I’ve never read it before and thought it was time. I found the first part of the three the most satisfying. However, Marlow and/or Conrad has not fully convinced me what was so special or enigmatic about Kurtz, especially from the perspective of the former. Maybe it was a rhetorical gift?:

Hadn’t I been told in all the tones of jealousy and admiration that he had collected, bartered, swindled, or stolen more ivory than all the other agents together? That was not the point. The point was in his being a gifted creature, and that of all his gifts the one that stood out preeminently, that carried with it a sense of real presence, was his ability to talk, his words—the gift of expression, the bewildering, the illuminating, the most exalted and the most contemptible, the pulsating stream of light, or the deceitful flow from the heart of an impenetrable darkness.

But the language and the character of Marlow is both impressive and memorable:

This simply because I had a notion it somehow would be of help to that Kurtz whom at the time I did not see—you understand. He was just a word for me. I did not see the man in the name any more than you do. Do you see him? Do you see the story? Do you see anything? It seems to me I am trying to tell you ya dream—making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams . . .”

The themes and the context when and how this novella has been written are very important of course. But they’ve been discussed for 100 years. So for me again the way of narrating stood out, his desire to express with the words something almost inexpresable in human condition and his acknowledgment of the partial failure to do so.

The story which is narrated by the voyager Charles Marlow is about his obsession and fascination with Kurtz, an ivory trader.
Kurtz who has been sent to the heart of Africa by a trading company, begins a new life there while little by little becoming a god and an object of worship for the tribes of savages.

The story which is inspired by Conrad’s voyages sailing on Congo River, revolves around the notion that there is very little difference between civilized people and “savages” once they are put under certain circumstances.

Blessed was Odysseus, who returned, full of wisdom, after many conquests and adventures to live a peaceful old age with his wife and family. It didn’t go that well for Charles Marlow. Heart of Darkness is like The Odyssey or The Divine Comedy or the story of Sindbad or any hero’s journey for that matter, only upside down. Instead of an adventure that is ultimately a coming-of-age, a homecoming, a blessing, a regaining of paradise, Marlow’s expedition up the Congo River, in search of an illusory Eldorado, setting off “for the centre of the earth”, works as a step “into the gloomy circle of some Inferno”.

Conrad himself sailed up the Congo in his youth, so his novella is, in many ways, autobiographical. In the book, like Odysseus or Sindbad, Marlow tells the story of his adventures, and it, in turn, is told by an unnamed narrator, making it a second-degree account of the facts. We even meet, early on, a group of old women “knitting black wool” like a modern picture of the ancient Fates, dictating the destinies of humans and weaving the story in yet another way. At this point, while we are aware that the whole thing is a piece of fiction, the narrative’s multi-layered structure makes it all the more fantastical and unreal, and the reader is at risk of losing his footing, just like the hero of the story. So much so that, at some point towards the middle of the novel, putting his narrative in doubt, Marlow cries out:

Do you see him? Do you see the story? Do you see anything? It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream — making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream — sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams…

Heart of Darkness is a groundbreaking text that digs into the dark depths of the human psyche. And while it is written in sumptuous, almost marmoreal prose, it searches for sensations underneath language, nightmares underneath clear thought, the unutterable, silence, darkness. In short, only read Heart of Darkness with a double Polish vodka or a potent antidepressant close at hand!

Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe argued that there is more than a whiff of racism in Conrad’s novel — not just because of his use of the N-word (which was commonplace at the time), but because the natives in his fiction, with few exceptions, are little more than animalistic stick figures. In a sense, Conrad is still in the rut of traditional European prejudices, whereby darkness, notably dark skin, is a symbol of ugliness, moral brutality, viciousness, even cannibalism (see Shakespeare’s “Moors”, for instance, Aaron in Titus Andronicus or Othello).

