"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

"The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it much."

I have always wanted to read Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness since I was in high school, but I chose a different story because every English teacher told me it was too short. I had no idea how short this classic even is! It's not even the longest of the three short stories in this book.

All three stories are related to "boat travel" or some form of journey out at sea that changes the main character internally. All three are incredibly written, but Heart of Darkness is the one I want to talk about because truthfully, I am not sure what to think of it.

On one hand, the story is not on the side of colonialism, and does a decent job in demonstrating the horrors and the pain inflicted on innocent men, women and children. The ending in particular stood out to me, where Marlow struggles to keep his anger in when confronting Kurtz's lover or widower because he is overwhelmed and hyper aware of the devastation and the lies of colonialism he had witnessed at the hands of his coworker. On the other hand, the Africans in this story are still steeped in stereotypes of that time period.

I also question if it were not for Kurtz's downfall, would Marlow have put the pieces together himself even though they were staring at him in the face? Part of me is left wondering if that was the point, since these images are through the mind of an ignorant Englishman. One thing is for certain, the events cause both Marlow and the reader thinking and reflecting on humanity, culture and colonialism.

Вот вроде и классическое произведение, многими любимое и экранизированное, но - не зашло. То ли перевод подкачал, то ли я не настроился, то ли "предтеча модернизма" написал что-то слишком модерновое для меня.
Ну, да, погружение в пучины какого-то иррационального ужаса, когда белый человек вторгается в неизведанные дебри Чёрного континента. Этот ужас пробуждает в человеке всё первобытное, запросто сдирая тонкий налёт цивилизованности.
Но: повествование скомканное, напрямую практически ничего не говорится, всё главное обходится умолчанием (чем же всё-таки так примечателен Куртц? как конкретно он повлиял на "дикарей"?). Язык местами слишком цветистый для такого рассказчика (моряк-космополит, по всей видимости, не слишком образованный), а мысль рассказчика сумбурна, перескакивает с одного на другое.
В общем, вся повесть должна была строиться на атмосфере и неоднозначности трактовок. Атмосферы мне не хватило, а неоднозначности было чересчур.
Хотя, конечно, раз это классика, то проблема, видимо, во мне))

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 "https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...  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.

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.

I liked all the short stories in this. The first one was my least favorite because it was just a narratively sparse semi autobiographical retelling of the authors experiences. The secret sharer was my favorite because it was a doppelgänger story about the unconscious mind. Outpost of progress was super underrated and easier to read than heart of darkness and it communicated all the same themes without narration but it was also arguably too short. I really loved heart of darkness when it got to the ending but I found the opening really hard to get into and Conrad’s writing style became quite repetitive. Unlike the other stories where we learn about the character through just their actions heart of darkness is told through narration making the flow of information is poorly paced and all of the place. However because it’s narrated Conrad is able to do a better job at expressing his themes and ideas which Conrad leans on for emotional impact as opposed to having a more traditionally written story.

(Also I took a long break after I finished outpost of progresss and read other books. Then I took lots of little breaks reading heart of darkness.)

An Outpost Of Progress - pg. 9, line 4.
Why do Kayerts and Carlier “regret” their old lives? Does ‘regret’ carry a different connotation here?

An Outpost Of Progress - Pg. 17, line 13.
Does “regret” when used in this context mean “long for”? I am once again confused by its use.

An Outpost Of Progress - Pg. 34,
Is the point of the story to say that it’s ironic how we saw ourselves as ‘civilized’ and ‘them’ as ‘savages’ as because as soon as civilization and a sense of order is taken away barbarism takes hold? If so, I am surprised as it was written in the 1890s. Or is it simply a portrayal of the brutality of man? Would Conrad have agreed with Hobbes when he said life was nasty Brutish and short? Two men, left to their own devices away from progress and civilization, end up partaking in the slave trade, resorting to violence, and the survivor ends up relying on murder before his demons drive him to suicide? — very quickly looking at the pages after Kayerts murdered his comera-se but before the boat appears (and when the boat calls out) I think it is the latter.

Karain: A Memory - Pg. 37,
The opening is a little confusing with the transition into the memory part of the story.

