or spiritual beliefs, all of them have one and only purpose: to help he who puts them to practice. Personally, they helped me cope with some issues, such as anxiety and insomnia; but, truth be told, there are some things — intrinsic, I've come to think — that seem to cling to the deepest regions of my being — dark things, perhaps. I'm no expert on the subject — in fact, I hesitated about bringing it up — but from what I've learned, all these techniques basically help you with introspective issues by tracking their source. In this inner and spiritual journey you may find virtue but you may also find what Conrad chose as the title for this tale: a heart of darkness.
Either the title means the core of an unknown region or a symbolism for a corrupted human's soul and mind, it provides the reader with a general idea of what he's about to encounter. For me, it seemed at first like a simple story about colonialism written in a plain narrative. The error! The error! Conrad is truly a master of prose and he's often regarded as a venturer in the modernist wave. It may be true, if we think of such a literary movement as something related to Proust or Woolf or Joyce, who wrote their masterpieces based on a fluent stream of consciousness that emerges from a simple object or idea. Thus Conrad introduces the reader to Marlow who relates a story of his days of youth to his mates — a story which is basically the whole tale. Furthermore, just like the modernists aforementioned, Marlow's descriptions of the scenarios, his thoughts and reactions to the events that shape the plot are very insightful; the author's label, nevertheless, rests in the sombre yet alluring way in which all of this is written. The outcome: a skilful, contrasting blend of a portrayal of the exotic external and the shadowy internal. (And I've come to think the sun and the shadows play an important symbolism in this tale.)"… No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life–sensation of any given epoch of one’s existence — that which makes its truth, its meaning — its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream — alone… ."
— Heart of Darkness
Overall, Marlow's anecdote is about him joining, out of his aunt's influences, an ivory trading company in Africa and the dark affairs that occurred to him therein. So from the moment the whole process begins with Marlow being examined by a doctor and the latter asks him 'Ever any madness in your family?', you get involved in an increasing tension and suspense that won't decrease until the ambiguos climax of the story which is marked my the famous words 'The horror! The horror!' And even afterwards, in Marlow's last meeting, there's something melancholy yet gloomy and uneasy about it."Droll thing life is—that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself—that comes too late—a crop of unextinguishable regrets."
— Heart of Darkness
Most of the psychological thrill in the story is aroused because of the second main character: a certain, enigmatic Kurtz. From the moment he arrives, Marlow's told about this personage's grandeur and his sound methods, to the extent that all the hubbub about him makes Marlow form an a priori image of him so that Kurtz goes from a name, to an image, to a place (that is the station where he dwelled), to an ideal, and lastly, to the personification of the man behind all of it.
Some may not be fond of Conrad's way of portraying all of this, specially when Marlow's, and actually all white characters' ways are somewhat tinted with white supremacy. However, as the story moves forward, and specially when Kurtz finally enters the scene, the writer's viewpoints become clearer. In my opinion, Kurtz fall is a fascinating depiction of what would happen — nay, what happens, for this did happen to Conrad himself — what happens when Man loses what he knows as civility, clearing the way for his most concealed passions and all those feelings he casts away out of social norms. For some, this timeout of sorts, this chance to be away from their routines and get to know a new culture, it could be a chance for introspection, to focus on one's mind, like it is done while meditating. However, Kurtz reaches his blackest shade: his heart of darkness. Thus he begins to gain power amongst the natives, but as this happens his greed grows too, so he begins to abuse of his authority towards them, who now see him as some kind of deity."Better his cry—much better. It was an affirmation, a moral victory paid for by innumerable defeats, by abominable terrors, by abominable satisfactions. But it was a victory!"
— Heart of Darkness.
Lastly, when Marlow returns to civilisation, everything seems to him so dull compared with the passion, the rage and perhaps the freedom he witnessed in Africa, which helped me understand Conrad's stand towards colonialism, civilisation, and most importantly, humanity."I found myself back in the sepulchral city resenting the sight of people hurrying through the streets to filch a little money from each other, to devour their infamous cookery, to gulp their unwholesome beer, to dream their insignificant and silly dreams. They trespassed upon my thoughts. They were intruders whose knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretence, because I felt so sure they could not possibly know the things I knew."
— Heart of Darkness
The copy I read also includes three more tales: An Outpost of Progress, Karain: A Memory and Youth: A Narrative. They were a superb introduction but I don't think any of them was as magnificent as Heart of Darkness, in spite of their own greatness. They have many points in common, specially Youth, and all of them are written flawlessly and the feeling of uneasiness and horror(!) is well preserved, but Heart of Darkness was certainly the grand finale for this book, and, hands down, one of the best tales I've ever read."A man may destroy everything within himself, love and hate an belief, and even doubt; but as long as he clings to life, he cannot destroy fear: the fear, subtle, indestructible, and terrible, that pervades his being; that tinges his thoughts; that lurks in his heart; that watches on his lips the struggle of his last breath."
— An Outpost of Progress -
Il titolo è ingannevole. Il mare è uno dei.protagonisti indiscussi, ma ancor di più lo sono i personaggi e la maestria che Conrad mostra non solo nell'analizzare le profonde oscurità della loro anima tormentata, ma anche il senso d'esclusione che molti di loro avvertono e che, forse, riflette i sentimenti del Konrad polacco naturalizzato inglese. Una piacevolissima scoperta. Consiglio la lettura. Domani, Il ritorno e Amy Forster sono i racconti che ho amato di più.
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A 3.75 star novella.