However, at the same time — and this shows how ambiguous and murky this short novel gets — Heart of Darkness can also be construed as a criticism of Western colonialism and a denunciation of White, Western ferocity — in this sense, there is a kinship between Heart of Darkness and Moby-Dick. From the start, Marlow reflects: “when the Romans first came here, nineteen hundred years ago — the other day... darkness was here”. Now flowing through one of the most civilised cities on earth, the River Thames was, not long ago, curving and coiling over a primitive wilderness. Besides, as the story later shows, it only takes a few weeks, on the shores of the Congo River, for a “cultured” European to revert into a stinking crook, eaten away by greed, and turn eventually into a beast or a demon or a grotesque deity. “All Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz.”

And so, Marlow’s journey through the jungle is also a trip into a primaeval past, before civilisation. But, further still: it doesn’t take the overheated wilderness of a remote, lonely and prehistoric tropical rainforest for the metamorphosis of the European culture into a slaughterhouse to happen. Kurtz, the man who sank into insanity and monstrosity, is described chiefly as “a voice! a voice!” Where that voice comes from is not entirely clear either. Is that just Kurtz’s voice? Is that Marlow’s voice telling his story? Conrad’s voice writing his novel? Or some other deeper voice that surfaces from a hollow, dark, ominous silence?

Heavens! how that man could talk. He electrified large meetings. He had faith — don’t you see? — he had the faith. He could get himself to believe anything — anything. He would have been a splendid leader of an extreme party.’ ‘What party?’ I asked. ‘Any party,’ answered the other. ‘He was an — an — extremist.’

Indeed, the last words of Kurtz’s imperialistic manifesto are, as an afterthought, “Exterminate all the brutes!” Conrad was writing in the very last years of the 19th century. But it is impossible, in retrospect, not to think that the “voice” he writes about wasn’t already born in the very heart of Europe; that Heart of Darkness wasn’t a foreshadowing vision of the horror and destruction that would, only a few decades later, cover the European continent.

Heart of Darkness has been an immensely influential novella. Céline possibly drew inspiration from it to write the African episode of Voyage au bout de la nuit. There are also many similarities between the atmosphere of this novel and the sense of cosmic terror that H.P. Lovecraft developed in his novellas. J. G. Ballard’s The Drowned World displays some similitude to Conrad’s story as well.

Heart of Darkness has also obviously influenced the cinema, starting with Orson Welles, who unsuccessfully attempted to adapt it. Likewise with Werner Herzog’s cult film, Aguirre, the Wrath of God — an epic movie on insanity set in the Amazon jungle. Finally, Francis Ford Coppola famously turned Conrad’s novel into a staggering, baroque, disturbing masterpiece about the Vietnam War: Apocalypse Now!

Nowadays, the upper Congo is no longer the heart of a ruthless ivory trade. But the region holds vast quantities of minerals that are critical for Western/Asian computing and renewable energy industries. As a result, under the convergence of this new mineral rush, significant financial interests, military conflicts and political instability, this part of the world is once more the scene of human greediness, atrocities, murder, slavery and rape. In a weird way, Kurtz’s whispered cry still resonates with us, “The horror! The horror!”

When I was a child, my father caught me frowning at a very small gift wrapped package I'd received. The dashed hopes for a larger package were broadcast across my face.

"Dynamite comes in small packages." My father counseled me. The literal and figurative truth of this statement has revealed itself throughout my life.

This story is specifically relevant to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. It is a small book. (Surprisingly small.) And it is pure dynamite. (Super powerful dynamite!)

Conrad later wrote he wanted to "bring home" the experience of Heart of Darkness to "the minds and bosoms of the readers." He succeeded. Big time.

Heart of Darkness is a masterpiece. Divided into three sections, it is one of the greatest creations of English literature I've had the pleasure to read.

The experience of reading Heart of Darkness is akin to listening to an emotionally moving work of music. It's somber theme has a sinister resonance. Its unique tone and continued vibration hangs in the air and dwells on the ear after the last note is struck. (Reading Heart of Darkness conjured in my mind the eight hand final piano chord of A Day In The Life: shocking, dark, contemplative and endless.)

