1/5stars

Dropping this to a 1 Star cause goddamnit I hate this fucking book.

Rendere giustizia alle opere sublimi è sempre difficile; ma quando si parla col cuore in mano lo è ancora di più. Per me Conrad è e rimane il miglior romanziere al mondo. Girovagando per anobii mi sono accorto di quanto Heart of darkness fosse ingiustamente bistrattato... due stelline, una stellina, noioso, non prende, mattonata... insomma i commenti si sprecavano. Non si può dare torto a nessuno, grandi e piccoli. Il linguaggio si fa spesso metaforico, allusivo. E si rischia di non comprenderlo.
Diciotto anni dopo Conrad scrisse a proposito, cito imprecisamente "si trattava di dare una risonanza sinistra, una tonalità cupa, che sarebbe rimasta come una vibrazione nell'aria indugiando nell'orecchio anche dopo che era risuonata l'ultima nota". Voleva ottenere una effetto sonoro che spiegasse la storia. O, per lo meno, la evocasse. La struttura del testo si fa dunque complessa. La storia si presta alle moltiplicazioni, ma il senso oscuro ci sfugge. Viviamo come sogniamo: soli, dice Marlow. Vedete la storia? domanda, e poi aggiunge: descrivendo un sogno non riusciamo a comunicare la sensazioni del sogno.
Il compito che si è prefisso Conrad è alto e non è quello che Baricco sottolinea in tutti i suoi interventi su quest'opera ( che palle i suoi parallelismi su l'attesa di incontrare Kurtz e l'attesa della battaglia nel deserto dei Tartari), sciaguratamente. Il compito di Conrad ha semmai una somiglianza con l'ultimo canto dantesco, il XXXIII del Paradiso. La ricerca vana di un'espressione, di un linguaggio ( che sia pure un'interiezione) che soddisfi la realtà, immensamente onirica e tenebrosa, della sua discesa negli Inferi. Il compito è arduo, ed è sul punto di rivelarsi senza farlo. Insomma Croce direbbe: l'imminenza di una rivelazione che non si produce, in ciò consiste il fatto estetico.
Quanto a me non ricordo altro esempio più esemplare di metafora intensamente suggestiva di questa: due vecchie che sferruzzano della lana "nera" alle porte dell'ufficio, come due guardiane, dove Marlow riceve l'incarico di capitano del vaporetto per il suo viaggio nel cuore di tenebra.

This is a reread, not because of how much I loved the novel, but because I had never realized it was set in the infamous Belgian Congo. In the book, they are not harvesting rubber, but ivory, and the natives are not being systematically maimed, tortured, and killed, as in the real Belgian Congo. Natives are killed in Heart of Darkness by Kurtz in his thirst for ivory, so I guess it's similar. The natives worship him though and the people of the Congo did not worship King Leopold. They hated and feared the white men who worked for him.

There are many differences though between what really happened and the story. Kurtz is seen as insane by the narrator, he's gone over into evil. In this way, Joseph Conrad can be seen as enlightened and prescient; he knows Kurtz is a megalomaniac murderer. In the 1880s, not many people protested this brutal colonization of the Congo. There were some, missionaries and even clerks who worked for the Belgians who did protest, but many were as opportunistic and venal as King Leopold. They were in it for the money and their careers, and despised the native workers as they tortured and worked them to death or killed them outright. Mainly no one cared.

I found this reading much better than my first though, because of Conrad's lovely use of language. English was not his first language either, he was born in Poland, but he is masterful with its use.

Readers beware, there is a casual use of racist terms and ideas that will shock you.

“Anything approaching the change that came over his features I have never seen before, and hope never to see again. It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that furry visage the expression of somber pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror — of an intense and hopeless despair. He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision—he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath—

“‘The honey! The honey!’

“I blew the candle out and left the cabin. Tigger and Eeyore were dining in the messroom, and I took my place opposite Christopher Robin, who lifted his eyes to give me a questioning glance, which I successfully ignored. He leaned back, serene, with that peculiar smile of his sealing the unexpressed depths of his meanness. A continuous shower of small flies streamed upon the lamp, upon the cloth, upon our hands and faces. Suddenly the manager's boy put his insolent black head in the doorway, and said in a tone of scathing contempt:

“‘Winnie Pooh - he dead.’"