I've read this fairly short novel praised on its back cover in the Oxford World's Classics as "The finest of all Conrad's tales," some three or four years ago and found it a bit tough. This novel's not easy to understand since Marlow, the chief character, enmeshed by the mystery and menace along his dangerous journey up the Congo River to relieve the formidable Mr Kurtz finally made his encounter with him. However, I found it enjoyable and kept reading it till the end.
I know he's long been regarded as one of the great English authors but his writing style is still impeccable, unique till, I think, few native speakers can match him. One of the reasons is that he wrote numerous English classics worth reading seriously (provided that, of course, you have time, endurance and admiration) and, famously, he has written his works in English as his third language! -
Esta edición en particular contiene dos relatos adicionales a El corazón de las tinieblas. El primero "Juventud", tiene como protagonista a Christopher Marlowe, el mismo de la novela que da título al libro. El tercero titulado en la presente edición como: "En las últimas", aunque su título también ha sido traducido como "La soga al cuello" o "Cabo de cuerda".
En el prólogo se aclara que se tomó la decisión editorial de publicarlos juntos, pues originalmente así fueron publicados por Conrad. Desde su publicación, varios lectores y críticos literarios se han empeñado en ver estos relatos como una representación de tres de las etapas en la vida de un hombre: juventud, madurez y vejez. Aunque Conrad negaba que compartieran algo más que el haber sido escritos en la misma etapa de su vida.
Los relatos están bien escritos y son interesantes. Aunque quizá sea el estilo del autor de escribir párrafos muy largos, que se me complicó bastante, tanto que por momentos sentía que no lo terminaba. Pero esa no era una opción para mí.
Pues hace un año lo propusieron en un Club de lectura y por estar tomando mi seminario de titulación, tuve que dejarlo inconcluso, pues solo leí "Juventud" y la novela que da título al libro.
Desde entonces ese "pendiente por retomar y concluir" me estuvo "haciendo ruido" y ahora aprovechando el encierro decidí concluirlo, aunque fue...🤦🏻♀️
Ahora me doy cuenta que el Seminario solo fue un pretexto, pues si no lo termine es porque leerlo se me hizo cuesta arriba... aunque valió la pena, ¡otro libro que borró de mi lista de pendientes!
No le doy cuatro estrellas, por lo pesada que me resultó su lectura, aunque quizá las merece. Quisiera darle solo dos estrellas, aunque temo pecar de subjetiva. Así que lo dejo en 3.0 ni una centésima más ni una menos... -
I think this was a little over my head, apparently Conrad spoke like a half-dozen languages so maybe I lost something in the translation because I only speak one and 1/4. I got the main themes of imperialism, racism, the thin line between civilization and barbarism, but as for any specific thing that was happening in the book while I was reading, I'm really at a loss for. I did like "Apocalypse Now" though, for what it's worth.
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While I know and can appreciate that this book is considered a classic by many, it's not my cup of tea. I'm a guy who likes good, solid fiction, based on physical principles. HEART OF DARKNESS is the opposite: metaphysical, spiritual and dwelling on concepts and themes rather than a more reality-based narrative.
At its worst, this is a string of metaphors and imagery, linked by a light plot that doesn't go very far. Conrad visited the locales he writes about, and there is certainly local flavour here. I loved the classic line "The horror, the horror!" and the circumstances surrounding it, and it was a pleasure to find the book was so short.
But this isn't what I like to read, and the book had the effect of making me not want to try any more of Conrad's work. -
I came across this handsome hardcover published by the Folio Society early last month at the DASA BookCafe in Bangkok and got it to read the remaining two stories excluding ‘Heart of Darkness’; the stories being ‘Youth’ and ‘The End of the Tether’ in which the first I browsed a few pages years ago and the latter I recalled its title vaguely. Indeed, this trilogy-like book should have been entitled, ‘Youth and Two Other Stories’ but, understandably, its title has appeared as such due to the second title’s highly-controversial analyses and famously-critical debate among Conrad scholars, professors and critics etc. since its first publication in 1902 by Blackwood under the title ‘Youth: A Narrative and Two Other Stories’.
Moreover, before reading this book there is a point to keep in mind since in his Note Conrad has notified, “The three stories in this volume lay no claim to unity of artistic purpose. The only bond between them is that of the time in which they were written.” (p. 23) As his readers, we can’t help being grateful for his summaries, a letter extract in Jeremy Harding’s superb Introduction that we should primarily read as an essential overview:
One and two are told in the first person by Marlow … One, the story of a ship on fire at sea. Two happens in the Belgian Congo: a wild story of a journalist who becomes manager of a station in the interior and makes himself worshipped by a tribe of savages. Thus described, the subject seems comic, but it isn’t. Three, written in the third person, is rather sentimental. It is about an old captain. (p. 9)
Reading such a 32-page ‘Youth’ is, I think, relatively enjoyable due to his unique narration and more understanding supported by reading its synopsis at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youth_(.... I was especially touched by his mentions of ‘Bangkok’ in various paragraphs/lines, for instance:
‘We left London in ballast – sand ballast – to load a cargo of coal in a northern port for Bangkok. Bangkok! I thrilled. I had been six years at sea, but had only seen Melbourne and Sydney, very good places, charming places in their way – but Bangkok!
… (p. 31)
‘ … This was done, the repairs finished, cargo reshipped; a new crew came on board, and we went out – for Bangkok. At the end of a week we were back again. The crew said they weren’t going to Bangkok – a hundred and fifty days’ passage – in a something hooker that wanted pumping eight hours out of the twenty-four; and the nautical papers inserted again the little paragraph: “Judea. Barque. Tyne to Bangkok; coals; put back to Falmouth leaky and with crew refusing duty.”