After reading Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost I appreciated for the first time the historical context for this novel. In light of that, I felt compelled to re-read Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. And I am very glad I did. This is a genuinely great book.

[NOTE: As much as I loved HoD, it was truly Coppola's film that seeped into my bloodstream. What follows are my thoughts on the cinematic masterpiece inspired by the book]

There are some scars that never heal. There are some memories that resist the urge to fade. There are some movies which rise above the others and stand alone as monuments of artistic achievement. Francis Ford Coppola’s "Apocalypse Now" from 1979 is one of these milestones in American culture which has never truly lost its power to fascinate and terrorize. The story is loosely based on Joseph Conrad’s haunting classic Heart of Darkness from the 19c about the British colonization of Africa, but the narration also bears certain parallels to both Dante’s Inferno and to Homer’s Odysseus. From beginning to end, like Alex in A Clockwork Orange, the spectator is treated to the Ludovico Technique in watching the characters within losing their sanity and their humanity.

“...all I could think of was getting back into the jungle ” Captain Willard

The opening scenes of Apocalypse Now are among the most powerful in the history of cinema. Willard recounts to us his previous tour of Vietnam and the inexplicable, irresistible urge to return over a dreamy vision of napalmed jungle. His drunk brain associates the ceiling fan in his Saigon flophouse to chopper blades. This over the eerie chords of Robby Krieger’s guitar and Jim Morrison’s vocals.

"Sometimes the pain is too much to examine, or even tolerate... That doesn't make it evil, though – or necessarily dangerous. But people fear death even more than pain. It's strange that they fear death. Life hurts a lot more than death. At the point of death, the pain is over. Yeah – I guess it is a friend…” (James, Lizze (1981). "Jim Morrison: Ten Years Gone". Creem Magazine. Detroit, Michigan)

These words could have been spoken by Willard because the psychic pain torturing him reveals itself in the rage which drives Willard to break his hand against a mirror - symbolic of his self-destructive urges. Notably, Martin Sheen, when filming this scene, actually did have a nervous breakdown which introduced delays in the tournage. As documented in "Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse" by Coppola’s wife, the filming took over three years to complete and was beset with difficulties, not the least of which were the issues with Martin Sheen.

In terms of literary parallels, this scene is akin to the first circle of hell, Limbo, where Willard is waiting to plunge deeper into his own personal hell. Similarly, the flashbacks can be thought of at the beginning of The Odyssey where Ulysses looks back on the Trojan War which he had just left before beginning his long journey home.

Unnamed Civilian: “Terminate with extreme prejudice”

Willard receives his orders from the local army command and a mysterious civilian (CIA?) to pursue the renegade Colonel Kurtz and “terminate his command.” The scene features an obscenely luscious meal which is somewhat reminiscent of Danté’s 3rd circle of Hell, Gluttony. We are only given sketchy details about Kurtz, but the condemnation - utterly deniable by those giving Willard the orders - is without appeal.

Curiously, we learn that Kurtz has taken justice into his own hands and has executed some South Vietnamese double agents and it is this act which the US has declared treasonous and merits his execution. If you have not studied the context of the Vietnam War, you may not realize the subtle point being made here which points to the faulty justification for continued US presence in Vietnam. The best book I have found about this is Fire in the Lake by Frances FitzGerald, which won the exceedingly rare triple crown (Bancroft Prize, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize all in 1972). It is a masterpiece of journalism which explains how the government which the US installed in South Vietnam after the departure of the French colonials was a corrupt and brutal regime infiltrated at all levels by the Viet Cong (the remnants army of North Vietnam (Viet Minh) left fighting in South Vietnam for liberation after the partition of Vietnam into North and South in 1954 following the French defeat and pullout). Kurtz says that he spent weeks studying several South Vietnamese where he was operating and had determined that they were in fact infiltrators from the North and thus he eliminates them. This creates an issue for the US which cannot admit that the “democratic" regime they are protecting is illegitimate - they have to bow to pressure from the South Vietnamese government in Saigon to punish Kurtz for the murders. This is why Willard’s mission (and that of at least one person before him) is done in utmost secrecy. It also explains why Kurtz feels betrayed and goes over the line and why Willard is so tortured by his mission. It points to one of the central points of tension in the film, “Why are we here?” This is perhaps, despite being out of order, Dante’s 6th circle, Heresy.