Karain: A Memory - Pg. 52,
The whole story thus far has had beautiful imagery and paints a vivid picture of the island.

Karain: A Memory - Part III,
This entire part of the story does an amazing job at shifting the tone completely, the atmospheric setting/pathetic fallacy is done to perfection, the wordplay is truly masterful, and the story telling almost reminds me of Edgar Allen Poe’s kind of descriptive horror?

Karain: A Memory - Pg. 80,
At this point in the story I am simply left wondering and awestruck. The amazing tale that was just told was enthralling, but I am yet to understand the point of it… what is the meaning behind the insanity?

Karain: A Memory - Pg. 89,
I don’t get the ending, what is “it” that Jackson sees? The whole story was amazing though, better than An Outpost Of Progress.

Youth - insert page # of start and end
This has probably been the easiest to understand, I think it is quite literally a story -based on the true events of the ship *Palestine*- and that’s it. There’s no deeper philosophical message, this is just a sailor story!

Heart Of Darkness - Pg. 135, lines 24-25.
Is this a reference to Youth?

Heart Of Darkness - Pg. 139-140.
The comparing of Britain to the Congo here is very apt.

Heart Of Darkness - Pg. 147, lines 3-4.
Is the old woman knitting who seemed “uncanny and faithful” a reference to the Greek fates?

Heart Of Darkness - Pg. 147, lines 27-28.
What is meant by this?

Heart Of Darkness - Pg. 179, Part II.
So far I am liking Heart Of Darkness the least. I don’t know why but I find the descriptions the hardest to understand until explained to me, at which time it becomes very vivid.

Heart Of Darkness - Pg. 204,
Since my last note I have changed my tune, I still like it the least, but it’s still very very good, whereas before I didn’t really like it on the whole. It’s still the hardest to understand and could do with a reread, perhaps multiple.

Heart Of Darkness - Pg. 205, lines 9-21.
What girl? This passage confuses me.

Heart Of Darkness - Pg. 228, lines 1-16.
I don’t get it, why has he fallen from favour?

Heart Of Darkness - Pg. 248
Why does the text change to a more modern format here?

My favourite was Karain: A Memory. I loved the vividness and energy of the story, it is matched only by Youth which is my second favourite, followed closely by A Heart Of Darkness, which places An Outpost Of Progress last, though it was by no means bad.

A day after finishing A Heart Of Darkness I am still thinking about it, so despite not enjoying it as much as the others while I was reading it I think of the four it is the most worthy of being called a masterpiece

Da persona che non aveva mai letto Conrad e che lo conosceva indirettamente solo per il film Apocalypse Now ho trovato questa piccola antologia molto interessante (tranne che per la solita introduzione logorroica e confusa, almeno per chi è alla prima esperienza con l'autore).

Nella mia ignoranza mi aspettavo racconti simili a quelli di Emilio Salgari invece Conrad si è dimostrato un autore attentissimo all'aspetto psicologico delle sue storie, uno che usa l'avventura in terre non civilizzate (che comunque resta solo una piccola parte dei racconti) solo come pretesto per parlare di altro, ovvero le ipocrisie e le debolezze della cultura occidentale.
I racconti che ho preferito sono stati proprio Il Ritorno e Domani, ambientati in occidente e focalizzati su comportamenti tanto comuni quanto interessanti, almeno nel modo in cui li sviscera Conrad. Il Ritorno, soprattutto nella prima metà, è riuscito a catturarmi pur essendo solo una sequenza di ragionamenti di un uomo dell'alta società per la prima volta messo di fronte alla follia delle rigide consuetudini sociali legate al matrimonio e all'onore. Una storia allo stesso tempo divertente per i grotteschi auto-inganni del protagonista e spaventosa per la capacità dello scrittore di illustrare lo stato d'animo di un uomo sull'orlo della follia.

