This is one of those books that doesn't really subscribe to the 5 star rating system. Conrad was obviously a great writer, his descriptive language in particular is pure art and some of the prose of his narrator within, Marlow, is sublime. But I don't think I enjoyed reading these stories.

The first two novels, 'Youth' and 'Heart of Darkness' are told from the perspective of an unknown man, listening to Marlow wax on about his first voyage to the East, and his journey to the Congo respectively. It's an effective motif but by design it means the story does tend to ramble on, and can be quite slow at points.

Furthermore having praised the descriptive language, sometimes there is too much of a good thing. On more than one occasion I found my eyes glazing over another description of the forests slowly passing by the steamer.

This being said, the novels do make you come back to consider what it is you're reading. Heart of Darkness in particular, with it's reflections on the nature of man, civilisation and colonialism, is impossible to read without wanting to further delve into online discussion about it's key themes and meaning. I completely understand why you might study it in an English academic course.

So overall, did I particularly enjoy these compared to other novels I've read recently? No. But I certainly don't regret reading them and weirdly, I feel I'm more likely to pick these back up again sooner than others I enjoyed more.

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.

This review is part of a re-reads series; My friends and I are reading classics we had read in our youth and reviewing them. Readers should also be aware that this review makes important plot points explicit.

“The only real feeling was a desire to get appointed to a trading-post where ivory was to be had, so that they could earn percentages. They intrigued and slandered and hated each other only on that account,—but as to effectually lifting a little finger—oh, no. By heavens! there is something after all in the world allowing one man to steal a horse while another must not look at a halter.15 Steal a horse straight out. Very well. He has done it. Perhaps he can ride. But there is a way of looking at a halter that would provoke the most charitable of saints into a kick.”

Beneath the sledge of the imperialist control of Africa, beneath the beatings and the slavery and the blood and sweat and pandered religion for the sake of profit, there is still the very real pursuit of profit. A profit demarcated in the late capitalistic fuel that drives our societies deeper and deeper into the river of despair. While Conrad is purely criticizing the vicious cycle of imperialist enslavement, the themes of Heart of Darkness in fact remain untouched by the historical and social vacuum that he was writing therein. Companies will still sell out your soul for a larger profit margin; we need only point to Facebook’s handling of data, of Google’s illegal data tracking… on goes the list. Furthermore, it is worthwhile to keep track of the “ranks” in the work. The Manager is in fact inept at his job, not knowing much about anything and not being able to foresee potential problems. That is, rather than solve the problems plaguing his “company,” he simply blames those under him. Down the ladder we go, where the labourer is beaten for merely doing his job. In capitalism you are “let-go” for making mistakes by lifelong upper and middle managers who are just as inefficient and inept as their bosses who fumbled into their positions because they married the right person or shook the right person’s hand. This is the reality of our world, and mirrored almost to a perfection in the immortal and eerie atmosphere of HOD. Yet the true horror remains the treatment of those not in the elite cabal of these so-called companies. And while the class-warfare is very real (I refer again to the importance of ranks), it is Conrad’s most effective tool in demarcating for his real the personal and real pain of oppression.

“We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness. It was very quiet there. 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. The dawns were heralded by the descent of a chill stillness; the wood-cutter slept, their fires burned low; the snapping of a twig would make you start. We were wan on prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet.”

Now while the mysticism of man versus nature is impeccable; what still gives this novel its force is the seamless blending of man versus man. This duality, though manifested throughout, is most prevalent in the descent. As the crew penetrates deeper and deeper into the jungle, it symbolizes the descent into the existential dread and endless abyss of colonialism while at the same time illustrating that man is fighting nature by subjugating his brethren. However, the mysterious force commanding the village is Kurtz — a man. Thus man versus nature becomes man versus man. I would go as far as to argue that it is actually man versus himself by the end of the novel..

“Only in the very last moment, as though in response to some sign we could not see, to some whisper we could not hear, he frowned heavily, and that frown gave to his black death-mask an inconceivably sombre, brooding, and menacing expression. The lustre of inquiring glance faded swiftly into vacant glassiness…”

The slow, careful movements of the Nellie serve as Marlow's reflections on the power of words.