In the extended director’s cut, Apocalypse Now Redux from 2001, the theme of the political background to the conflict is addressed by French colonists on a rubber plantation. After draining an egg, Philippe de Marais says prophetically, "The white left, but the yellow stays."

Another cinematic sidetone to this scene is the cameo appearance of Harrison Ford as Colonel Lucas - the character’s name a direct reference to Ford’s work with George Lucas in Star Wars and other films. Lucas has worked on the script for Apocalypse Now with John Milius and who was originally going to direct the film.

Chef: “Never get out of the fucking boat”

The team that will take Willard upriver into Cambodia to accomplish his mission is led by Chief who is none too pleased to be at Willard’s disposal. He cares for his crew, “Chef” from New Orleans, Lance from California, and “Mr Clean” (played by Laurence Fishburne who was only 14 when the filming started and was 17 (his character’s age) when the filming ended) as a father or wise older brother and remains aloof. These three companions remind me of some of Ulysses companions and represent various reactions to the Vietnam experience. Lance is nearly always completely fucked up on acid and is mostly detached and withdrawn, riding out the experience trying to stop it from seeping into himself. “Mr Clean” is exuberant and happy to be out of his native Bronx and its poverty in this jungle adventure. “Chef” is actually appalled by his experiences. The mythic scene of gathering food for the boat with Willard in the jungle in which they are attacked by a tiger is a breaking point for “Chef” who never quite regains an edge against his terror, but still leans on Willard as a possible (and ultimately impotent) savior. The crew is reminiscent of the Lotus Eaters episode in the Odyssey in that they are constantly getting high to take an edge off of the violence and danger. Perhaps also the 3rd circle of Gluttony since Chef was trying to get mangoes for his cooking before the tiger attack.

Kilgore: “Charlie don’t surf”

One of the other mythical moments in Apocalypse Now is the encounter between the boat and the 9th Calvary under the command of Robert Duvall’s epic Lt Col Kilgore. Of the two possibilities for helping Willard get upriver, Kilgore chooses the one that moves his closer to a good surfing beach. The complete absurdity of Kilgore’s surfing obsession is underscored by the intensity of the attack by helicopter of a Viet Cong village and the senseless murders of civilians while Kilgore strips and orders men into the surf despite machine gun crossfire. He even calls in a napalm strike in order for the surfing expedition to continue. I think of Kilgore kind of like the Cyclops with a single-minded obsession on surfing. It could also be somewhat likened to the 4th circle of Dante’s hell: Greed.

Circe and the Underworld

There are a few other confused scenes before the final confrontation between Willard and Kurtz which in my mind are most akin to episodes from The Odyssey: the men ogling the Playmates and nearly assaulting them before their flight in the chopper was similar Circe turning Ulysses’ men into pigs whereas the haunting bridge where Willard searches unsuccessfully for the commanding officer among shellshocked kids all wasted and under attack was like Ulysses walking through the Underworld. In Dante’s world, these scenes would cover the 2rd circle, Lust as well as the 7th circle, Violence.

The Death of the “Chief”

Near the end of the river voyage, Lance provokes an attack from the shorts of the river that results in the death of “Mr Clean”. Clearly, “Chef” blames this death on Willard’s as-yet unexplained mission which has put his crew in mortal danger. Later, another attack, this one presumably from Kurtz’s cadres using bows, arrows and lances results in “Chef” himself being transpierced by a lance. He tries to impale Willard on it, but the protagonist chokes “Chef” to death in self-defense. This is sort of symbollicaly a mashup of the Sirens episode (the lance), the Sylla and Charybdis episode (attacks from both sides of the boat) and the Helios episode (the provocations of Lance and “Mr Clean” and perhaps karma for the murder of the riverboat family earlier in the film). In the Odyssey, the rage of “Chef” against Willard represents the 5th circle, Anger.