Κάπου είκοσι πέντε χρόνια μετά την (μυσταγωγική) πρώτη ανάγνωση του ποιήματος "Οι Κούφιοι Άνθρωποι" του Τ.Σ. Έλιοτ, στο επίγραμμα του οποίου ο ποιητής μνημονεύει μια φράση από την Καρδιά του Σκότους ("Mistah Kurtz - he dead)", κι άλλα τόσα από την (εξίσου μυσταγωγική) πρώτη θέαση της "Αποκάλυψης Τώρα", ταινίας που, ως γνωστόν, βασίστηκε στο συγκεκριμένο βιβλίο του Τζ. Κόνραντ, φαίνεται πως ήρθε η ώρα του ίδιου του βιβλίου να αφηγηθεί το ταξίδι του Τσάρλι Μάρλοου μέσα από τον ποταμό Κονγκό προς την ενδοχώρα και τον αποσυνάγωγο και ιδιοφυή Κουρτς.

Σπουδαίο βιβλίο, "σαν ταξίδι μέσα στον χρόνο, προς τα πίσω, προς την αρχέγονη πραγματικότητα του κόσμου" και σαν ελευθερη κατάδυση στα απροσμέτρητα (σκοτεινά) βάθη της ανθρώπινης ψυχής.

Book Circle Reads 19

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: More than a century after its publication (1899), Heart of Darkness remains an indisputably classic text and arguably Conrad's finest work.

This extensively revised Norton Critical Edition includes new materials that convey nineteenth-century attitudes toward imperialism as well as the concerns of Conrad's contemporaries about King Leopold's exploitation of his African domain. New to the Fourth Edition are excerpts from Adam Hochschild's recent book, King Leopold's Ghost, and from Sir Roger Casement's influential "Congo Report" on Leopold's atrocities. "Backgrounds and Contexts" also provides readers with a collection of photographs and a map that bring the Congo Free State to life.

A new section, "Nineteenth-Century Attitudes toward Race," includes writings by, among others, Hegel, Darwin, and Sir Francis Galton. New essays by Patrick Brantlinger, Marianna Torgovnik, Edward W. Said, Hunt Hawkins, Anthony Fothergill, and Paul Armstrong debate Chinua Achebe's controversial indictment of the novel's depiction of Africans and offer differing views about whether Conrad's beliefs about race were progressive or retrograde.

A rich selection of writings by Conrad on his life in the Congo is accompanied by extensive excerpts from his essays about art and literature. "Criticism" presents a wealth of new materials on Heart of Darkness, including contemporary responses by Henry James, E.M. Forster, Ford Madox Ford, and Virginia Woolf. Recent critical assessments by Peter Brooks, Jeremy Hawthorn, Daphna Erdinast-Vulcan, Andrew Michael Roberts, J. Hillis Miller, and Lissa Schneider cover a ranger of topics, from narrative theory to philosophy and sexuality. Also new to the Fourth Edition is a selection of writings on the connections between the novel and the film Apocalypse Now.

This Norton Critical Edition is again based on Robert Kimbrough's meticulously re-edited text of the novel. An expanded Textual Appendix allows the reader to follow Conrad's revisions at different stages of the creative process. A Chronology has been added, and the Selected Bibliography has been revised and updated.

My Review: Had I not read the critical edition of this book, I wouldn't have given it three stars. It's dense and chewy prose. It's a bleak story. It's Conrad's most famous and most lasting work because it's so astounding that a man of his era could be this perceptive and say so publicly! Oh, there was much tut-tutting at the time about the awfulness of Congo Free State's condition, but it was disingenuous at best and cynically political at worst. Conrad wrote a human response to a human horror, and he did so by making a White Man out to be Wrong!!!!!

Cue gasps! And start the applause.

But it is a slog to read, short though it might be. Simply put, Conrad spoke English as a third, yes THIRD language. He did an extraordinary thing, writing in his third language, but to me it felt like it was his third about half the time.

Still and all, I am quite pleased to have read the Norton Critical Edition, and to have a real sense of the book's revolutionary place. Quite a good use of my limited number of eyeblinks.

n  n
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

n  '"And this also," said Marlowe suddenly, "has been one of the dark places of the earth."'n


It does feel weird to be praising the work of someone who is regarded by many as a "blatantly racist piece of sh*t" when you yourself are against that cause. Then why am I praising it? Simple answer. I don't think he's a racist. I will come to that later.