‘There were more delays – more tinkering. … I loved the ship more than ever, and wanted awfully to get to Bangkok. To Bangkok! Magic name, blessed name. Mesopotamia wasn’t a patch on it. Remember I was twenty, and it was my first second-mate’s billet, and the East was waiting for me.
… (p. 38)
One of the reasons is that, as far as I’ve known from reading somewhere, Conrad enjoyed visiting Bangkok (How often? I have no information) and usually stayed at the famous , one of the first founded hotels in Siam then, the Oriental Hotel, eventually, its administrative committee have named a Conrad room as a fond memorial honor to his stays there.
I’d like to say something notably interesting on his technique in his ‘Youth’ before ‘The End of the Tether’ that deals with a command mentioned five times uttered once in a while from Marlow’s relatively lengthy narratives, that is, ‘Pass the bottle.’ (pp. 34, 36, 39, 43, 45) which, presumably, suggests apt intermissions and the narrator himself needs something strong to keep him going and staying focused on the story.
As for 'The End of the Tether', it's a bit disappointed because its synopsis isn't available on the above-mentioned Wikipedia web page; indeed, it should be of great help especially to Conrad newcomers to better understand its characters, climax, setting, and so on worth reflecting and discussing for new ideas or inspiration. It's probably formidable at first sight from its length covering 14 chapters, 138+pages so it should be better if its readers are informed for well-prepared reading instead of plunging into the mystery itself and, predictably, don't enjoy reading Conrad.
In sum, reading these three stories would give more light on their purpose of writing from Conrad himself since its first three-in-one publication in 1902, more than a century ago, which is quite a long life-span. Undoubtedly, "Heart of Darkness" has since been more famous than its two counterparts and still read by Conrad admirers.
Endnote: I have just found this article by David Miller inspiringly informative:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/bo... -
What a thick little book. I have to say when I first started reading this book back in my freshman year of high school, I hated this book and was quickly bored with it after ten pages. I put it down and gave up on it. Part of the reasn is because I read the short story in front of it and that WAS indeed mind-numbingly boring so I didn't expect anything different from Heart of Darkness.
Now five years have passed and I really enjoy this book. It's just as dense as I remember it, but I definitely appreciate the book more this time for its atmosphere of boiling insanity. I also have to admit that if it weren't for Apocalypse Now I probably wouldn't have given this book another chance.
This is a very rewarding book and isn't for everyone, but, hell, I loved it. I think it's just an acquired taste.
My only complaint with this book is that I don't think Conrad did too much of a good job of explaining, completely, why Marlow looed up at Kurtz like he did. I understand he was fascinated by his insanity and his eloquence with the English language, but I feel there sould have been more. We should have been fascinated by this enigmatic man as well, but I wasn't.
Oh, well, just one flaw in a very good book. -
I've previously reviewed "Heart of Darkness" and I agree with Chinua Achebe's opinion that "Darkness" is a work of racism even given the time in which it was written.
"Youth" was a much more enjoyable work and I can't improve upon the afterword's description of this work as one of Conrad's "feat of memory", in which youth, fantasies, and dreams disappear in a matter of seconds.
"The End of the Tether" is in a way like the travel of the ship in "Darkness" but here we encounter new civilizations on the banks of the river: tobacco plantations, entertainments, but Masters treating their workers like slaves. Still, it is madness we encounter, again, as the ship is deliberately shipwrecked when the ship owner simply gives up on life.
Neither "Youth" or "Tether" contain the racism of "Darkness", but neither are they strong enough to lift this volume to a three star rating.
About Conrad, I know from the jacket blurb that Conrad attempted suicide then joined the British navy for a few years before retiring to write. Was there a streak of madness within Conrad his entire life? I want to know more about Conrad, and am going to read at least one more book by this author.
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Fever dream...
One night a group of friends are aboard a boat on the Thames waiting for the tide before they can set sail. As darkness grows around them, one of the men, Marlow, tells the story of the time he worked as a pilot on a steamboat on the Congo and of the rogue ivory trader, Kurtz, whom he met there.
I realise I’m white and descended from colonialist stock, so I recognise that my judgement may not be as objective as I would like, but it astonishes me that Conrad has, among some critics, a reputation as a racist. This book is an excoriating study of the horrors of colonialism in Africa – horrors perpetrated in this case by Belgium, but Conrad leaves that deliberately vague so I think we can assume he is speaking generally as well as specifically. Conrad shows the devastating impact the white man had on both the society and the land of Africa, but he also shows that this devastation turns back on the coloniser, corrupting him physically and psychologically, and by extension, corrupting the societies from which he comes.
Millions of words have been written in analysis of the text by people considerably more qualified (and even more opinionated) than I, so rather than try to argue the case for or against the book on a moral level, I’ll stick to how I feel it works as a novella. And on that score, my feelings are somewhat mixed.
Having now read it twice, I have to say I find it quite hard to read, not because of the horrors but because the writing, although superbly descriptive, often darkly lyrical and with some wonderfully disturbing imagery, is sometimes convoluted and rather unclear. The introduction and excellent notes in my Oxford World’s Classics edition suggest that often Conrad was being deliberately vague – as I mentioned earlier about Belgium, for instance – and I’m sure people at the time would have known enough about their world to be able to fill in the blanks. But frankly, I think I’d have struggled without the notes. Marlow also jumps forward from time to time, leaving linking bits of the story unsaid, perhaps realistically in terms of how we think and relate stories verbally, but I found it rather jarring in written form. As a lazy reader, I was irritated that several times I felt I had to go back and read a section again to fully catch the meaning and how we’d got from there to here, so to speak.