Photojournalist: "He's a poet warrior in the classic sense"

In more scenes of violence and beauty, Willard, Chef and Lance arrive in the Kurtz heartland and meet Dennis Hopper’s Photojournalist character who spews mountains of Kurtz-centric phrases and coded warnings. He quotes one of my all-time favorite poems from TS Elliott, The Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock, "I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas” in his nearly incoherent ranting. He seems to represent Fraud, the 8th circle of hell.

The workup to the climax includes the imprisonment and torture of Willard and the decapitation of Chef, just as the latter is attempting calling in a suicidal napalm strike. The train has come off the rails and the film hurtles towards its climax.

Kurtz: “The horror. The horror.”

The climatic scene of Willard’s brutal assassination of Kurtz with a rudimentary agricultural tool takes place in parallel to the ritual slaying of a cow and with The End of The Doors once more providing the background music. The cinematography is stupefying as Kurtz is executed in the 9th circle of hell for Treachery. We do not see Willard, however, reach Ithaca and Penelope. We also could wonder why he would complete this mission despite his own skepticism about its legitimacy. He tells us in his monologues that, in fact, he sees Kurtz as a man in immense psychic pain (mirroring his own of course) so in Willard’s mind this is a mercy killing (this the sacrificial cow in the parallel scene). We can also inquire as to whether either Willard or Kurtz received peace at the end. For Kurtz, I’d have to say, no because he died terrified of death. Willard survives with Lance and heads back down river, but his ultimate fate is left ambiguous unless we can interpret his action as stoic acceptance.

The film draws the spectator close enough to feel Kurtz’s breath on his or her face in those final words. And as in any extraordinary piece of cinema, it leaves us to draw our own conclusions about the multitude of issues explored here: legitimacy, truth, absurdity…but especially death. I think the film explores various solutions to deal with death: acting out, withdrawal, fear, acceptance. Which will you choose?

I read this book a few years ago as part of my required reading for my university course....and hated it. Perhaps hate is too strong a word. I had a strong aversion to it. A STRONG aversion to it.

Why? This book made me feel stupid. I just did not 'get' it at all - like, any of it! I had no concept of what on earth was happening, what on earth the metaphor was and what on earth the point of the whole thing was! Reading it was one long struggle as the text was unbroken by chapters and there are very few paragraph breaks (I am unsure if this is a stylistic decision or if this was just in my edition). I battled through though, despite every single monotonous word giving me a blinding headache, expecting to finish the book feeling victorious. But no, I just felt stupid. There was no breakthrough moment of understanding, I did not see the light and I ending up with no answers to my myriad of questions.

I hope to reread this book someday in the hopes of reforming my judgement, so, this is all for now. Until we meet again, Mr Conrad.

Like contemporaries Haggard and Melville, Joseph Conrad lived the adventures he wrote. He left his native Ukraine to escape the political persecution of his family and became a merchant marine in France, sailing to the West Indies and gun-running for a failed Spanish coup. Soon after, he learned English and became a british citizen, eventually attaining the position of Master Mariner. Had his story ended there, he might have become merely a footnote in history: a successful seaman and minor writer of romantic adventures.

Instead, he took a fateful steamship voyage into deepest Africa, an experience which forever changed him. Like the protagonist of the book which his journey inspired, Conrad found horror deep in the jungles. He witnessed the cruel depth of mankind, and not in the barbaric tribes, but in the colonial whites who ruled them. Far from civilization or law, these men became utter tyrants, mad with power and answerable to no one.

