Heart of Darkness

Rating:
Summary: Art of Obscurity
Review: It is often remarked how extraordinary it is that Conrad, who could not speak a word of English until he was 21 years old, became such a superb stylist of the language. Personally, I find his style overly ornate and often as impenetrable as the jungle - and as turbid as the waters - of the Congo basin in which this story is set. For example, "We could not understand because we were too far and could not remember because we were travelling in the night of first ages, of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sign - and no memories." Quite so. I was not in the least surprised to learn that English was not his native language.

Heart of Darkness began as a short story and in essence remains one, despite being subsequently padded out and passed off as a novella. It lacks the development of character, theme or plot that would qualify it as a novel. What Apocalypse Now (Coppola's film, based on this book) did was to show how those elements could be developed.

So what does Heart of Darkness have to offer? Authenticity, for one thing. The story is based closely on Conrad's actual experience and it shows. The river, the steamer, the jungle are all palpably real, as is the author's disgust at the treatment of the natives. This latter element has led many liberal-minded readers to see this book as an indictment of colonialism. But Conrad's sympathy for the Africans is curiously detached. They remain distant, exotic creatures and their plight is presented as if it were a deplorable case of animal cruelty.

The story's structure is interesting. It begins and ends on a boat in the Thames estuary, where one of the passengers - after having made the very intriguing parallel between the Roman invaders of two millennia ago, sailing up the Thames for the first time, into the dark continent of Britain, with that of the European colonists entering Africa - relates the story of his adventure in the Congo.

With Conrad's style being so much a matter of individual taste, with the ambiguous attitude toward the natives and with the thematic slightness of the work, it is not surprising that Heart of Darkness receives such mixed reviews. I would recommend it for anyone with a particular motive, such as an interest in colonial African history, or a curiosity to know the inspiration for Apocalypse Now, or simply a desire to sample the work of an author whom many consider one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century.

Rating:
Summary: "...for all the hearts that beat in darkness"
Review: This book is one of the few classics of English literature that actually lives up to its reputation and has had the staying power to remain in the hearts and minds of moderns. It deserves to be read and re-read because it is full of "pithy" quotes and the story's pacing, sly asides, and "starting at the ending" style anticipates (oddly enough) screenplay writing.

Especially through our "dark lens" of "Apocalypse Now", we can appreciate the tale for its timeless portrayal of the problematic existential geopolitical world we have inherited. Heart of Darkness takes us into the colonial realm where a guerilla war constantly smolders, where supply and demand do not match up...where you must put up with the scent of rotting hippo meat. An ivory thief who has "gone native" succumbs to tropical diseases and doesn't make it back to Belgium. There is metaphor here but also the literal journey of the white man into the bloody dark realm...a journey that may have begun in colonial Africa, but which repeated itself in Southeast Asia, and again in the Middle East.

Some readers may think that this book contains lessons and morals, but I argue that it contains nothing of the sort, and reflects life exactly as we experience it, in all its strange contradictions and quirky coincidence. Heart of Darkness begins with ominous foreshadowing and ends with a strange white lie. The echo of the work persists for long years afterwards. Unlike Marlon Brando, one should take this particular assigned reading seriously.

Rating:
Summary: More self hating
Review: The innocence of children is routinely destroyed in American classrooms with books like this. The fact that imperialism (although a lot of colonialism brought many good things to various cultures also) and evil people exist in all cultures is true. But books like this seem to promote the idea that evil is somehow European. The incredible negative focus in classrooms has devastated America as well as Europe. It is just part of more than a century of self destructive western writings beginning wih Karl Marx. Upton Sinclair wrote the Jungle as part of a self admitted promotion of Socialism. Unfortunately, Heart of Darkness is just another in a long line of books that promote self hate, or bitterness and rage, and event anti western sentiment that even people such as Stalin or the current terrorists use as motivation to kill "evil western imperialists." Ironically Communist countries use this literature to teach hatred of the west. And here in the U.S. this literature is forced on American youth by the left wing. But also this type of literature is used by Christian and conservative schools. The destruction of western youth is coming from all sides. And I have seen many statements from young people that their self mutilation and horrible self image stems from 12 years of chronic darkness taught to them by a decrepit school system that thrives on darkness. Heart of Darkness is just dark.

