Heart of Darkness (Dover Thrift Editions) by Joseph Conrad Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Heart of Darkness (Dover Thrift Editions)
Book Review: Chilling tales that are open for many interpretations
Summary: 5 Stars
This collection brings together three remarkable novellas by Joseph Conrad: Youth, Heart of Darkness and The End of the Tether. In Youth Charlie Marlow recounts the troublesome voyage of the old ship Judea and its wretched 600-ton cargo of coal. The same Marlow also serves as the narrator in Heart of Darkness, undoubtedly the most famous of the three stories. It details how Marlow takes on a foreign assignment as a ferry boat captain on the Congo River in order to restore communications with Kurtz, an eccentric ivory procurement agent isolated in the secluded midlands. Finally in The End of the Tether Captain Whalley, a former dare-devil skipper, sacrifices his retirement and embarks on a precarious voyage on the steamer Sofala in order to support his distant, beloved daughter.
Like many of Conrad's early novels these three stories are set aboard ships. These stories tell of men who go beyond the normal routine of life to challenge themselves, whether from curiosity or necessity, in order to obtain what they seemingly cannot reach. Conrad depicts these desperate men with a vigor that on its own is already enough reason to dive in these stories. But there is much more. The real power of these masterpieces will only surface after a second read. The first reading is like a voyage into the unknown, not unlike the main characters would have experienced it. Only on a second or third reading do you become more aware of the subliminal power of the words and can you appreciate the full power of the colorful narrative. This way the at first read overly long descriptive passages get more and more significance and surely reveal their significance to the story.
One of the many layers to the stories is the drive to react against the self-proclaimed dominance of the human race: both against his environment as against his fellow man. In Heart of Darkness Marlow even literally proclaims that the unbounded exploitation of the natural resources is a disfigurement to the human conscience. Therefore it is not surprising that theme of alienation was craftily interwoven in John Milius' script for Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now loosely based upon Conrad's novella.
Not everyone will be charmed by the dense narrative and slow pace of these stories. But if you manage to see beyond this dated style, what is left is simply a masterpiece.
Book Review: A Journey We All Must Take
Summary: 5 Stars
When Marlow begins his journey to find the mythical Kurtz in HEART OF DARKNESS, Joseph Conrad dares the reader to accompany Marlow on a voyage less into the physical jungles of darkest Africa and more into the mental labyrinth that human beings erect to protect themselves from the horrors that they themselves build. In this justly famous novella, Conrad depicts a pre-politically correct age when white men thought it only fair and inevitable that they plunder the riches of Africa all the while comforting themselves that they were uplifting the fallen state of a lowly people.
Conrad uses a twin layer of narratives in order to achieve the needed objectivity that he felt required to place the reader at varying distances from the horror that Kurtz cried out at the end. The opening narrator is unnamed, possibly Conrad himself, who sets the stage by placing the reader at a safe distance from the evils which lay squarely ahead. Through this narrator we get a bird'e eyes view of the true narrator Marlow, who is depicted as somehow different from the four other men on the deck of the Nellie. This difference in physical attributes slowly increases to concomitant differences in perspective, attitude, and general authorial reliability. Marlow is a deeply flawed man who has the disadvantage of viewing the unfolding events from the prejudiced eyes of a white colonial civil servant who is sure that the blacks in Africa are little different from his preconceived notion of uncivilized cannibals. Further, Marlow makes numerous errors of judgment along the way, many of them seemingly insignificant, yet the totality of the reader's perspective is twisted through the equally twisted lens of an unreliable narrator. Conrad's purpose in melding the reader to a flawed narrator was to insure that the reader could never trust what he reads, thereby increasing his sense of unease in that the sense of safety that Marlow feels, first on the deck of the Nellie, and later in the jungle itself, is as flimsy as the signposts that guide Marlow toward his goal.
The goal is Kurtz, a trader who set out to civilize the blacks into accepting a white version of civilization, but Marlow finds out that the reverse happened. The true horror that Kurtz sees is the horror that all would be conquerors find when they discover that the philosophy of racial supremacy which led them into conflict with a people whom they deemed unworthy is shown to be built on straw. Kurtz knows that the only difference between his brutal acts toward the natives and their own similar atrocities toward themselves is no difference at all. As corrupt as Kurtz must have been, in his closing cry of horror, he finds a small measure of redemption and closure. Marlow sees what Kurtz saw, knew what Kurtz did, and heard up close and personal Kurtz's swan song of pain, but Marlow learned nothing of lasting value. All he could think of was to maintain the image of the Kurtz that was: "I remained to dream the nightmare out to the end, and to show my loyalty to Kurtz once more." The journey that Kurtz took was a horror only because he became what he sought. The journey that Marlow took became a horror only because he learned nothing from what he sought. As you and I read HEART OF DARKNESS, we must decide which journey has the more meaningful signposts.
Book Review: Exactly what I needed
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased this book for my 17 year old daughter. She needed it for an assignment at school. The book was exactly what she needed. It shipped fast and is in great condition!Book Review: Like Many Classics in these days.
Summary: 3 Stars
In his day, Joseph Conrad had a remarkable way of discribing a scene, very pognant. But as I finished reading Heart of Darkness, it reminded me of the original King Kong movie with Fay Wray. It was scary...in its day.Book Review: Great concept, uneven execution
Summary: 4 Stars
Conrad's besetting literary sin was always prolixity. Despite his occasionally brilliant descriptive passages and his ability to pick just the right uncommon word when he needed it, he rarely bothered to compress his writing. So it oftentimes sprawls.
This shapelessness is the most serious problem with Heart of Darkness. The paragraphs go on forever. The man who tells the story of his journey - Marlow - is criticized by the primary narrator for his many "inconclusive" tales, so Conrad may well have cultivated his seemingly rambling style just to emphasize how difficult it is for Marlow's listeners to understand the point. If so, I believe that choice was a mistake.
Much in the story is excessively subtle and allusive. Yet Conrad's deep pessimism about human progress and the human "spirit" is unmistakable. The story's secondary theme, that most people "just can't handle the truth" (to quote a Jack Nicholson movie), comes through loud and clear.
Heart of Darkness is a classic more for what it says than how it says it. What's more, we're far more receptive to Conrad's message today than was the reading public in 1899. The tale's current fame owes a great deal to Apocalypse Now, but readers looking for an adventure novel will be disappointed.