“They were common everyday words—the familiar, vague sounds exchanged on every waking day of life. But what of that? They had behind them, to my mind, the terrific suggestiveness of words heard in dreams, of phrases spoken in nightmares. Soul! If anybody had ever struggled with a soul, I am the man.”

Conrad is careful never to explicitly mention anti-war or anti-colonialism sentiments — it is indeed implied and cleverly hidden throughout the whole novel. However, it is more an anti-deception manifesto more than anti-colonialism manifesto. If we honest about our goals, then the horrors of war can be dealt with. Killing Iraqi villagers make no sense if we are meant to be liberating them. Yet it makes perfect sense when we know that we are not liberating them, but oppressing them for their resources and using liberation as a justification of those murders. This is why Kurtz is seen as a great man by the villagers, the defectors, the generals who are trying to kill him, etc. Everyone is jealous of him. He is very specifically against the rationalizations and deceptions employed in war. He is not against war persay. (I am using the Apocopylse Now clips for the clear imagery. It is based on HOD). He is a man who enjoys war and chaos, and his whole character is an attempt to portray the duality of man: we like war (to kill each other) even though it is detrimental to us as a species, but we go through all these steps and loopholes to deceive ourselves and others that it is necessary and in fact a requirement feature of civilization. This is why his will survives even though he is ill throughout the novel and we never get to witness the extent of his awesome power.

"There were no practical hints to interrupt the magic current of phrases, unless a kind of note at the foot on the last page, scrawled evidently much later, in an unsteady hand, may be regarded as the exposition of a method. It was very simple, and at the end of that moving appeal to every altruistic sentiment it blazed at you, luminous and terrifying, like a flash of lightning in a serene sky: ‘Exterminate all the brutes!’”

Conrad uses Kurtz as an allegory for colonialism in the purest form, while the jungle serves as an allegory for the ugly and dark side of colonialism. This duality teaches us that colonialism is in fact as much an internal battle as it is an external one with the forces of oppression.

Thanks to Conrad now I'm walking towards the heart of darkness with a gloom hovering in my mind...

I have to say, maybe it's due to too many abusive allusions in pop culture (from Animaniacs to Apocalypse Now!), but the narrative 'oomph' of 'Heart of Darkness' was probably the least of the 4 stories for me. It is certainly anti-climactic, and as well-written as any of the others, but it is also over-dramatized at times (almost to a fault).

I much preferred the more understated 'Youth: A Narrative' and the first story, both of which had a good mix of evocative and savagely-brutal imagery and a sense of yearning incompleteness. I think what irks me about HoD is its self-awareness of its incomplete/anti-climactic nature - it makes it far less unnerving than some of the other stories, which are more-convincingly presented as actual verbal histories. Still, well worth the read.

What a great rich read this is.
From Marlowe's boyhood fascination with maps of unexplored territories,
specifically a tortuous snakelike river its tail lost in a vast country Conrad is already striking ominous notes-"it fascinated me as a snake a bird - a silly little bird." For this romantic naivete will soon disappear when confronted with the brutal reality of colonialism.
We see Marlowe growing in sympathy for what he has considered an alien, inferior and savage race as he witnesses their martyrdom at the hands of third-rate Europeans who thrive on greed and jealousy.
This is a black picture of European Imperialism that Conrad paints from his own bitter experience.For this is written from the heart of a moral and sensitive man whose adoption of English has endowed us with a treasure trove of great stories and novels and a mind incisive and conscious of the moral challenges and ambiguities which life throws up.
That this story ends with a lie is a measure of that moral sensitivity
and the restraint it must exercise in avoiding generalisations and mere black and white judgments.

The two accompanying two stories or novellas offer different fare.
In "Youth" we meet Marlow again and Conrad's technique of filtering stories through several narrators, which allows him to make the reader unsure of their veracity and allows more than one opinion, especially ann omniscient one, to dominate.This is a story of a young man's first voyage and one of constant threat from fire.
"The End of the Tether" shows a man at the other end of life, trying to survive in a changing world and facing his final ordeal when he tries to conceal a personal secret.Full of wonderful characterisations deftly and vividly drawn whose differing motives drive the plot forward with an increasing tension.