However, the book’s strengths far outweigh its weaknesses. The overall effect is of a hallucination or a nightmare, full of imagery about darkness. Marlow tells us that he is feverish for at least part of the journey and on his return to civilisation, and there is a sense of it all being a fever dream. Everything feels exaggerated, from the descriptions of the impenetrable jungle, to the Africans’ worship of Kurtz as a kind of god, to the attitudes of the white men to Kurtz’ apparent power over them. We are told repeatedly of Kurtz’ eloquence, but are never permitted to hear his views in his own voice. On the very rare occasions that he speaks on the page, his words are unexceptional (apart from on one occasion which I won’t go into because it’s a major spoiler, and becomes the climactic point of the book). Did Conrad choose to do that because he felt perhaps that he couldn’t make him eloquent enough to live up to his reputation? I doubt it, since Conrad can write supremely eloquently. So was it perhaps to leave the reader in doubt as to whether Kurtz was truly eloquent, or whether his listeners exaggerated his eloquence to justify their cult-like admiration for him? I don’t know, but I found it intriguing to consider. (We undoubtedly have leaders today that no-one could seriously describe as eloquent, but who inspire crazed uncritical devotion in their followers.)
The one thing that doesn’t have a feeling of unreality is the physical cruelty of the white men’s treatment of the African workers in the stations along the river, and interestingly these are the sections that Conrad writes in the most straightforward manner. The cruelty didn’t surprise me too much (though it horrified me), but what I did find odd was the feeling of almost total incompetence and futility of the white man’s ventures. I don’t know enough about the Belgian attitude to their colonies, but again the introduction tells me that they had a particularly bad reputation at that time even among fellow colonial powers. Unlike in colonial literature by and about the Brits in Africa (and even in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart), there is no suggestion of the white man attempting to bring “civilisation” to the “savages”, or religion. I suspect this is deliberate, since Conrad seems to be comparing the two cultures and suggesting that, while they are different, one is not intrinsically superior to the other – they are simply at different stages of development. One of the most intriguing things he does is frequently to compare the white man in Africa to what it must have been like for a “civilised” Roman sent to pacify and exploit savage Britons back in the days of their Empire. Unspoken, this reminds the reader that all empires fall in time, but also that all empires leave a legacy on those they colonised, for good or ill, or both.
I’m glad to have read it, especially for the wonderful descriptive prose and the feverish imagery, and it certainly deserves its status as a major classic of colonial literature – hence the 5-star rating. However, though still a newcomer to Conrad’s work, I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as some of his other stories – Karain, for example, or Lord Jim, probably because I found them easier to read. I wondered why it’s the one that seems always to be connected to his name, and I can only conclude that it’s the vagueness itself, which allows critics and academics to argue endlessly over meanings and moral values, and leaves space for later writers and film-makers to reinterpret it as they choose. This reader, however, would have preferred just a little more plain speaking and a little less need to rely on the notes...
* * * * *
I thoroughly enjoyed the other three stories in the volume too:
An Outpost of Progress – Two men, Kayerts and Carlier, are dropped off to run a Company trading post in the Belgian Congo. They are basically incompetent, relying on their black agent and workers to do the work of trading for the precious ivory for which they are there. However, events spiral out of their control and they are left running low on resources and increasingly scared of the, to them, incomprehensible and savage people in this wild land. And then the boat that was due to relieve them is delayed…
This starts off with a good deal of humour, full of irony and sarcasm as Conrad turns the prevailing ideas about the superiority of the white man on their head. We see how quickly the veneer of “civilisation” falls away when men are isolated in a vastly different culture they don’t understand. Gradually the story darkens, until it reaches a powerfully dark and dramatic ending of true horror. The writing is wonderful, full of lush descriptions that create an ominously threatening environment, with enough vagueness so that we, like the characters, fear what may be lurking just outside. And his depiction of the downward spiral of his characters into moral weakness and eventual terror is done brilliantly. A great story.
Youth: A Narrative – This tells of Marlow, who will appear again in Heart of Darkness, as a twenty-year-old in his first voyage as second mate on an ill-fated sea trip in the rickety old ship Judea. A series of disasters leads to the ship constantly having to return to port for repairs, and things don’t improve once they finally get off on their journey. It’s quite funny and is apparently a fairly accurate record of Conrad’s own voyage as a young man aboard the equally doomed Palestine. It’s about the vigour and optimism of youth – how even disasters can seem like exciting adventures before age and experience make us jaded and fearful. It’s enjoyable, but a little too long for its content, and with nothing like the depth of the other stories in the collection.
