Heart of Darkness

Rating:
Summary: liked The Secret Sharer more
Review: I really enjoyed the psychological aspects of the "Secret Sharer." The inner-thoughts provoked by the Captain's doppleganger, Leggatt, serve to make the story a true masterpiece. Heart of Darkness is no light reading, yet can is interesting in that it is a quasi-mystery.

Rating:
Summary: A Perfect Novel
Review: "The Heart of Darkness" is arguably my favorite novel of all time (tied with Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises"). Thrilling in every way, this is the only book that seeped into me. Never before has an author created a mood so perfectly that you actually FEEL the darkness. Written masterfully as a person retelling a story someone else was telling, the book has a reality on both levels that in unbelievable. You NEED to read this book! It's short and gripping so it shouldn't take too long. You might not be a changed person when you're through, but you will be awed by Conrad's brilliance. (Even if you hate the book, it's undeniable.)

Rating:
Summary: Worth the Effort--meet the Anti-Huck Finn
Review: This is a work of endless rewards and layers. Never mind the racial elements-- they truly don't matter to Conrad's purpose. And do force yourself to work through every meaty, carefully drawn sentence. This work is a model of compactness, a work in which every single line counts.

Consider it as the Anti-Huck Finn-- Marlow travels up a river (instead of down) and as he leaves more of civilization and restraint behind, he becomes worse (instead of better). Compare it also to *Lord of the Flies* (look, in particular, at LOTF last paragraph) as a treatment of what lies within the deepest part of humans.

It's a challenging and unsettling work, but it has great rewards both in writing and in the ideas contained.

Rating:
Summary: Stranger in language
Review: Conrad is modern,it seems to me,not because he tried to describe or foresee the horror that was somehow consubstantial to Western civilization,to Western decadene,one would say;he is modern because he stated before Wittgenstein or Beckett the question of language,the impossibility of language,both the language of logic,rational,and the language of literature,less rational,to achieve a vision of the essence of the world."The anguish in the world is the only proof that our nature does not belong to this world",wrote Wittgenstein,and that's why,I think,the character of Kurtz is hardly more than a voice and a shadow. What deeply fascinated me about Heart of Darkness is less his structure,the poetic precision of his paintings,so to say,that his extraordinary talent for nuances.Sentences such as "one cannot live forever with one`s finger on one`s pulse",or "He could hardly stand,but there was plenty of vigour in his voice"(quoted from memory)impressed me in a deeper way than his climatic ambitions or his political opinions about "the whited sepulchre".I read it in English,and perhaps I can appreciate in a better way the rhythm of his writing than a English speaker could do.But was not Conrad himself a stranger in language,a language learnt on ships?

Rating:
Summary: In a Word: Masterpiece
Review: The hypersensitivity generated within the hallowed corridors of a largely left-wing academe has called into question the value of what is--by any *aesthetic* standard--an inarguably great book. (This book has even been condemned as "racist" by Nobel laureate Chinua Achebe!) One has to question the judgment of a critic who uses his own, modern political sensibilities to judge a work of art--or, in the case of Heart of Darkness, to *misjudge* it.

This novella is uncharacteristically brief and focused. Compare this to some of Conrad's other works, like "The Nigger of the Narcissus," or "Nostromo," and you'll better appreciate the mastery with which Conrad has compressed a story of such grand thematic scope into so small a space. Very, very few writers have been able to do this. What is the book about? Man's inherent inclination towards barbarity. This is something the books race-critics seem to miss: Granted, there are NO AFRICAN MILLIONAIRE PHYSICISTS in this novel! But who are the true barbarians, here? The white men. The Imperialists. "Mistah" Kurtz represents the apotheosis of this "imperialistic degeneracy," a focused portrait of self-interested barbarism, which in his case is tragically ironic, because in trying to turn his back on the bloody impulse of colonial expansion, he has slipped, become a monster himself, without hope of redemption. His slide into moral degradation taints all around him--inluding the narrator, Marlowe--just as the moral degradation of colonial expansionism destroys what it touches.

So in what ways does it really matter, for instance, that the native Aficans are portrayed as so-called savages? What exactly does that even mean? What was a savage to the Victorian sensibility, but someone less cultured, uneducated? Within the milieu of Conrad's Victorian British audience, his position could fairly be called radical, and his portrayal of the natives and their sad plight uncommonly compassionate. Should we impose our social standards retroactively when critiquing works of art? Or should we gauge the writer's accomplishment on its own terms? To do otherwise would be to advocate discarding Oscar Wilde's art because he was a pedophile; ditto with Socrates. To complain about alleged racism in "Heart of Darkness", magificent work of art, is to miss the point entirely.

