Rating: 
Summary: Heart of I Don't Care
Review: I read a lot. I can't remember ever not finishing a book once I started it. Until, that is, I had to read Heart of Darkness. I freely admit that whatever the book was trying to tell me went right over my head. This is because I didn't care. I didn't care about The Horror. I didn't care about Mr. Kurtz. The meaning of life could have been in this book, and still I would not care. It was like Conrad wrote a hateful book on purpose. I'm sure it was very entertaining to write; but that is no reason to inflict it on me. I didn't finish the last 10 pages or so, just for spite.
Rating: 
Summary: Classic Literature
Review: Several negative reviews of Heart of Darkness seem to have been written by bitter high school students. In sum, their sentiment is: "Don't read this book if you don't like good stories."Huh? It should be more like, "Don't read this if you aren't willing to study it." These "students" must understand that a superficial reading of a novel will NEVER yield anything useful. Plot is not the only way to judge the merits of a story. What defines a classic is not always what happens, but how the events are told to us. Conrad's writing is not complex and vague by accident. The reviewer who remarked that it takes Marlow several convoluted sentences to describe the river misses the point that Marlow is not the kind of narrator who can describe something precisely. It is more like an impressionist painting. Conrad's style recreates those blurred images we all have when we try to recollect an experience. It is a representation not of what all men know, but what an individual sees. ***SPOILER IN NEXT PARAGRAPH*** Marlow is "unsteady" on purpose. We are supposed to question whether he necessarily is against imperialism. This book cannot be said to be strictly anti-imperialistic, since Marlow lies at the end to preserve Kurtz's reputation. Contradictions in Marlow's character are Conrad's consious doing. Contrary to popular belief, good novels DO require close readings and analysis to be understood. Authors don't just want to write a good story: they want their story to spark discussion of the plot, themes, AND narrative technique. Conrad didn't include all those adjectives as filler. If any of these reviewers go on to study literature at a university, I'm sure they will one day be embarassed that they made their ignorance public. I know I've come off as pretentious, but this literature does not deserve to be brushed aside because it is complex. Rather, it demands a close analysis. Judge the novel only after you truly understand it.
Rating: 
Summary: Where's the Harp?
Review: I enjoyed the premise of this book, but I never figured out what the "Harp" in the title means. Plus, I didn't lose any weight. I recommend "The South Beach Diet."
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but difficult
Review: If I could give one piece of advice to those about to tackle Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," it would be to get a version with lots of background information, literary criticisms, and the like. The best way to read it is to read it once through (in my version, this was a short, but very dense 115 pages), then read all the extra stuff, then read it again. Unless you're a certified genius with extensive literary and historical knowledge, you're going to be lost without all the outside information. That said, this is a very affecting book. It's really all the ambiguities and the frustrating anticlimax that make you think. Thinking is good, and people should do it more often.
Rating:
Summary: man's basic nature
Review: Conrad's novel, essentially, is not about colonialism. Colonialism just brings his subject into sharp relief. As Marlow travels into the heart of the continent, he also travels into the heart of man. On the lower, outer river, the man, Kurtz, is perceived as successful, idealistic - he's going to put an end to the exploitative aspect of colonialism. But the deeper Marlowe takes us, the less idealistic Kurtz becomes until, at last, we find Kurtz, the real Kurtz. He murders, steals, enslaves, tortures - and loves it. Taken from this horrific life, he's found crawling on his hands and knees back to it. He himself sees what he truly is, thus his dying words. Conrad's novel deals with total depravity - that true nature that mankind glosses over with civility and manners. Conrads message is: dress it how you will - it is still depravity.