Karain: A Memory – The narrator is one of three adventurers, smuggling arms into the Malay Archipelago. They come to know Karain, the headman of a small land which he and his followers have invaded and occupied. Karain is a haunted man, perhaps literally, perhaps superstitiously. He turns to his white friends for protection…
The story in this one, although good, is somewhat secondary to the wonderfully descriptive and insightful writing. The prose in the first two or three pages is sublime, as Conrad swiftly creates a place, a country, a man and a people, all with a level of lyricism and mysticism that places the reader there, already unsettled before the tale begins. Conrad shows how colonialism disrupts and corrupts long-held traditions and ways of life, but how old beliefs nonetheless endure. And lest the reader should wish to mock the superstitions of the natives, Conrad forestalls this by reminding us with brutal irony that many of our own cherished traditions and beliefs arise out of superstition too. He also shows that, when white and black meet not as master and slave but in a kind of equality, the possibility for friendship exists, even when their cultures are so different. I loved this story.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Oxford World’s Classics.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com -
Nel 1924 Joseph Conrad, autore polacco, si spegneva in Bishopsbourne, un piccolo paese del Kent, in Inghilterra, suo paese d’adozione. Nello stesso anno Edwin Hubble, grazie al telescopio Hooker, riusciva a mettere a punto il sistema degli indicatori di distanza tra galassie. Ciò buttò le basi per teorizzare, grazie all’associazione tra la scala delle distanze cosmiche ed il redshift (il fenomeno di cambio di colore nello spettro della luce), la versione moderna della teoria del Big Bang, uno dei più intriganti misteri dell’Universo (se non il più grande). La teoria del Big Bang si è poi evoluta grazie ai contributi di eminenti scienziati tra cui Einstein, Friedman e Zwicky. E ci si è cominciati a chiedere come fosse l’Universo, quanto grande, che forma avesse e come evolvesse. Un guazzabuglio di materia, tempo ed energia che ha portato negli anni settanta alla teoria delle stringhe, la quale dava adito a pensare che ci potessero essere 10 elevato alla 500 universi possibili. Fino ad una delle più recenti teorie, la M-theory, che spiega che in realtà il nostro Universo è solo uno degli n possibili e che là fuori ne esisterebbero altri con leggi fisiche e dimensioni diverse dalle nostre. Ma tutte queste cose, per quanto incredibilmente affascinanti, sono solo dei modelli matematici, ancora lungi dall’essere dimostrate data la difficoltà dei riscontri.
Io sono nato nel 1979 e nel corrente anno 2012 ho letto le prime pagine di Conrad. Che mi hanno procurato un intenso piacere della lettura, nonché un profondo perturbamento dell’animo. Raramente uno scrittore aveva saputo mettere a nudo l’animo dei suoi personaggi così bene ed aveva funzionato da diapason, facendo vibrare il lettore (cioè il sottoscritto) all’unisono con essi. Raramente avevo trovato uno scrittore che riuscisse ad avere in sé tratti romantici, esistenzialisti, crepuscolari uniti ad una finissima critica della società moderna (ma anche di quella post-moderna). E raramente avevo trovato uno scrittore che per influenza fosse stato così tanto saccheggiato (letteratura, cinema, teatro) negli anni a venire, senza che io me ne rendessi conto.
Ora la domanda da porsi è: dove diavolo sono stato per 33 anni senza accorgermi degli scritti di Conrad e della loro influenza? Ebbene, dopo tanto rimuginare, sono arrivato all’unica spiegazione plausibile. In realtà io ero in un altro universo. Uno di quelli teorizzati, quelli con leggi fisiche e dimensioni differenti. E tra queste differenze sicuramente c’era quella che Conrad non esistesse e quindi io non ne potessi godere. Fino a che non ho compiuto un balzo nell’universo attuale qualche giorno fa (non chiedetemi come, ci sto ancora ragionando). Ecco, io vorrei andare dagli attuali fisici teorici e presentarmi a loro come la prova vivente che si, hanno ragione, esistono n universi, tutti diversi. Sono sicuro che di primo acchito sarebbero felicissimi e mi farebbero un sacco di domande a cui non saprei rispondere, visto che l’unica differenza che ricordo è appunto l’assenza delle opere di Conrad, così deludendoli. Invece a me basta, per esser contento, l'aver cambiato di universo. -
This classic has been lounging around in my TBR pile forever. I picked it up over Christmas break, figuring I'd breeze through it in a day or so.
Nope.
It was like wading through wet cement.
The first story, "Youth", actually wasn't too bad. Story #2, "Heart of Darkness", was painful. The third one, "The End of the Tether" - man, I couldn't even finish. I struggled through over 1/2 and finally called it. Conrad's writing is so suffocating and so overblown it was difficult to get a solid grasp of the characters. While some of the themes (corruption and madness) were very clear, the writing got in the way of the actual storylines, and I probably missed the most important aspects. Yeah, this classic was completely wasted on me. I didn't have the patience or the interest. "The horror! The horror!" Whatever. One star. -
He leído "El corazón de las tinieblas" en cuatro o cinco ocasiones a lo largo de mi vida y en ninguna me ha convencido.
Todo lo que se le atribuye de mérito se encuentra velado, y es consecuencia del tipo de revista de corte colonial en la que salió publicada. Esa "oscuridad" y "densidad" están dictadas por el medio de edición, para que no llamase a escándalo en la Inglaterra de la época.
Los otros dos relatos (o novelas cortas) que acompañan este volumen me gustan mucho más. Sobre todo "En las últimas", que me parece formidable.
Nada que reprochar al bueno de Conrad. -
a literal nightmare... idk why our modernist professor made us read this
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„Żyjemy tak jak śnimy – samotnie”
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{contains some spoilers}
This Wordsworth Classics compilation consists of three nautical themed tales. The first of which is the short story Youth. In Youth the middle-aged narrator, Charles Marlow, recounts his voyage as a young man aboard The Judea, a vessel carrying coal in the Far East. The voyage ends in disaster.