Having lived under repressive colonial forces in his own troubled Ukraine, Conrad's deconstruction of this human subjugation was both sympathetic and satirical. Apparently unable to detect Conrad's sarcasm, Chinua Achebe accused him of the most profound racism. Doubtless, he was tired of his continent being defined in literature by an outsider. Why Achebe then chose to write his own, much more hopeless, racist, and sarcastic book in an attempt to replace Conrad's, it is difficult to say.

When Conrad finally emerged from Africa, he was a different man. He said of the experience that it forced him to cease simply living, like an animal might; instead he found himself saddled with a profound self-awareness. As any writer can tell you, only two things issue from inescapable self-awareness: pain and art.

Conrad's writings took a darker turn, resulting in his most contentious and influential work, 'The Heart of Darkness'. While his other stories are not without death and pain, they tend towards lighter fare, none quite reaching its inexorable brooding. Doubtless this is why it garners the most attention, dealing as it does with messy issues like race, nation, and death. The author's literary catharsis leaves us raw and shocked, but then it was always Cornad's intention to use writing as a means to share real experiences with his reader.

Though often compared to other adventure fiction of the era, such as Stevenson's or Haggard's, like Melville, Conrad transcends his genre. His tight pacing and evocative, poetic prose help to elevate all of his stories, and here, his language is bolstered by an overriding, passionate, personal message. There is an ever-present thread of philosophy throughout all of Conrad's works, but rarely is it as naked and powerful.

In some ways, the great interest paid to 'Heart of Darkness' is unfortunate, as it tends to ignore the rest of his varied and masterfully-constructed oeuvre, but the vast swathes praise and criticism are not misplaced: it is a Great Book.

After reading this for the first time, I've now had more than my fair share of Heart of Darkness!!1

“He struggled with himself, too. I saw it -- I heard it. I saw the inconceivable mystery of a soul that knew no restraint, no faith, and no fear, yet struggling blindly with itself.”

REREADING HEART OF DARKNESS FOR THE 3RD TIME - The first time I read this, my problem was that I was not immersed and engaged from the beginning. Second time around, I enjoyed the first half far more, and found myself hooked from beginning to end in this tense and disturbing tale! Who knows what is in store this time...

Heart of Darkness is known as one of the great short stories/novellas, with a powerful message regarding empire and exploration, in a tale with strong horror aspects. That reputation alongside Cormac McCarthy loving the works of Joseph Conrad intrigued me, and I finally picked it up.

Heart of Darkness to me seemed at first to be a fairly similar classic story to many others that I have read. But the further on that I progressed, the more distinctive and unnerving this tale became. Without giving too much away, and to over simplify it, Heart of Darkness is about someone journeying to the heart of the Congo and having their expectations and idolisations destroyed. There are strong horror aspects. There is a great deal of tension. It explores the abuse of power, and also appears to suggest that the British Empire should not expand into lands that are not its own. A fairly progressive idea for the time. It still displays hegemonic values of the time which are morally wrong, but it was interesting to see some of these more progressive opinions being shared at the time when it was written.

I was not immediately hooked, but as the story evolved, Conrad brilliantly crafts tension that builds up to some incredibly powerful and visceral scenes that I remember vividly, a year after closing the final page.

4/5 STARS

I've been re-reading this, and listening to it, for the rhythm and density of the language, the dark richness and penetrating insight into colonialism's self-destructive urges and the paper-thin veneer that so-called "civilization" paints over its own savagery.

Kurtz is a modern day Prometheus. He dares to peer upon the hidden Dark Side of the Moon, and All the Heavens then seek revenge upon his startled soul.

And he must Pay.

Until that Gracious Day in some Faraway Future arrives, and the Divine Eagle quits chewing apart his liver.

Until this modern-day Oedipus, now an ancient, cursed soul in faraway Colonus, expiates the last dirty remnants of his crime before the very gods themselves.