Rating:
Summary: The Horror, The Horror
Review: I really didn't like this book. It was really dull and I didn't enjoy the symbolism. That however is probably because I am a moron. But whatever the reason, I didn't like it.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but not great.......
Review: When reading the introduction of a book, any book, I always grow suspicious when I'm told that repeated readings will unlock the book's true majesty. Unlike, perhaps, the providers of such advice, I tend to read in a manner that allows absorption of the material on the first try. God willing, we are given but 75 years on this earth and innumerable books to consume, yet somehow, to truly understand Conrad, we've got to read HIM over and over again. This doesn't seem to be my problem. It seems to be his.

Heart of Darkness is a novella in which a man named Marlow recounts his journey up the Congo in search of Mr. Kurtz, an ivory trader. At just over 100 pages, the book is a model of literary economy, but it's gift of brevity is also it's curse. Marlow and Kurtz never fully develop as characters and, subsequently, I didn't really care what happened to them. True, I enjoyed the content, but without once making a connection to the protagonist.

Heart of Darkness is, for all intents and purposes, a good read with some fine interwoven philosophy, but I fail to see how it merits the traditional adulation and controversy it receives. Because of today's hot-button issues of race and colonialism, perhaps it insinuates itself into popular culture leaving more behind than it should (eg. reviewers whose interminable parade of paragraphs come only by way of projection). Simply put, however, Heart of Darkness is a good short story about a restless seafarer in search of a jungle-addled company man. It rates 4 stars. Nothing more and nothing less.

Rating:
Summary: Not worth it and here's why....
Review: It seems to me that some people take way too much meaning out of certain books. To me, books should be like music. The message should be in the words, not by deciphering "now what was the meaning of the tattered book in the hut?" Many praise this book as literary genius, but I think it was no more than a boring story (hard to get through it's measly page number). If you want the story told in a good way, rent Apocalypse Now; it's based (albeit more loosely) on the book.

Rating:
Summary: Heavy on the Symbolism, aren't we?
Review: I didn't enjoy it. In fact, I hated it. But I was reading it for class, and so I finished it. It was ponderous.
All in all, this, to me at least, is not a book you read for enjoyment. It is something you read because someone tells you that you have to.
Despite the lack of fun-ness, however, I can recognize geniuses of style. And Conrad is. The book a wonder of controlled words. There isn't a wasted one in the bunch. The themes are still themes which have some bearing on human life today. It's thick with symbolism. If you're looking for a 'thick' read, this one will do you.

Rating:
Summary: DOESN'T LIVE UP TO THE HYPE
Review: I'm only a high school sophmore so I probably couldn't cathch the sublty of the novel. For me the plot of this novel moved painfully slow. I could only handle two pages at a time before falling asleep. Also the main character, Marlow, evidently has the attention span of a moth because he often goes off on a tanget for as much as two pages at a time. Considering the 70 page length of this book and how often it happens this book is only suggested for those that have insomnia.

Rating:
Summary: a book of its time
Review: A very well written book that I enjoyed reading. However, Conrad seems to have a low view of African people and a shallow portrayal of them (in contrast with his rich psychological insight into the European characters), which is disappointing, even if to be expected for Conrad's era. And although the imagery and use of language is wonderful, I hardly recognized in it the beautiful country of Congo that I know.

Rating:
Summary: short but not so sweet
Review: I'm going to be a high school senior next year and I chose to read this for my summer reading. It's really short but it doesn't go by fast. I constantly had to reread pages because I was missing things. It's really hard to follow and the plot is a little slow. Maybe the 700 page Anna Karenina would have gone by faster...