The name of the book will tell you what is there in it, if not the whole story. The writing, not quite unlike the forests depicted is way too compact for sunlight to creep in there. It's such that you can visualize the whole from the very beginning in a dusky, sable way (Not only Africa but also Europe, got my point?). The best aspect of the novella often neglected is its delineation of the surroundings; it's practically something raving, the way the prose absorbs you into it. And next is the sometimes unnecessary-yet-necessary character development. Personally, I visualized Kurtz from the first as Brando, thanks to Coppola, but the manager, the cannibals everyone is portrayed exactly as chafedly as you can take in.

n  It is difficult to discern exactly what Darkness might mean in here, given that absolutely everything in the book is cloaked in darkness.n

My complaints? Well, there are a few. Firstly, in real life, I don't know anyone, save a seaman so introspective. It's quite frightening actually, the complexity of Marlowe's thoughts and that's why the narration requires your utmost concentration. Secondly, Ambiguity. That's also the finest aspect of the novella( or novel?). You may read it feeling it to be some trash, unworthy of your time and dime. You can definitely find the description of Africa disgusting in parts. Or like me, you can end up feeling your head buzz yet revel in the genius of what you have just read.

Meanwhile, What is Darkness?

Darkness is the inability to see: It sounds simple but is with profound implications as a description of the human condition. Failing to see another human being means failing to understand that individual and failing to establish any sort of sympathetic communion with him(/her). That happened primarily with Kurtz, then with Marlowe, and then sadly enough with the author. Achebe’s condemnation in 'An Image of Africa' is too simple. Thankfully the fictitious characters were not as much criticized as their creator. I think Marlowe's introspection hardly mitigates racist notions about primitive or degraded “savages”: it just means that Europeans are as “bad” as that which they have constructed as the lowest form of humanity. Well, that's simple enough to understand: brutes and racists have no nationality just like terrorists have no religion. They are just people who are not admitted to asylum yet. Marlow meant from the beginning that the then “Western” civilization is just as barbarous as African civilizations. Kurtz's philosophy is clearer from their point of confrontation. To try to judge either alternative is an act of folly: how can moral standards or social values be relevant in judging evil? Is there such a thing as insanity in a world that has already gone insane?

There's a sort of pride in enjoying something that many fail to appreciate. It's meaningless to say again, but it's truly fascinating.

Doğrusu Joseph Conrad okumaya başlayınca daha iyi bir şey bekliyordum. Üzerinde çok yazılan Karanlığın Yüreği'nde ben yazılacak pek bir şey bulamadım. (Şubat 2017)


Yeni not : Afrika’nın önemli filozoflarından Achille Mbembe, J. Conrad’ı sömürgeci edebiyatın mimarlarından biri olarak görmekte Karanlığın Yüreği romanında siyahların insanlığından şüphe edecek derecede vahim bir tablo cizdiğini vurgulamaktadır.
(Aralık 2021)

This is a book I read twice and will probably never read again. I try to see this as a "great" novel but I have always wished Conrad had achieved a greater separation between his own voice and Marlow's. For me his inability to do so made it difficult to stomach the inherent racism in the book. The passage that will always stick out in my mind is the one in which the narrator muses that an educated black man is as "unnatural" as a dog putting on clothes and walking on its hindlegs.

That said, I don't think this book is worthless. In my experience the people I've discussed it with tend to either completely ignore the racism or excuse it and instead focus on the pyschological state of Kurtz or else they see the racism and completely dismiss the pyschological and other symbolic aspects of the book. For me this is not a great novel in the sense of it being one of the best ever written. There are just too many internal tensions and the blurring of the character's and author's perspectives makes this a very uncomfortable read. It is a great book for discussion though if all of its tensions are recognized. There is a powerful message here about how the darkness of the mind (and one's own inhumanity) can be projected onto others and one's environment and there is something very anti-colonialist and anti-racist about that. At the same time, these themes exist side by side with the author's own unacknowledged racism. Knowing that a book was written long ago helps contextualize and explain something offensive but I don't think it ever makes it less painful to read. For me the value in Heart of Darkness is in examining both the story Conrad set out to tell and the one he didn't even realize he was telling when he wrote this book.