Purtroppo non ho trovato lo stile tanto bello quanto l'analisi psicologica. Spesso i racconti iniziano con delle cornici inutili che pur durando solo due o tre pagine non aggiungono nulla e appesantiscono la narrazione con dettagli e fatti facilmente evitabili limitandosi al racconto verso e proprio. Il problema è aggravato dal fatto che nonostante la cornice narrativa (le storie sono quasi sempre raccontate da chi le ha vissute o le ha sentite a sua volta) spesso ci siano dettagli che il narratore non dovrebbe conoscere facendo fallire quindi anche la verosimiglianza del tutto.
Ulteriore motivo di pesantezza anche alcune descrizioni naturali ridondanti. Capisco che Conrad cerca di mostrare lo stato d'animo dei personaggi anche descrivendo minuziosamente l'ambiente dove si trovano (e in alcuni casi la scelta ha pienamente senso, visto che spesso è proprio l'isolamento dalla civiltà che turba la psiche dei protagonisti) però in alcuni casi diventa ripetitivo e logorroico.
Questo problema l'ho riscontrato soprattutto in Karain: un ricordo e La laguna.

Come nota personale aggiungo di non aver apprezzato molto quello che dovrebbe essere il racconto più famoso dell'autore: Cuore di Tenebra.
Stranamente l'ho trovato lento e confuso, soprattutto all'inizio. Non brutto, no, però meno fresco e intrigante di altri presenti nell'antologia.

The other stories are The Secret Sharer, Amy Foster, The Informer, The Brute, and An Anarchist.

I read this book in part because I recall not having understood the excerpt of Heart of Darkness I read in HS or junior HS, because I've long been a fan of Apocalypse Now, which adapts the story to the Vietnam setting, and simply from a desire to read quality literature.

Things I've noted in reading these stories:

I am not terribly impressed with Conrad as a writer. There were stretches of these stories, especially H.o.D. where I had a lot of trouble following the dialogue and narrative. That may in part result from the difference in time - these stories are over a century old - or from the difference in culture between myself as an American reader and he as a Russo-British writer, but I think a fair part of it is flawed technique in his writing.

With the partial exception of The Secret Sharer, which is told mainly in the first person, each of these stories has a story-within-a-story format, where the narrator provides a setting, characters, and narrative of a present story telling, and then has one of those characters be the narrator for the main story, presented within that larger frame. Even in The Secret Sharer, significant portions of narrative are told by a character within the larger story, but at least their it is the larger story that is the main story. Why Conrad uses this device is unclear to me, other than that it offers the opportunity for the larger story characters to provide additional information or editorial content on the inner story.

I feel Conrad's own biography behind the stories. Ships and sailors feature in several of the stories, most notably Secret Sharer and The Brute. Steamers are used as settings in H.o.D. and An Anarchist. Experience of immersion in a different culture, even culture shock, is a significant part of at least three of the stories. I think he probably had personal experience with much of the geography he writes about.

In all the stories there seems to be a rather pessimistic view of mankind. People's limitations and failings stand out in these stories. Conrad comes off as being a critic of man.

I can't help but notice issues of social class that filter through these stories. Conrad's sympathies seem to lie with naval officers over simple sailors, skilled mechanics against greedy businessmen and corporate bureaucrats, middle classes over rural folk, individuals against both higher authority and anarchy/socialism.

What is the essence of these stories? These are not heavily dramatic stories. There is enough drama to make them stories, but that is about it. There is some suspense, the reader is kept curious wondering where the story will go, but these are not fundamentally stories of suspense. Nor, as far as I can tell, do they seem to be stories of great craft designed to provoke a particular sentiment or understanding. They come across in a style of everyday stories, of the kind you might hear one person relating to another at leisure. Three themes suggest themselves: (1) each of these stories has something to say about the vagaries of fate, how people happen to find themselves in this or that particular situation, and how such situations can turn like a tide or a change in the wind, or how life is a result of accidents that befall (or not) each of us; (2) these are at essence stories about human psychology, especially the peculiarities of human psychology, in reaction to those turns of fate, and about the psychology of addressing deaths and/or murders, how those who remain alive go on living.

All in all these are interesting reads but they don't strike me as great literature, and I wonder how it is that Conrad became part of the canon of English-language literature? With regard to Heart of Darkness in particular, I think the attraction that has led some to consider it great literature is in its subject matter, in a way that reminds me of certain other books, including A Clockwork Orange and especially Lord of the Flies. I think the psychological investigation of what civilization means and how thin the assumptions are on which it rests, with primitive man always just under the surface, is pretty much the sum total of why Heart of Darkness has the reputation it has.

