Heart of Darkness

by Joseph Conrad

English language

Published July 30, 2003

ISBN:: 978-1-892295-49-1

(178 reviews)

Heart of Darkness (1899) is a novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad about a narrated voyage up the Congo River into the Congo Free State in the Heart of Africa. Charles Marlow, the narrator, tells his story to friends aboard a boat anchored on the River Thames. This setting provides the frame for Marlow's story of his obsession with the successful ivory trader Kurtz. Conrad offers parallels between London ("the greatest town on earth") and Africa as places of darkness.Central to Conrad's work is the idea that there is little difference between "civilised people" and "savages." Heart of Darkness implicitly comments on imperialism and racism.Originally issued as a three-part serial story in Blackwood's Magazine to celebrate the thousandth edition of the magazine, Heart of Darkness has been widely re-published and translated into many languages. It provided the inspiration for Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 film Apocalypse Now. In 1998, the Modern …

12 editions

David Swinstead reviewed Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Review of 'Heart of Darkness' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

Conflicting feelings about this book.

There's a lot that I did like about it. I liked the story and the meandering structure of it.

I liked the darkness of it.

I liked how dammit it was of colonialism.

But I did not enjoy the writing style very much. I felt overwhelmingly like I didn't know who was saying what, who they were saying it to, what they were referring to.

This feeling grew more and more as the book went on and I suppose that's more or less the point isn't it - that we're feeling the descent into the madness of the narrator. But it was just a challenging read for me, and without enough reward to pay off the effort.

I really wanted to like this book. It's a classic isn't it? You're supposed to like it. Everyone talks about how great it is. But I just couldn't …

Jonathan Chue reviewed Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Review of 'Heart of Darkness' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, I found Conrad’s prose poetry writing style difficult to adapt to. The paragraphs are incredibly long, and the narration is interjected by tangential thoughts. Moreover, it jumps from event to event and location to location, days or even months apart, abruptly and often mid-paragraph, and many times I would not realize it until a page later. Once I got past that, however, I did enjoy the story and the fascinating world Conrad paints. Although I recognized some, I didn’t pick up on as much social commentary for which the novella is known; but perhaps it was because I was struggling so much navigating through the book itself.

Zelanator reviewed Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Review of 'Heart of Darkness' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Unsettling yet profound.

rufzerg666 reviewed Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Review of 'Heart of Darkness' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I feel that the quotes I encountered from the book beforehand were from a story that was more compelling than the one I actually read.

The prose at its best is incredible, at its worst wordy. It does verge I think towards the purple, but when it hits, it hits hard. "It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core." The sheer imagery in that, the whole psychology and emotions expressed. Conrad has a gift for crafting psychological images.

Marlow carries the story on his back. Kurtz could have been more interesting, but I don't know, I like Marlow better.

I think I would have liked a series of stories where it's just Marlow telling all his experiences as a sailor. Like Moby Dick, but only focused on the sailor as the world transitioned from the age of sails to that of steam. Descriptions of the hierarchy …

ManyRoads reviewed Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Review of 'Heart of Darkness' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

If you are looking for a literary piece to augment your depression, this is an excellent candidate. Although well written, it is hardly an enjoyable read.

state_electrician reviewed Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Review of 'Heart of Darkness' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

Very powerful language, but it just keeps going on and on and on. The language becomes a gimmick at some point and reading on becomes a chore. Also, I just didn't care anymore about what was happening. The book is already short, but it's still too long.

The Gnome King reviewed Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Review of 'Heart of Darkness' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

This is one of those books of two halves. First half was very dull, very little happens and you really have to keep battling to get past it. The second half turns into a real dark adventure as we hear more about and get closer to the elusive Mr Kurtz.

Whilst reading it I had this nagging feeling that things felt a bit familiar....as soon as Mr Kurtz's house is found it hit me, very similar to the movie "Apocalypse Now" turns out the movie was based on the book, I never knew that.

I suspect that the slow moving dull first half was supposed to be like that to build up the tension or something, it may have worked better for me if it wasn't so long.

Still it was an interesting read and it's another one of the supposed "classics" crossed off my reading list. :-)

gimley reviewed Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Review of 'Heart of Darkness' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

This guy learned English as an adult and writes so well, I don't feel worthy to review him. I was assigned this book in Freshman English and I couldn't read it then. I couldn't read all that much back then, but finally I'm up to the level of a college freshman.

So here's the idea. Civilization, and sanity is all a lie, as are books and book reviews. Behind it all is an unspeakable reality--an unspeakable horror, and of that which one cannot speak, one must remain silent. Freud's version of this was the ego and the id, or, to translate his German differently, the I and the It. The I suppresses the It. It does this in the name of civilization, but the I is not really in charge. The It drives it from below to force it to carry out it's secret lusts but they are disguised.