A book of three gems to enjoy again...and again.

a literal nightmare... idk why our modernist professor made us read this

I think a pretty important book to read. Also, youth (mad conditions of young sailors on a ship that sets on fire for a whole two days in the middle of the sea) and end of the tether (like if Jane Austen wrote about capitalist social relationships on a ship) were better than heart of darkness. It will make you squirm, but dismissing the racism as 'sign of the times', or on the other end of the spectrum, as 'irrelevant to attitudes today' means you're not taking it seriously. As in, there's a dive into the psyche of colonialist cultures travelling abroad here that I think is relevant to that of present day travellers, anthropologists, writers, whoever. The writing is awesome.

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.

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.

Throughout my life, my dear mother always encouraged me to “find my voice”. That has been some of the best advice I’ve ever heard. I will encourage you to do the same. Finding one’s voice is not an easy process. Some discover it early out of necessity, and for others it can take a lifetime. My belief is that it takes a certain amount of life experience mixed with love (or lack of it from those closest to you). Adversity also plays an important factor. As the spiritual teacher Richard Rohr says, “Great suffering and great love” are moments when we can reach a non-dualistic way of thought.

Joseph Conrad found his voice later in life, and only after encountering a great deal of his own adversity. For example, Conrad once attempted suicide after being told he couldn’t sail for the French. He knew no English, but found work on a British route instead. This transformed Conrad. Obviously, he eventually was fluent in the English language, and became one of the most prolific writers of the past two hundred years. Had he not been refused service for the French, we may have been deprived of his art.

“One truth, many expressions”. You have heard me say this quote from Rohr in the past, and the idea flourishes in Conrad’s narratives. We describe life and its common thread of truth through the lens of the settings to which we have grown accustomed. This can refer to religion, career, country, culture, race, time period, etc. Conrad was a sailor. His metaphors and allegories revolved around life on the sea. The sea…a vast expanse of water. What can it possibly teach us about life, history and humanity?

Conrad was able to draw so much out of the vastness of the space, the reliance on self and community, and the indifference of the waters. Entire books could be written on the way he used the sea as allegory, and have been. Edward Said wrote his first book on Conrad, and Said was my introduction to the author.

Many of Conrad’s first writings were shorter novels. The three I most recently read were “Youth”, “Heart of Darkness” and “Typhoon”. It’s obvious that the sea is transformed to life, almost a living being of its own. But no, maybe it only represents life and the process of growth that comes with age and experience. Or IS the sea itself alive? Is it a passage between one level of consciousness and another? Is it the way that we are able to shed our prejudices and narrow field of vision through its routes to new and exciting ways of seeing the world through the eyes of the other?

Does all of this sound familiar? Perhaps like something you’ve heard before, but in a different way? That’s the thing about truth. There’s a united aspect in all expressions of the truth because truth is ONE. Humanity is ONE. Whatever it is that we use to describe the truth comes back to the common thread of love and justice.

“Youth” shows the young Marlow on his first voyage as a second mate. It becomes a series of life lessons for Marlow. Things never go perfectly to plan. The voyage may be mapped to perfection, but something always gets in the way, whether it’s life, humanity or the sea. We see Marlow struggling with xenophobia, racism and disdain for those who are not of his own culture. Marlow has a certain suspicion of his French and German comrades because they don’t do things exactly as the English. However, in the time of crisis that came upon them when the ship’s hold caught fire, none of that mattered. Here, they all united around a common cause of keeping the ship afloat and completing the voyage. For days, they worked together as one. That is what extreme adversity will do for you. That is what imminent death will teach you. That nothing matters but how you feel about humanity. It will pull out either the adverse feelings or discard any dogmatic presuppositions and replace it with love.

His ship destroyed, Marlow has to row the additional number of miles to the shore in the East. Exhausted, he and his comrades awaken to find themselves surrounded by the inhabitants of that Eastern land. The land that was disdainful in the eyes of the Europeans. Obviously, these Europeans perceived their way of life to be “benevolent”. It’s a common human trait that one’s own life and culture, the FAMILIAR is better simply because it’s what we know. However, as Wade Davis says: “Other cultures are not failed attempts at being you, they are unique manifestations of the human spirit”.

