This review is specifically for the Oxford University Press Heart of Darkness and Other Tales, edited and with an introduction and notes by Cedric Watts.

The book has 4 stories. Heart of Darkness was a 5-star story for me, reviewed under another version of the book. I also read Youth: A Narrative, because Marlow, from Heart of Darkness, is in that story also. I know I liked Youth: A Narrative, but I read it last year and the story hasn't stuck with me like Heart of Darkness itself has. I did not read the other two stories, An Outpost of Progress and Kahrain: A Memory.

It's the introduction and end notes that make this edition of Heart of Darkness special. They are very well done and informative. The intro made me want to read Conrad's other two books with Marlow: Lord Jim and Chance.

Conrad’s voice seems ideal for a study of colonial liminalities. English itself is for him an exoticism, a beautiful faraway through which he peddles his stories. Inflected obviously with French, and implicitly with Polish. A melding of familiar and unfamiliar things, a formal reflection of the strangenesses on which he will comment. I am reminded of my first real run-in with Conrad – not through Apocalypse Now, as might be expected – but Peter Jackson’s King Kong. An early, rumbling scene has Jimmy, reading a paperback of Heart of Darkness, look up disconcerted to Hayes: ‘Why does Marlow keep going up the river? Why doesn’t he turn back?’ The caparison of adventure that had so invited Jimmy peeled back to reveal the strange, sultry, and creeping viscera below. Throughout the four stories here conveyed – least in ‘Youth’ – this sense of unravelling is immanent. Of norms falling away, of tradition and tendency laid bare. In ‘Karain’ a totem is fashioned from a jubilee coin – the most obviously important thing a European can think to offer a Malay is a representation not so much of their Queen, but of money, of currency. And more, this coin is itself gilt, a deception layered upon itself. The Europeans themselves feel slightly guilty for having given Karain a worthless bauble and implied its great value: but the joke is on them. The difference between this coin and another is effectively arbitrary. Conrad is implying the mutability of value; one of the great misunderstandings of colonists who couldn’t countenance the hoarding of beads and feathers, while they themselves kept locked their shining metals. ‘Heart of Darkness’ follows this deconstruction further, finding all European prestige and pretence stripped by journey’s end. Kurtz isn’t so much Europe’s madness as Europe denuded; forgo lies about civilizing missions, and pretensions of natural sciences, and the draw of supposedly equitable commerce, and the remnant is this terrible beast, set upon conquest, domination, subordination. His contradictions are multifarious and complex: ‘I saw on that ivory face the expression of sombre pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror – of an intense and hopeless despair.’ His final words can be extrapolated to any degree – the individual, political, societal, existential – and still reflect specifically on the tale Conrad weaves. Of power, demagoguery, charisma. It is ironically only in that same European tendency for implosion that Kurtz is bested: his rivals fear him and seek his destruction. They are, in their cowardice, successful. An empire reined in by another, as was ever (and increasingly) the world in which Conrad lived. But perhaps what lingers as much as Kurtz’s prophecies are the effect they have on Marlow. How this jaunty, adventurous fellow is caught up entirely in his myth, in his beam. As unsettling as its reputation precedes.

An intriguing collection, with An Outpost of Progress complimenting Heart of Darkness, but without the brutality and bloody-minded callousness. The other two are weaker however.

I have read Heart of Darkness 3 times and still find new things in it each time. There are so many layers/interpretations that I'm never quite sure how to interpret it. But that is great because clearly Conrad was working on a plain of thought way above mine.

"The Horror! The Horror!"
Heart of Darkness was a fascinating read for me, because for a lot of it I felt I was forcing my way through it, it was an arduous, dense book that I struggled to connect to, and yet as the final pages closed in I was so moved by the story. Closing this book and finishing it feels almost wrong, its ambiguity and depth leaves such an effect that expanded tenfold as the end drew near.
I love the closing lines, reminding us that Marlow's tale is repeated in the setting in which it is being told, I love the looming sense of despair and ambiguity and I love the atmosphere. Heart of Darkness also emphasises a strong theme running throughout these books, of the complete vulnerability hidden within the heart of humanity, the pathetic and futile nature of colonialism.
The other tales in this book are much more brief and therefore less dense, though still hold much complexity. I really enjoy the fear and complete breakdown within 'An outpost of Progress', again holding that brilliant breakdown and exposure of the weakness of the supposedly superior race of humanity. Karain is wonderful in its drama and complexity of human spirit, a feeling of epic storytelling which is really compelling. Youth: a Narrative is bitterness in age personified, and the rosy tint of nostalgia, the longing for delicious uncertainty that proves humanity.

