Heart of Darkness: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Sources, Criticism (Norton Critical Edition) by Joseph Conrad

by Joseph Conrad

Heart of Darkness, a novel by Joseph Conrad, was originally a three-part series in Blackwood's Magazine in 1899. It is a story within a story, following a character named Charlie Marlow, who recounts his adventure to a group of men onboard an anchored ship. The story told is of his early life as a ferry boat captain. Although his job was to transport ivory downriver, Charlie develops an interest in investing an ivory procurement agent, Kurtz, who is employed by the government. Preceded by his reputation as a brilliant emissary of progress, Kurtz has now established himself as a god among the natives in “one of the darkest places on earth.” Marlow suspects something else of he has gone mad.

A reflection on corruptive European colonialism and a journey into the nightmare psyche of one of the corrupted, Heart of Darkness is considered one of the most influential works ever written.

420 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1988

About the author

Joseph Conrad was a Polish-British novelist and story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language and, although he did not speak English fluently until his twenties, he became a master prose stylist who brought a non-English sensibility into English literature. He wrote novels and stories, many in nautical settings, that depict crises of human individuality in the midst of what he saw as an indifferent, inscrutable, and amoral world.
Conrad is considered a literary impressionist by some and an early modernist by others, though his works also contain elements of 19th-century realism. His narrative style and anti-heroic characters, as in Lord Jim, for example, have influenced numerous authors. Many dramatic films have been adapted from and inspired by his works. Numerous writers and critics have commented that his fictional works, written largely in the first two decades of the 20th century, seem to have anticipated later world events.
Writing near the peak of the British Empire, Conrad drew on the national experiences of his native Poland—during nearly all his life, parceled out among three occupying empires—and on his own experiences in the French and British merchant navies, to create short stories and novels that reflect aspects of a European-dominated world—including imperialism and colonialism—and that profoundly explore the human psyche.

Reviews

[Shane Ver Meer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think the Critical Edition ™️ was worth the extra engagement, although given that the work is pretty short, you'll spend three times as long just reading criticism and commentary (and a slew of letters penned by Conrad). 4 out of 5 ill-gained ivory hordes.

[Brian Willis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don't let the dense verbal foliage fool you: deep under the thorny entanglements of Conrad's prose, his second language (!) facilitated here better than native writers, there lies a deep dark truth about human nature that chills the soul with horror.

Marlow is our narrator. He reveals that (at the height of imperialism) he is being sent as an emissary from a Belgian company to determine what happened to his predecessor Kurtz, a highly respected and accomplished officer who has either gone missing or purposely disappeared in the depths of the Congo in the middle of Africa. Through four sections of this novella, Marlow literally enters into the heart of the African continent, passing a couple of outposts where he receives disconcerting news about the possibilities of Kurtz, and a few hostile "welcomes" along the way. One of the highlights of literature is the climax of the story, when he finally encounters Kurtz and learns the truth of his expedition and the establishment of his own "colony".

A highlight of modernism, Conrad's story is a belwether for the concerns of the twentieth century. Written 15 years before the outbreak of World War I, it somehow anticipates several of the causations of that massive conflagration. Kurtz is one of the great characters in Modernism (notice his ambiguously international name), and when he begins to speak, we like Marlow can't help but listen. If Marlow represents us, then his blind spots are ours as well; racial stereotyping is present as is that naive innocence of the consequences of a "righteous cause" emblematized by the flag of our nation or our company. Is that "heart of darkness" deep within the Congo, or is it merely a reflection of the darkness within our own souls?

Conrad's classic continues to be required reading, but don't let that or the dense prose style fool you. Conrad was one of the first to turn his imperialist gaze outside his own boundaries (perhaps because of his status as an outsider within the British culture as a Polish immigrant) and to see the darker side of self righteous expansionism and profiteering disguised as some kind of missionary work to spread enlightenment through commercial enterprise. In the end, we are only left with the horror of the consequences of our deeds and the horrific truth that we have become distorted from our original intents - if they were even truly pure to begin with and not self deception all along.

An essential in all of literature. Chills at midnight type stuff.