Never in all my life has 100 little pages made me contemplate suicide...violent suicide. i had to finish it. i had no choice (yay college!). every page was literally painful.

am i supposed to feel sorry for him? because i don't. i feel sorry for all of Africa getting invaded with dumbasses like this guy. oh and in case you didn't get it...the "heart of darkness" is like this super deep megametaphor of all metaphors. and in case it wasn't clear enough, conrad will spend many many useless words clearly explaining the layers of depth his metaphor can take. oh man...my heart is dark...and i'm also in the middle of Africa...and it's dark...and depressing...get it...get it...

When the Thin Veneer Is Stripped Away

Colonial powers have always intervened, occupied, and suppressed the inhabitants in weaker countries for their own reasons, whether it be for gold, oil, saving souls, lebensraum, bases, or "regime change". Their actions, even the massacres and destruction, were always "for the good of the people". No country ever lacked a good excuse to hide their true motives. People in the metropolitan countries have always gone about their business with no inkling of the realities being perpetuated in their names across the seas or over the mountains. The Belgians in the Congo, between 1880 and 1908, created a colonial nightmare, one of the worst that ever existed. Conrad traveled there. HEART OF DARKNESS is a slightly-disguised version of his own experiences, one of the most powerful indictments of European behavior beyond public scrutiny that was ever written. The book is suffused with the feeling of abomination, of unspeakable cruelties being perpetuated by men so banal or greedy that they hardly perceived what they were doing. They talked of philanthropy, but dreamed only of making money and getting out. European behavior in Congo was all a pretence. Shall we talk of Conrad's powerless disgust? How many writers have referred to Conrad's description of a French ship shelling the bush, shooting up the jungle, not even knowing if anyone was there? A senseless act of men who understood nothing of Africa, nothing of themselves. As Marlow, the narrator, tells of the bureaucratic preparations for his voyage to Congo, the reader begins to sink into the pit of No Meaning---the senseless procedures, the absurd warnings and tests. The rusted, crumbling railways in Congo that had never worked, the useless holes, the dumps of destroyed or wasted equipment symbolize, like the endless heaps of slaughtered buffalo on the American plains, the incomprehension of Westerners as to how to deal with an unfamiliar society and environment. Conrad acknowledges early on that he "would become acquainted with a flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly."

As Marlow proceeds up the river, he comes closer to the world of Kurtz, a mysterious man who had given himself over to elemental passions---violence, greed, cruelty, sex---leaving the world of his past far behind. He is at home there, in the heart of darkness---not Africa, the unjustly-named Dark Continent---but that dark pit that exists in every human's soul. Kurtz had "gone over", allowing barbarous instinct to surface, treasuring them, savoring them. He had gone mad. Conrad writes not only of the madness of Europeans in Congo in the last years of the 19th century, but of the savagery so close to the surface in people of all nations. Do I have to make a list here?
We have seen enough in our own days. Still, Conrad does not condemn Kurtz as the worst, just as a dictator is not the only guilty party in his regime. Kurtz, was at least, true to his nature, while other whites remained evil-doing hypocrites who lived in pretence, refusing to recognize Africans as fellow humans. The last scene brings home Conrad's feeling more than any other and might be familiar to many people who have tried and failed to explain times and places beyond the ken of listeners. Kurtz's intended bride, back in Belgium, is sure that she understood the man better than anyone, saying to Marlow that her fiancé was "a good, talented man". She has not, cannot have, any inkling of his true nature and Marlow cannot get himself to tell her. Asked for Kurtz' last words, which were "The horror, the horror", he reports that Kurtz had murmured her name. And with that, we truly understand that Marlow had looked into the heart of darkness. One of the handful of truly classic works of world literature. It is not so much "the plot", but the style of writing and the psychological depth. You can't afford to miss it.

Picture Review of Heart of Darkness





Visual Key:

White Man named Michael Cera – represents Imperialism

Sunset – shows the impending darkness that is latently inside man

Sea – represents the Congo River

Moustache – represents author Joseph Conrad who also has his own impressive facial hair

Red Bonnet – is a horrible choice of headwear thus might prompt one to remark "the horror! the horror!" which is also Kurtz' last words