Rating:
Summary: An amazing novel
Review: ~This was the first novel I read by Joespeh Conrad, and I just finished reading it again a few days ago. This book is one of the most interesting stories that also examines the character of a man. Marlow is an older sailor who tells the tale of his time as captain of steamship in Africa. He works for a an ivory trading company, and his mission is to go up river to Kurtz's station. Marlow vividly recalls his thoughts and feelings from his trip up the river. After an introduction to how he~~ came to his position, we join Marlow in Africa as he is awaiting his command. It is here that he first hears of the extraordinary Kurtz. The manager, who seems greedy, and his brick layer, who wants to be Assistant manager, don't like Kurtz. But the more Marlow hears about Kurtz, the more he wants to talk with him. As he repairs his ship, as he sails up river, his anticipation builds. Nearing Kurtz's station, I could feel Marlow's angst when he believes Kurtz dead. The man Kurtz had been~~ was no more. He had become someone else, a man with power. The desire for more ivory had possessed him. In his last words, Kurtz reveals his opinion on life and the relationships therein: "the horror, the horror." The story remains one of my favorites.~
Rating: 
Summary: Ornate prose and a powerful moral message; not much fun
Review: While justifiably a classic of 20th Century literature, Conrad's depiction of a journey up the Congo River will not find favor with everyone. Because he had actually made such a journey himself, Conrad is able to give ornate descriptions that bring this mysterious locale to life before our eyes - at least, for those whose response to the printed word is largely visual. To those readers who, like this reviewer, are more intrigued by plot and character than by the appearance of a person or place, Conrad's lengthy descriptions of the river and its banks may seem tiresome, mere delay as the plot slowly unfolds. And is it ever slow. This measured pacing is supposed to create a strong element of suspense as we wonder what will happen when Marlow finally meets the mysterious Kurtz, but casual readers should be forgiven for not really caring. The journey itself doesn't get exciting until the attack comes, a good three-quarters of the way through the book, so those hoping for action and adventure will find little to their taste. So why is this novel considered such a masterpiece? Apart from Conrad's turgid prose, the real power of this story is in its philosophical content. Marlow's physical journey into Africa parallels a psychological journey into the darkness of the human condition. He seeks a Kurtz who has been described as an emissary of science and progress, the best man the company has ever sent to Africa, a veritable superman whose humanity, sensitivity, leadership skills, and practical know-how have enabled him to accomplish amazing things in these most difficult of circumstances. In effect Kurtz represents Colonialism itself; he is the living proof that European Imperialist policies can improve conditions in the colonies while netting a profit for the home country. But what Marlow finds is something very different, and the equivocal conclusion forces the reader to make his own decisions about the moral choices that are made. For many, the story makes a strong indictment of the atrocities perpetrated by Kurtz, and by extension, the colonial powers behind him, and by further extension, most of human history, which is characterized by the company manager as the process by which the strong take what they want from the weak, using brute force. This is not a "fun" read; there's no trace of humor or romance as we use the term. Women have only the tiniest roles, and there are passages that have been roundly criticized as offensive to Africans. If those concerns don't bother you, and you can get past the slow plot, there are some heavy points being made here. For the rest of us, Apocalypse Now is a fantastic film that sets pretty much the same story in war-era Viet Nam. It won't get you through your English class, but it's a far more entertaining work of art.
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Summary: Caveat Listener - Audible's version has different reader
Review: The Audible.com download is read by Richard Thomas aka John-Boy Walton, not by Ralph Cosham. This would be a less egregious error if it weren't that Thomas high-pitched and effeminate voice misses Marlow's character by a nautical mile.
Rating:
Summary: Psychological rather than political
Review: Marlow, a British sailor at the turn of the century, recounts his search for a certain Mr. Kurtz, along a river in Congo, to an anonymous "I." The book is a monologue told over a single evening. The emotions Marlow displays are awe (towards Kurtz), disdain (towards the misdeeds of the company Marlow works for and the misdeeds of the "natives"), and fear. The intensity of such emotions draws one to follow the monologue till the end. I grew interested in this novel due to the ubiquitous references to it in contemporary political literature. The book I found however to be of psychological nature more than anything else. Never once while reading was I convinced that ideology was the crux of the matter. To the contrary I felt as if imperialism/colonialism were used as articles to justify the existence of the puzzle that was Kurtz. Conrad may have intended Kurtz, in his bleakness and contradictions, to be an embodiment of such ideologies, as contemporary critics like to put it. Such arguments naturally lend themselves to the interpretation that this novel is a critique of imperialism. It may well be, if one can assume that Conrad understood the highly politicized term "imperialism" as we do now. I suspect that this novel is instead really a critique, or a report, of "the present," the circumstance Conrad had experienced.
Rating:
Summary: Classic, but still good story
Review: O.K., but english teach years ago in high school over did this one a bit. But, I found that I loved the story in spite of it being beat to death in class. Wonderful book, and can be enjoyed for fun and/or for the brain.
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