The disguise is efficiency and morality and progress and commerce and business and law. The Company employed Marlowe as an agent of civilization and sent him into the African Id with it's alien savagery, which makes no sense to a Westerner. It's animal and insane and must be held in check by brutality that only makes sense if you realize it's frightening alterity. It is so "other" that it could never be understood and even to try is dangerous because that way lies madness.

But, as Marlowe sees as he descends deeper and deeper into the Congo, the sanity being imposed on Africa is a sham. It's no more sane than that which it opposes. What it is, is ordered and familiar, and seems to be almost working if you ignore the parts that ought to be ignored, such as the mindless inhuman suffering imposed on the natives in the process of satisfying the White man's greed.

But ahead of Marlowe on his journey is Kurtz who has, it is reported, freed himself of all restraint. Kurtz answers to nothing and nobody and is worshiped by the natives. He satisfies all his lusts and greeds and would kill anyone who got in his was, or was perceived as getting in his way or just needed to be killed on his whim.

The story is framed as Marlowe telling the story of his descent into the heart of this darkness and his return to the ordinary world, having barely glimpsed what must be fled in terror and bearing witness to the man who didn't flinch from any of it. It's set up like so many horror stories with the naive protagonist seeing the signs of warning which are obvious to us, the readers of the book, but foolishly ignored by him as he proceeds into the Heart of Darkness.

How can a sheltered undergraduate at a fancy university understand such a thing except as an abstract trope? How can a review express it as other than an abstract trope? Well, there, I've done it and we can all go home now.

Sharyl reviewed Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Review of 'Heart of Darkness' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

It's a precious thing to be able to read a 115-year-old story, and one which is based on personal experience, at that. This novella sheds an unflattering light on imperialism, a culture of greed that led some men to travel to foreign places to mistreat, torture, and murder the natives and sometimes each other. Specifically, it recounts the tale of Charles Marlowe, who had had the experience of sailing down the Congo River, in the employ of an ivory trading company, in search of an agent named Mr. Kurtz, who is known to be very ill. Marlowe hears much about this man, but when he actually meets Kurtz, it is obvious that all he has left is his voice; Kurtz has become devoid of any qualities he might have had in his life. He is already dead. Marlowe returns to England a very disillusioned young man, having witnessed the full …

cessie reviewed Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Review of 'Heart of Darkness' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I had a hard time getting through this novella at first and if it wouldn't have been an obligatory read for my English studies for sure I would have stopped reading after a while. It just felt like a long boring story to me... and although it was only 60 pages in total I thought I would never get to the finish line of it. It got better though! more

Robin Marx reviewed Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Review of 'Heart of Darkness' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

While Apocalypse Now gave me a vague idea of what to expect in the original novella, Heart of Darkness still ended up pleasantly surprising me.

This book can be best summed up with two key words: tension and intensity. Heart of Darkness reads almost like a Gothic horror novel, with a creepy sense of uneasiness and isolation that grows over time.

After narrator Marlowe arrives in Africa, the reader is treated to a continuous series of vignettes showing the brutal reality of slavery and the methods used to keep the ivory trade going. African characters are presented as bestial savages, but the white characters Marlowe encounters are also contemptible without exception. They're brutal thugs, incompetent stuffed shirts, or conniving cheats. They stand in stark contrast to Kurtz, an almost mythical figure spoken of with awe, fear, and jealousy. With mechanical failures and hostile natives, Marlowe's steamboat trip grows more and more hellish and desperate over time, while Kurtz himself becomes even more mysterious and sinister.

Just as this narrative tension reaches its height, we finally come face to face with Kurtz himself. Despite being weakened by illness and insanity, Kurtz is nothing if not intense. Marlowe finds himself horrified by the jungle theocracy Kurtz has set up for himself, but even he can't help being cowed by his charisma and force of will. Marlowe finds himself marked by his brief contact with the man, and left with a decidedly grim view of humanity as a whole.

Literary ClassicsTM are frequently imposing, monumental works, but Heart of Darkness turned out to be an unexpectedly swift read. So much has been made of the book's exploration of the "duality of mankind" that I'd expected a dry, verbose story, but this wasn't the case at all. Instead, the book was engaging throughout, and its exploration of man's inhumanity to man avoided becoming didactic and impenetrable. I found the book to be much more vibrant than the dense, fossilized analysis and criticism that has accreted around it.

This public domain book is available as a free ebook from the Project Gutenberg web site.

Daniel Norton reviewed Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Review of 'Heart of Darkness' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

I just can't stomach the not so subtle racism of the author. It spoils my enjoyment of the book, and I can't delve into the subtle psychological battle that is developing in the main character.