Rating:
Summary: A study of man
Review: It is well written. The idea of a storyteller in the story is not unique but very effective. We could ponder over the word darkness for quite some time. The best way to ponder is with Cliff's Notes. The only way that you could not give this book five stars is to not be objective. Personally I wanted him to get on with it. I guess I was a little impatient for the action and the conclusion. If it hadn't been for cliff notes I would have missed haft the things he was implying.
I missed this book somehow in school. The reason I started to read this book before actually I actually became immersed in it, was to see how close it came to the movie. No not the movie you are thinking of. "Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death" (1988) ASIN: 6305078599 . The film was shot primarily in the avocado groves maintained by the University of California at Riverside (UCR), which the university uses for horticultural experiments. Adrienne Barbeau is Dr. Kurtz.
The horror.....the horror.....

Rating:
Summary: Heart of Darkness
Review: Conrad's character Marlow describes a journey into the Congo in this wonderful novella. The story comes from the author's own experiences, and reveals a unique and compelling look at the African river and deep African interior. The main charcter 'Marlow' is employed by an ivory company to take command of a cargo boat stranded in the interior, and from there the adventure springs from around every treacherous bend of the river. He bears witness to man's inhumanity to man, as well as the harshness of the country itself. A very interesting read to say the least.

Rating:
Summary: Mixed feelings
Review: Upon reading this novella I was left with mixed feelings. On the one hand, Conrad is a masterful writer. His prose is wonderfully descriptive. I liked the dark imagery and the unusual location of this book. I have never read a Modernist book that has an African setting. Conrad's exploration of the limits of civilization and "savagery" is thought provoking (my friend thinks it's Hobbesian, food fo thought).

And while, I found the descriptions of Kurtz somewhat muddled and anticlimatic, my biggest critique of this book involves race.

Conrad depicts the horror of the European colonialization of Africa, the "grove of death" for instance, and he also writes that Africans are humans (a notion many Europeans of the time might contest). My problem is that he SAYS they are human, he doesn't depict them as human. Conrad's "savages" don't speak, they only chant omniously. There aren't any African children, though there are African cannibals. Africans are depicted as stupidly, or perhaps simply, believing Kurtz and other Europeans to be gods and as willing doing the will of Kurtz. They are not developed as characters, so they don't seem human at all, though they are quite sinister. This seems like a racist depiction to me, and definitely from the point of view of the colonizer.

Sometimes, Conrad seems sympathetic to the African plight, but he ingnores the affect imperialism has on native culture. This is definitely a white man's story, this is the white man's plight. Too one sided for me.

Conrad shows the horror of colonialism, but this novel gives me the feeling that he thinks that the colonialism of the time was corrupt and that real "Christian" colonization must be done instead. I'm sure this is a sentiment shared by most Europeans of his age. I've heard people say before that you can't judge old novels by contemporary standards. While I can agree with that to a degree, my experience relates to how I react to works. I don't know, you decide.

I can't decide whether I like this book or not. I suppose it's worth reading. Conrad is really a great author, I particularly like his short stories (The Secret Sharer is really good)and recommend them withour reservation. If you do buy Heart of Darkness, don't bother buying the Norton Critical Edition unless you need it for a class. It's mostly just criticism and I found it pretty dry.

Rating:
Summary: Thoroughly Unenjoyable
Review: My grade 11 Advanced English class was given a list of about ten "classic" novels, one of which we were required to read. Being quite lazy, I decided to choose "Heart of Darkness" simply because of its short length.

I agree that the sybolism of this novel is supposedly what makes it so great. But why not simply discuss these themes that Conrad presents, instead of having to wade through this horribly tedious book. You'll find that if you miss a word or two while reading, that you are confused for about 25 pages (about a quarter of the book's length), and have to reread the whole chapter.

I do not recommend this book for your reading enjoyment, however I do understand why it was placed on a required reading list as it does present some interesting topics, that in my opinion are better discussed eleswhere than in the overbearing writing style of "Heart of Darkness."

Rating:
Summary: gripping
Review: Follow the search for the renegade Kurtz into the darkness of primeval forests...and learn about the darkness at the heart of us all. An eloquent depiction of the alternation between culture and "exterminate all the brutes" in the same breast.