“The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.”

“We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness. At night sometimes the roll of drums behind the curtain of trees would run up the river and remain sustained faintly, as if hovering in the air high over our heads, till the first break of day. Whether it meant war, peace, or prayer we could not tell.”

“We were wanderers on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet. But suddenly, as we struggled round a bend, there would be a glimpse of rush walls, of peaked grass roofs, a burst of yells, a whirl of black limbs, a mass of hands clapping, of feet stamping, of bodies swaying, of eyes rolling under the droop of heavy foliage. The steamer toiled on the edge of an incomprehensible frenzy. Were the prehistoric men cursing us, praying to us or welcoming us - who could tell?”

“It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that ivory face the expression of sombre pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror, of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision, a cry that was no more than a breath - The horror! The horror!”

“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. Their bearing was offensive to me like outrageous flauntings of folly in the face of a danger it is unable to comprehend.”

“The tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombrely under an overcast sky and seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.”

*************

Imagine this: you are a native Polish speaker and write one of the most influential novels in the English language, replete with references to ancient and modern history while being a sea captain to far flung parts of the globe. Well, that is what Joseph Conrad did in this 1899 novella. ‘Heart of Darkness’ was adapted into the Francis Ford Coppola film ‘Apocalypse Now’ in 1979. I rarely do this but I recommend getting the Oxford World Classics edition of the book for its frequent and in depth footnotes. Without these it is likely that many of the allusions would have flown over my head. Being of such an age the text is in the public domain and would also surely suffice. There is something in this tale that exudes a legend.

The story starts out with the captain Marlow expounding on his previous voyages in the far east and his desire to steam up the Congo, while he sits on the River Thames awaiting the tide to go out. Very quickly it is understood that Marlow is in fact Conrad by clues he left in the text, while plying a steamboat up the river. A prior captain had been murdered by locals over a simple barter deal that had went wrong. Marlow arrives in Brussels to sign up for his captaincy with King Leopold II as Conrad had done in 1890. He leaves onboard a passenger steamer to the West African coast noting the folly of men-of-war along the way shooting at the shore. If one wishes to hear a story of human bondage one need look no further than this.

Marlow’s first encounter with the Congo Free State reveals an indentured servitude system with native people in a state of moral and physical collapse. Kurtz is described as the overseer of an upcountry ivory trading station. When Marlow arrives at the central station his steamer has been sunk, probably due to some sort of local sabotage. The station manager inspires neither fear nor respect. Marlow speaks of their papier mache Mephistopheles as a false devil. The steamboat is wrecked and unreparable while he waits for weeks due to a lack of rivets. Europeans trod the land on the backs of African donkeys. Aside from their rapacious trading endeavors they see themselves on a mission to enlighten benighted denizens of the forest.

Steaming upriver while watching for stone beds and tree trunks Marlow keeps an eye out for deadwood to feed the boat’s furnace. Time to collect some ivory and rubber for the King of Belgium. On board were a crew of cannibals: “fine fellows in their place, and after all they didn’t eat each other before my face”. When Marlow’s African ship steerman is murdered by a tribe of onshore archers the passengers and crew members are offended by the unceremonial disposal of his remains. Kurtz appears prematurely as a phantom inside of Marlow’s mind. He is about to be met and has evolved into an indigenous king, gathering a clan of African and European fealties. His station has been decorated by human heads upon poles.

Marlow encounters a ragged young captain on the edge of the Kurtz compound who is entranced by the enigmatic man. Kurtz is compared to an idol whose ravenous appetites are irresistible and charismatic to those he’s assembled around him, but is ill and needs to be carried on a litter. Although prolific in his harvesting of ivory he has stirred up troubles in the region and had ordered the attack on Marlow’s ship. From the forest comes an ominous beating of drums and bonfires blazing in the darkness. He pursues Kurtz onshore through the grass and bush while encountering an antelope horned witch doctor along the way. It is a terrifying vision of a late Victorian African colony written in a powerful prose with a shocking ending.

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.

{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.