This collection of stories was first published in 1902 as YOUTH: A NARRATIVE, AND TWO OTHER STORIES. The "other stories" are HEART OF DARKNESS and "The end of the tether".
"Youth" fits into the Victorian genre of boys adventure stories. Though not strictly autobiographical, the story follows Joseph Conrad's own experience as second mate in a wooden barque called "Palestine", which sank off the coast of Sumatra in 1883. The remarkable freshness of this story is checked abruptly by the next tale: HEART OF DARKNESS.
Much has been written about this problematic novella which is a mixture of oblique autobiography and a tale of travel and adventurous exploration. It is the tale of Marlow's journey into "darkest Africa", a story of sombre implications which deals with modes of exploitation, corruption and decadence during the heyday of imperialism. This unsettling story is based on Conrad's own journey to the Congo in 1890, which ruined his health and left him quite demoralised.
"The end of the tether" is a story of disillusionment. Great Captain Whalley, a glorious skipper in the bygone days of sailing ships cannot admit that he has grown too old to be of use to his beloved daughter. For her sake he becomes less than honest and is fatally caught in a trap of his own devising.
This one was my favourite, I found HEART OF DARKNESS too gloomy, too full of death and atrocities to be able to enjoy it. "The end of the tether" is a story that should be read twice in order to understand Captain Whalley's strange behaviour.
Overall, I loved this book. I have a weakness for sea stories and these tales were especially poignant because they tell us about the time when sea adventures and exploration was passing from the earth and about the immense human cost of what passes for glory.

Fucking saai man en moeilijk

There is a darkness that lays in every human being's heart.
It dwells deep, deep inside that one can't know the hour it takes over.

I read 'Heart of Darkness' before watching 'Apocalypse Now' so that I would have a stronger understanding of the film, and its loose base in Conrad's short story. However, whilst 'Heart of Darkness' was horrifying, gripping, and had a compelling and multi-faceted character in Kurtz, I found myself more drawn to 'End of the Tether', the final story in the trio.

'End of the Tether' was engaging, full of rich imagery, and thought-provoking, dealing with themes of wealth, fortune, life and death, and touching on race. Its central character, Captain Whalley, is a tragic hero whose life is spent in the quest to provide for his daughter, and inextricably linked to the fate of the Sofala, the ship he finds himself captain of. His story contrasts with that of the other characters, particularly the ship's owner, Massy, in a method that highlights just how strong Whalley's character is.

Provisional rating. I think this is one of the most powerful, complex and well accomplished narratives I've read this year, but am still dubious as to whether the final scene is up to the rest of it. I think I'll do a fast re read of the whole novella and also of the introduction to make a better judgement.

Me ha parecido bastante tedioso, aunque rascando un poco podemos encontrar auténticas joyas... Párrafos, líneas y citas que merece la pena rescatar.
Su trasfondo es más complejo de lo que parece, y entre eso y que está bien escrita (sobre todo teniendo en cuenta que el inglés no era la lengua materna del autor), es posible que vuelva a darle una oportunidad en el futuro.

I read HoD in high school, and mainly remembered that my teacher went to great lengths to make us understand the absurdity of all existence etc etc... Then I talked about it in college, and mainly remember Theorists going to great lengths to make me understand the immorality of writing about Africans if you're not and African etc etc... And I just re-read it as a nearly thirty year old and thought: what's all the fuss about? It's straightforwardly an anti-imperialistic squib. Not the greatest shit ever, not even the second best book by Conrad - compare Lord Jim and Nostromo - but pretty good, pretty funny, and absolutely vicious.
I guess if you're really set on believing that this is a literary masterpiece, you have to give it either five stars or one: either to convince yourself it is, or to complain that it isn't. Just read it as a good little novella, and you'll enjoy it a lot more. And if you're really set on reading it as if all of humanity is ultimately completely f'ed, you also have to give it either five stars or one: either to underline, in ominous freshman terms, that it is; or to strenuously screech, in blathering self-help terms, that it isn't. If you suspect that at many times some of us are f'ed... well, I'm with you.

Also, the other stories in this edition are decent, not great. 'An Outpost of Progress' is even more pessimistic and anti-imperialist than HoD, and funnier, especially if you've read Bouvard et Pecuchet. 'Karain' isn't so great. 'Youth,' even more than HoD, highlights Conrad's 'ability' to beat a theme to death. Not his greatest asset, that's for sure.

”They lived like blind men in a large room, aware only of what came in to contact with them (and of that only imperfectly), but unable to see the general aspect of things.”