Heart of darkness

and The secret sharer

160 pages

English language

Published Jan. 13, 1950 by New American Library.

View on OpenLibrary

4 stars (38 reviews)

Heart of Darkness (1899) is a novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad, about a voyage up the Congo River into the Congo Free State, in the heart of Africa, by the story's narrator Charles Marlow. Marlow tells his story to friends aboard a boat anchored on the River Thames. Joseph Conrad is one of the greatest English writers, and Heart of Darkness is considered his best. His readers are brought to face our psychological selves to answer, ‘Who is the true savage?’. Originally published in 1902, Heart of Darkness remains one of this century’s most enduring works of fiction. Written several years after Joseph Conrad’s grueling sojourn in the Belgian Congo, the novel is a complex meditation on colonialism, evil, and the thin line between civilization and barbarity.

115 editions

Review of 'Heart of Darkness' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Quick impressions: It has been a while since I read this back in college, and back then I did not fully get it. This graphic novel adaptation helped me understand the work a bit better. Overall, it is a good rendition of the story, captures its essence, and the visuals are very good.

(Full review in my blog later)

Review of 'Heart of Darkness' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

A great travelogue recounting a sea voyage from Britain to Porto Velho on the Amazon river system in 1909 - 1910. I found it through James Mustich’s 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die. It was published in 1912 and is free as an e-book. As much as I liked it, be warned that I sometimes struggled with the author’s florid Edwardian prose. He can wax poetical when describing the Amazon, but also when discussing not much at all. His sentences may run on and sometimes run backward. There are scattered words that are no longer used much, if they were then, and a few are not in the dictionaries I have access to. You may need to bear with him until he is well at sea. Here is a suggestive example:
From our narrow and weltering security, where the wind searched through us like the judgment eye, I …

Review of 'The Heart of Darkness' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Carolyn started out by saying how much she appreciated that Conrad wrote a book decrying colonialism while colonialism was a current matter, and not from the safe distance of a generation or two after it was gone. I firmly believe that his sympathies were with the Africans rather than the European exploiters (after all, he'd spent his youth in a Poland occupied by Russian overlords). But would an English reader in 1900 have seen this? Or would he have seen slavery and robbery as a civilizing influence? In other words, was the true heart of darkness the interior of deepest, darkest Africa, or was it the blackness of Kurtz' heart as he was utterly corrupted by the power that he held?

Bruce had read it in high school, when it felt like butting his head against a wall.  This time through he found that he understood it.  And really enjoyed …

Review of 'The Heart of Darkness' on Goodreads

4 stars

1) '''And this also,' said Marlow suddenly, 'has been one of the dark places of the earth.'''

2) [On the civilised conquerors of barbaric early London] ''What saves us is efficiency---the devotion to efficiency. But these chaps were not much account, really. They were no colonists; their administration was merely a squeeze, and nothing more, I suspect. They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force---nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others. They grabbed what they could get and for the sake of what was to be got. It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind---as is very proper for those who tackle a darkness.''

3) [On Kurtz's displaying shrunken heads on posts] ''They only showed that Mr Kurtz lacked restraint in the gratification …

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