Next, I take you into the “Heart of Darkness”. The absurd starts with the very title. You immediately conjure in your mind something sinister, fearful, a place that you are averse to exploring. Fear is bred from unfamiliarity. Marlow illustrates this from the beginning by describing the typical man of the sea as someone who explored only the shores of distant lands, and then believes he knows everything there is to know about the culture.

This can be applied to today. We never learn from history or literature. Knowing nothing of deep Middle Eastern and Eastern politics and traditions, our own country has engaged in two quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have done this out of fear. Fear that we will lose our place in this world and have to adjust our lifestyle and position of power. What is it that we’re so afraid of? Why do we have to be constantly in control? Why can’t we WORK to UNDERSTAND instead of attempting to dominate and destroy?

“Heart of Darkness” is an example of this kind of colonialism, but it is also so much more. Marlow is sent to the very center of Africa to find an isolated trader, a Mr. Kurtz. Kurtz has far too many representations for the length of this review, but I will try to touch on only a few.

Marlow is fascinated by the legend of Kurtz from the start. He wants to meet this man who has not only conquered the culture of the “savages”, but has gained their trust (or is it their fear?). Kurtz has apparently used his knowledge of the African continent and the people to amass a huge personal fortune of ivory. As a typical European colonialist and industrialist, Marlow wants to meet and learn from a man of success.

Ah, colonialism is such an arrogant concept. It is seen in our mission work, and in the belief of the masses that we really are trying to bring democracy and religious “salvation” to these poor blind people of distant lands. It was quite effective as a back up plan to the WMD excuse for war in Iraq. “Benevolence”, that pompous word, has been used to justify the repression and control of another’s culture for centuries.

Kurtz is driven to the African jungle out of a desire for fame and fortune. To achieve this success, he is determined to let nothing get in his way. This is a faulty way of thinking derived from his English culture which he finally understands when looking back on the absurdity of his life. Kurtz steps on everyone from his fellow countrymen to the unfamiliar natives of Africa to achieve his own selfish ends. Kurtz is a sick man, reflective of a sick society, whose concern as he is being taken to recovery is mine, mine, mine; My girl, my ivory, my possessions, my power, my control, my piece of land in the colonialist world.

Kurtz is both a dying empire and a dying man who is grasping at materialism in his last breath. He wasn’t out to love or aid in mutual assistance to the “savages”. They were terrified of him and anything that threatened their own way of life. Perhaps they were as guilty as he in not wanting to learn of the other. However, Kurtz (and Kurtz as England) was the oppressor and the Africans were (and still are to this day) the oppressed grasping for nothing but survival, mutuality, respect, and a place of equality in the world. But the drive to domination is a human trait, and we can see this today in the corrupt leadership of many African countries. They have seen the plundering of their continent and now in turn want to hoard as much as they can after centuries of forced poverty and slave labor.

The absurd must be confronted to be subdued in one’s life. Kurtz never faced the absurdity of the drive for temporal matters until his dying breath. Then everything came back to him. His dissatisfaction with the ideal of the “perfect life” dictated to him by his home country. His leaving a woman who loved him to satisfy what culture told him he must achieve. Then there was the great cost of achieving that success by the subjugation and oppression of another people. “The horror, the horror” Kurtz breathes at his end. Marlow seems to respect this ability to face life’s reality, although he is still wrapped up in some of the faulty thinking of Kurtz. Marlow has never achieved the material successes of Kurtz and we are left believing that there is a certain part of him that wants to.

The only person who seemed to see the human side of Kurtz was the woman who already had it all. She was the woman who loved Kurtz. She didn’t want him to prove anything, and saw the goodness in his heart, his ability to love. She, perhaps more than any other, realized his TRUE potential. To me, she represents the shining example of what we all can achieve as humanity by believing in one another and living for PEOPLE rather than the oppression that is necessary to gain material success. Success by our culture’s definition is a divide of humanity into winners and losers. True success is win/win, equality, justice, love.