Also narrated by Marlow, Heart of Darkness is a novella about a steamship sailing up a river through the jungles of The Congo, in search of Mr Kurtz, a mysterious ivory trader, who has reportedly turned native. The terrain is unforgiving, the cannibalistic natives unpredictable, and the greed of the ivory-infatuated colonisers unremitting. Marlow, who becomes increasingly obsessed with Mr Kurtz, eventually finds him mortally ill, living in a house, surrounded by heads on pikes. Heart of Darkness is a deeply disturbing, thought-provoking, complex, multi-layered story, about what can occur when man exists outside of civilisation’s constraints.
In The End of the Tether, a maritime story set in South East Asia, the protagonist, Captain Whalley, is a widowed ship owner, who sells his vessel in order to raise money for his daughter. Whalley invests his last remaining money in the Sofala, an old steamer owned by its dishonest chief engineer, Massey. This is a story about deceit and the virtues and vices of man, a recurring theme for Conrad. The End of the Tether is a slow moving, but increasingly engrossing story that culminates in a surprising revelation.
Conrad utilises an ornate prose style to adeptly weave these challenging, atmospheric and insightful stories, which are concise by the standards of the period in which they were written. -
Required reading. Even without this book's relation to the movie Apocalypse Now, the relevance to today and race make this a must for any library. Had a battered paperback copy but ordered a fine hardcover pocket edition that includes a story not in mine--"The End of the Tether." From a craft standpoint, Conrad is just a superb writer. One of the few to rise above the stilted conventions of 19th Century Literature. Being of Polish descent explains a lot, English was his second language. He's a master in the same league as Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Babel.
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Sweaty.
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Heart of Darkness tells the tale of Charlie Marlow’s journey on an ivory transporter down an unknown river in the Congo. What he sees horrifies and perplexes him, calling into question the very basis of civilisation and human nature. The story follows this commercial agent and the object of his obsession, the notorious ivory-procurement agent Mr Kurtz. This novella has become an important piece in the western canon for its range of themes and scholarly values.
I remember reading this book a few years back and while I thought it was an interesting book, I never really grasped it completely (and I’m not sure if I ever will) but for comparison to what I know now and then, check out my review here. To begin with we need to gain an understanding of Joseph Conrad’s life because there are a lot of life experiences in this book. Born Josef Teodor Konrad Walecz Korzeniowski in Russian-ruled Poland in 1857; this part of Poland is now part of Ukraine. Both parents were political activists and as a result of their participation in the Polish independence movement they were exiled to Northern Russia in 1863. At sixteen he dropped out of school to work on a French merchant ship, sailing the West Indies as an apprentice. Later he joined a British ship where he served as a merchant for ten years, during this time he gained the rank of captain and became a naturalized British citizen. During a trip in 1890 sailing through the Belgian Congo and Congo River he got really sick and had to retire from sailing and focused his energy on writing. This means Joseph Conrad must have grown up speaking Polish and Russian, learning French at some point and then English. Although he often struggled to write in his adopted language, he is now considered one of the greatest prose stylists in English literature.
There are many themes explored in this book, so much so that I think I would need to keep reading this book again and again to discover them. Though major themes include slavery (the effect the British had on Africa) as well the author’s problems with Colonialism and Imperialism. There are a few other themes I would much prefer exploring. First of all, the idea of alienation; both Conrad and Marlow are both outsiders. The entire novel questions what alienation and loneliness can do to a person over an extended period of time, especially since they are in hostile environments. Even the doctor warns Marlow prior to his departure of changes to his personality that may be produced by a long stay in another country. Prolonged solitude seems to have damaging effects on the sailors, which leads me into another major theme; insanity. In the case of Kurtz, the loneliness lead to literal madness, while others like Marlow’s predecessor, Captain Fresleven was described as a gentle soul that transformed into a violent one.
There are other themes I really would love to talk about but for the sake of keeping this review a decent length I will just highlight them. Heart of Darkness also looks at the way Belgium is exploiting the Congo, order verse disorder, duty verse responsibility, doubt verse ambiguity, race verse racism and finally violence and cruelty. All these, plus many more, are reasons why this book has been studied. It is a very difficult book to explore, I found myself rereading passages trying to get more out of it. I know at one point near the start of reading this I thought I would never get enough meaning out of this book but eventually it opened up to me.
There are a lot of symbols within the book as well, beginning with the title and the setting; Heart of Darkness deep in the heart of the Congo, the centre of the deep dark Africa. Even the fact that the entire story is told in the late afternoon as the sun sets is a motif of Africa. There are a lot more in this novel but I want to quickly talk about the movie adaptation Apocalypse Now. Sure there are some similarities but not enough to really consider the movie to be based on this novella. There are more similarities with Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in the way the book starts out, also with Bram Stokers’ Dracula with the suspension between life and death. So how are they the similar, since one is set in the Congo and the other during the Vietnam War? The very basic answer would be that both look at the deterioration of humanity as a result of conflict, one via imperialism and one by war.
I would love to talk about the narrative and how there are two narrators, Marlow and someone anonymous. And how all the scenes on the Nellie are obviously an introductory and critique to the story that it doesn’t go away after the intro. Marlow’s narrative is often interrupted by this unnamed narrator as they listen to the story as a way for Conrad to tell the reader to notice different themes. There are also the proses in the book, poetic and while difficult, you can get swept away and not really notice just what Conrad is trying to do. So many things I want to talk about but I have to cut this review short.
Heart of Darkness is a really complex book but if you take the time to break it apart and explore the text critically, you’ll find there is so much to appreciate. It’s like a fine meal, it can be enjoyed without any thought, but if you take the time to see how each element complements each other you end up enjoying the novella a whole lot more. It all comes together with a sense of satisfaction that while you might not know everything Joseph Conrad was trying to say, you know enough for the book to have real value.