And that futureless future day - when the last ‘I’ is dotted and the last ‘T’ is crossed - will be the Last Day, upon which Franz Kafka is certified “safe” to enter the Kingdom by the sleepless Gatekeeper...

And Kurtz’ weary soul is Graced with Pardon and freed, like the rest of the absolved, to drink the healing Draughts of Lethe.

On THAT day we’ll All Forgive... and Forget the Gorgon!

But you know what?

When T.S. Eliot gives his famous spoiler to this short masterpiece in The Wasteland, and wrecks the ending for young readers, it’s No Coincidence that he qualifies that spoiler with the incredibly apt line, “Hieronomo’s mad again!”

For once you wade into the dread waters of Acheron, you see the Furies that will torment you till mercy dawns again.

Don’t hold your breath! As the Hindu sacred books say, endless Kalpas will seem to pass before that glad dawn.

I know what you’re thinking.

Kurtz is like Adam.

And of course ALL Adams, like you and me (and all my negligently disobedient friends!) will see our Edens forever blighted - like our dying planet - or so it will seem to us, since that first Kurtzian day of wrath.

Dante Alighieri once said us poor blokes who pass up a Life of Faith as a kid will have to slowly slog around Mount Purgatory for a hundred painful years before even getting our tickets punched at the door!

Oh, I’m no different.

I didn’t say I believed “loud (and) clear” as a youth.

No, we ALL Refused to “listen as well as we hear... in the living years” of our youth, to the Truth.

That’s right. We did EXACTLY like Adam, believing we’d “be like a god” once we saw through the more inconvenient truths.

And so we continue to run the unforgivingly downward and rapid rails of Perfectionism, or Guilt, or Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, maybe.

But, you know, there are moments when pure sunlight breaks through our heavily curtained minds...

A child laughs innocently, a bird chirps cheerily, or an old person smiles an incredibly crinkled smile of joy.

Those moments are meant for US - that we may have eyes to see!

But, sooner or later, just like the rest of you - and Mr. Kurtz - we have to Face the Face that Kills.

And tuck the Golden Moments under our belt for the Next Time, in yet another stripping bare of our conscience -

Yes - Until, in fact, the Far-off Day, Kalpas and Kalpas from hence, of our Final Heavenly “Shantih.”

In blessed Forgiveness.

Many people seem to think that this story is just about racism, but that is missing the main point. It is true that much of Conrad's fiction seems racist in tone, but one must take that from whence it comes; he was writing at a time when European Colonialism, (and sadly racism too) was in full swing. It is of course inevitable that writers will reflect some of the mores of their era, and also that some writers will examine the prevailing mores and comment on them.

However, the inner message of the story transcends dealing with just purely the manifestation of racism and colonial exploitation, although such exploitation does of course also play a role in the density of ideas, and, on the surface, forms the main theme of this novel.

But the inner, integral theme has to do with the more transcendental issue of how wordly power corrupts the holder thereof; about the inner boundaries set by conscience, and the comfort it brings to remain within those boundaries. Conversely, what happens to your psyche when one crosses these boundaries and enters an area beyond what you were brought up to believe fell within acceptable behaviour?

I see Conrad exploring the territory beyond those boundaries, about what happens when an individual crosses the boundaries set by conscience and social conditioning just because he finds himself in circumstances where he can cross these boundaries.

Parrallels for such circumstances can be seen in the excesses certain Roman emperors indulged in, simply because they had the power to. They held sway over the life or death of countless individuals, and many of them indulged in this power to excess.

However, Conrad uses a fresh setting in which to explore the issue, and it is a setting that is more intimate and personal, and just as disturbing.

A story about Marlow's journey upriver to rescue Kurtz who has gone wild and controls the natives. I didn't enjoy it the writing was so dry and dense and I had to work to get through all the way to the end. I didn't like the way the natives were portrayed or Africa in general either. I don't understand why Africa and it's inhabitants always need to be symbols for wildness or destruction and I just couldn't get into the story at all. I honestly hate reading classics.