“Typhoon” is a story that is bigger than the oppression of one by the other. It is representative of the adversities of life that we all face. However, our characters fail to realize that the bigger picture of life itself and the way it can destroy also represents the way people can trample on others. The “coolies” or Chinese passengers on board the English vessel to the East are second class citizens in the eyes of the crew who have little regard for their lives or comfort.

Captain MacWhirr is an even-keeled matter of fact man who has a job and will work to fulfill his duty at all costs. Jukes is the slightly unstable person who is reactionary and cautious. In times of great distress and fear, Jukes is shown to direct that fear onto the coolies in the form of repression and confinement. How typical is this man’s life? How much do we fail to understand that we are all human, each valuable in his own way? We all must face these storms of life together! None of us in the end will escape alive. The typhoon that almost destroyed the “Nan-Shan” would have destroyed each and every person on board EQUALLY, regardless of how they viewed themselves in respect to the other.

The sea and death DO treat all equally. The worst parts of our existence are no respecter of person. Shouldn’t this be a model as well for the best parts of life? Shouldn’t we strive for mutuality and respect and face the fact that the end of life as death is the same for all of us? Shouldn’t our time on this earth be one of the utmost happiness and satisfaction; one of love and the fulfillment that comes from giving and helping our fellow man? Why must we be so selfish? Who do we try to impress? Riches and materialism only breed contempt in others, do not bring satisfaction to ourselves, and kill us in the end while leaving us always wanting more.

Joseph Conrad did indeed find his voice. He had his own way of expressing the truth of love and equality, which is the most important reason for our existence. However you choose to exemplify it in your own life, I hope that you can find the peace and love that we all desire. “One truth, many expressions”.

Heart of Darkness
This is a strange book, I think I’m going to have to read it a couple of times.

There’s a huge amount of hype about Kurtz, everyone is fascinated by him. He’s enthralling and the suspense builds and builds as Marlow gets closer and closer to meeting him. When he’s finally introduced in person I couldn’t help but be disappointed. We only see the aftermath, we don’t get to hear any of his great speeches or charismatic performances. Is he the metaphor for imperialism? Sounds on paper like an opportunity for greatness but is actually utterly bonkers, cruel and unnecessary.

Published 121 years ago I was expecting the usual amount of sexism and racism for that time. On his arrival in Africa, Marlow is appalled that the company is using slaves to build their railroad. “There were not enemies, they were not criminals” this gave me a moment of false hope. All three stories have racist elements, the overpowering white supremacy is difficult to stomach. I’m not sure a modern reader will ever fully enjoy these stories for that reason.

‘It’s queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own, and there had never been anything like it, and never can be. It is too beautiful all together, and if they were to set it up it would go to pieces before the first sunset.’
I beg to differ Joseph! Imagine where we could be now if white men hadn’t ruled for so long.

I’ve never seen Apocalypse Now and don’t plan to watch it any time soon.

The audiobook is performed by Kenneth Branagh and is very good.

Youth
A much simpler story about a doomed journey to Bangkok. Marlow is again our narrator, this is his first trip east taken in his twenties. He’s hardworking, fair and diligent. I like him better in this story. He’s a good man to have around in a crisis. It’s too short a story to develop much which is regretful. Captain Beard’s wife is the only female character, she’s a good addition and it’s unfortunate she’s not featured more. The scenes of action are well written but too brief.

The End of the Tether
By the third story in the book I was a bit more used to Conrad’s style. I liked this one the best. Captain Whalley is a brilliant character but underused, he’s repeatedly described as a formidable patriarch but there aren’t really any scenes to backup the description (just like Kurtz). His dedication to his daughter is beautiful. Massy and Sterne are almost pantomime villains and they have more opportunities to perform than Whalley but are also underused.

I think I would have enjoyed these stories better if I’d known more about sailing and the sea. It made me wish I could talk to my grandad about it as he was in the merchant navy. Conrad often seems to concentrate more on the technical details of the voyage rather than the narrative which is a shame. The great sense of adventure is missing.