This review originally appeared on my blog;
http://www.knowledgelost.org/book-rev... -
Thanks to Conrad now I'm walking towards the heart of darkness with a gloom hovering in my mind...
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This guy really likes boats.
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This book contains three short stories by the hand of Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness, Youth and End of the tether.
What struck me about Heart of Darkness is that Conrad is absolutely brilliant at setting the mood for his story. The atmosphere was what I remember most about this story; it made me feel uneasy, yet at the same time sucked me in deeper into the world of Heart of Darkness.
Conrad is, in writing this story, very much a product of his time. He seems to be very aware of the 'white men's burden', or the need to improve the natives in Africa to become human beings instead of savages. At times he describes the natives in passing, they aren't really the focus of his story. But when he does, he doesn't seem to be judging. He finds them primitive, that's for sure, but he doesn't seem to consider them any less human. In fact, when a black subordinate of the main-character, Marlow, dies whilst they are trying to get to mr. Kurtz's camp, Marlow claims that getting to mr. Kurtz wasn't worth the life of his crew-member. Conrad seems to believe that the Africans must be 'improved', but doesn't seem to think him less than white men. Somewhere in the first pages of the book he describes how the Romans came to Great-Britain and found a primitive people, much like what the imperialists found when they went to Africa. By comparing Africa to Ancient England, it seems like he's saying that neither people are better than the other, a thought I find very interesting, considering the story was written during modern-imperialism's heyday.
I don't remember Youth much, it pales in comparison to End of the Tether, my favourite in this collection. Tether is different from the other two stories in style. Instead of the story being narrated by either the one who tells the story or someone who is listening to someone who tells the story, we get a third person narration. The story revolves around captain Whalley, once a famed man for discovering a shorter sailing route, now old and content to sail his little sailing ship around the eastern seas when the world around him turns on and changes rapidly with the introduction of steamers and such. That is, until his daughter appeals to him to send her money for her start up a boarding house, because her husband has gotten himself paralyzed from the waist down. He decides to sell his ship and supply his daughter with the money. The money he has left he uses to get into a partnership on a small steamer in an attempt to make more money for his daughter.
The great thing about Whalley is that he doesn't get stuck in his old age. He doesn't get bitter but is very positive about the world around him. He's powerful, upright and wise, a father-figure if you'd like. Besides that, I really felt for the man. His motives are honest, his "fall from grace" heartbreaking. The characters around him are despicable, driven by greed, trying to find fault in everybody else, but blind to their own. This makes for a striking contrast between Whalley, who has no worldly needs to speak of, all he does is for love of his daughter. That makes it all the more bitter that Massy and Sterne make it to the end of the story relatively unscathed, one of them even better of, and Whalley is condemned to another fate which I will not mention so as not to spoil anything. -
It's been a long time coming, but I finally found the courage to explore and read the Heart of Darkness. Joseph Conrad's novel has some amazing strengths, and one weakness in my opinion. I will begin by speaking on latter. Although I understand that this book was constructed from combined stories by different individuals who traveled in the Congo, this shouldn't excuse the disjointed and sometimes difficult to follow storytelling. This rigid writing may be a product of translation from the mother language (Dutch?), yet an explanation to this problem doesn't solve it. I digress from the more important subject of this novel, which not only exploits Conrad's talent in writing both metaphor and expressing perfectly the atmosphere of the Congo Sahara. In the first section of the novel, as the narrator is looking at the river as a map, he describes it as a snake, one that "fascinated me as a snake would a bird-a silly little bird." Not only does the author foreshadow the dangers the protagonist will face, but further extends the metaphor by stating that "The snake had charmed me." This was very much appreciated.
As someone who has lived thirty minutes south of the border of the Congo for roughly six years, I found it refreshing to find a book that truly captured existence in Africa exquisitely. As well as expressing the feelings of isolation, frustration, helplessness and confusion which accompanies many who have lived in the area, Conrad shows a unique consciousness of the hyper-realistic awe-aspiring affects of the Land on occupants there. To quote a part in the second section which I myself have experienced; "We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, on a earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet." This among many other other precious snipets from the book brought joy to my soul to be rejoined once more with the world I grew up with. Although I thoroughly enjoyed the literary elements, the over-arching theme of Death, as well as what Conrad captures, I couldn't give the book five stars simply because of the messy narrative. Timothy. -
"La conquista de la tierra, que en general significa quitársela a aquellos que tienen una complexión diferente o narices ligeramente más chatas que nosotros, no es algo bonito cuando se indaga demasiado en ella."
Mientras esperan que la marea les permita zarpar, un grupo de marineros escucha a Marlow, un navegante experimentado con tendencia a contar anécdotas confusas y perturbadoras, relatar su expedición al Congo Belga en busca del extraviado señor Kurtz. El relato de Marlow, que parece adentrar a sus oyentes en el corazón del África profunda, los lleva en verdad a penetrar las tinieblas del alma humana, al exponer las atrocidades que cometen los europeos allí en nombre del progreso y la civilización.
En una obra fundamental de la literatura inglesa, y con una prosa exquisita aunque de a ratos quizás demasiado ornamentada, Conrad presenta su alegato contra la hipocresía que sostiene al imperialismo desde su origen, y que hace de Bruselas un "sepulcro blanqueado": una misión evangelizadora defendida a ultranza por los europeos desde la comodidad de sus hogares burgueses, que esconde el saqueo de recursos llevado a cabo por hombres brutales que dan rienda suelta a su sadismo al saberse a salvo de la mirada de sus compatriotas.
Cada parada que hace Marlow en su viaje parece un paso más que desciende hacia las profundidades del infierno, ya que encuentra hombres cada vez más enajenados e inescrupulosos que dejan a su paso un reguero de destrucción sin sentido. Abundan (y hasta empalagan) las referencias a las luces y las sombras, y ese juego es en verdad simbólico de la lucha que entablan la razón y el impulso en el alma de hombres como Kurtz. No me referiré aquí al final, pero es el broche perfecto en esa tensión que entabla Marlow entre el optimismo idiota del inocente y el cinismo pesimista de quien ha sobrevivido a una catábasis. Es una lectura ineludible para comprender el colonialismo en todas sus aristas. -
It is hard to explain what I thought of this novel. I will do my best to decipher how I feel in a much more concise manner than Conrad himself would have.
This short book, a novella at best, is divided into 3 parts. Part one finds Marlow, our principal narrator, on a boat on the River Thames talking about his experiances in the Congo and how he was previously employed by a trading company to recover some ivory, and more importantly, an exceptional trader by the name of Kurtz. This first part was difficult to follow, to say the least, as Conrad uses a bevy of barely comprehensible words in long drawn-out paragraphs where the subject of what is being said changes as often as who is speaking them. I must admit to barely getting through chapter one at all as I found myself stopping and backtracking at least once per page to figure out what was going on.
Chapter 2 has us following Marlow up the river on his mission, and the writing becomes more purposeful and clear, but as things become "darker" for Marlow and his crew, I found myself indifferent to their plight as I waited for the appearance of the infamous Kurtz who isn't revealed until chapter three.
Ah, chapter three. I don't know of a more thought about and scrutinized character in English literature who appears in a mere 13 pages of text before dying than Mr. Kurtz. And yet, he is fascinating. Described by his followers as a god, Marlow finds him emaciated and near death. He has clearly gone mad with power and regrets what he has done to achieve it. He reveals his savagery best with his final four words: "The horror! The horror!" Kurtz is the only reason I can give this book any stars whatsoever, as I truly struggled through the journey to get to him and his "horror". Great character in an otherwise mediocre book. -
I read HoD in high school, and mainly remembered that my teacher went to great lengths to make us understand the absurdity of all existence etc etc... Then I talked about it in college, and mainly remember Theorists going to great lengths to make me understand the immorality of writing about Africans if you're not and African etc etc... And I just re-read it as a nearly thirty year old and thought: what's all the fuss about? It's straightforwardly an anti-imperialistic squib. Not the greatest shit ever, not even the second best book by Conrad - compare Lord Jim and Nostromo - but pretty good, pretty funny, and absolutely vicious.
I guess if you're really set on believing that this is a literary masterpiece, you have to give it either five stars or one: either to convince yourself it is, or to complain that it isn't. Just read it as a good little novella, and you'll enjoy it a lot more. And if you're really set on reading it as if all of humanity is ultimately completely f'ed, you also have to give it either five stars or one: either to underline, in ominous freshman terms, that it is; or to strenuously screech, in blathering self-help terms, that it isn't. If you suspect that at many times some of us are f'ed... well, I'm with you.
Also, the other stories in this edition are decent, not great. 'An Outpost of Progress' is even more pessimistic and anti-imperialist than HoD, and funnier, especially if you've read Bouvard et Pecuchet. 'Karain' isn't so great. 'Youth,' even more than HoD, highlights Conrad's 'ability' to beat a theme to death. Not his greatest asset, that's for sure. -
Me ha parecido bastante tedioso, aunque rascando un poco podemos encontrar auténticas joyas... Párrafos, líneas y citas que merece la pena rescatar.
Su trasfondo es más complejo de lo que parece, y entre eso y que está bien escrita (sobre todo teniendo en cuenta que el inglés no era la lengua materna del autor), es posible que vuelva a darle una oportunidad en el futuro. -
Just not my thing. Critically, I can see why this book is labeled a classic. There's a lot going on here-- just not my preferred version of a lot.
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"'Kill! kill! kill!'... Have I not killed enough? ..." Conrad writes death very well. There are a number of murders and suicides in these four stories, ranging from the blatantly horrific to the unsettlingly serene. Kurtz's last words "The horror! The horror!" are still ringing in my ears, and I still feel unnerved by the bizarrely peaceful description of decapitated heads on sticks "smiling continuously at some endless and jocose dream of that eternal slumber."
This book contains four stories (An Outpost of Progress, Karain: A Memory, Youth: A Narrative, and Heart of Darkness), all written in the late 1890s when Conrad was in his early forties. They criticise European colonialism and the arbitrary distinction between savagery and civilisation.
Some pearls of wisdom for those interested:
"Few men realise that their life, the very essence of their character, their capabilities and their audacities, are only the expression of their belief in the safety of their surroundings. The courage, the composure, the confidence; the emotions and principles; every great and every insignificant thought belongs not to the individual but to the crowd: to the crowd that believes blindly in the irresistible force of its institutions and of its morals, in the power of its police and its opinion."
"We talk with indignation or enthusiasm; we talk about oppression, cruelty, crime, devotion, self-sacrifice, virtue, and we know nothing real beyond the words."
"The mind of man is capable of anything - because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future."
N.B. Conrad wrote in 1917 that Heart of Darkness "had to be given a sinister resonance, a tonality of its own, a continued vibration that, I hoped, would hang in the air and dwell on the ear after the last note had been struck". I can certainly attest to experiencing this after finishing Heart of Darkness
