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Columbia Critical Guides
Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness
Spanning an impressive range of interpretations, the critical works in this collection analyze the complex narrative technique of "Heart Of Darkness" while exploring its evocation of myth, philosophy, and politics, its attitudes to empire, its images of Africa, and its representations of women. Examining secondary sources from the 1900s to the 1990s, this "Guide" is an indispensable resource for the study of one of Conrad's most potent works.
192 pages, Paperback
First published March 15, 1902
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews
April 22, 2008
Brilliant book. Lean. Spare. Right down at it. He uses a trip, up river, to discover mankind, or at least, one way men can be. It builds and builds and moves and moves. I suppose some would say this is a "man's" book, but I disagree. We all take that trip upriver,sometimes, and sometimes we see things about ourselves we don't like and recognize as such. Why are we here? To own. To conquer. To make oneself king of the heap. Lord of the lowlands. It's a consumate work of art. And it's narrative is it's art. One can make of this story what one will. That's the best art. Where it transcends even its creator. It is a special thing that lets one neatly slide a corner of reality into it, and it's illuminated by the art. And it is good art when each person who sees and experiences it has his or her own special "take" on it... what it represents. So, read Heart of Darkness, and you tell me.... what is this strange trip, this quest up-river... and duck!!!! that was an arrow that just missed your heart.
January 30, 2019
A very informative survey of critical essays on Heart of Darkness, from the time of publication until today. Because I didn't know quite what I felt about Heart of Darkness when I read it, I enjoyed the many points of view about the novel that this book contained.
June 14, 2014
I listened to this book on audio from discs I got at the library. The first thing I should admit is that I didn't follow the story very well. In fact, I would have a hard time repeating all of the most important aspects of the story. I followed the story so poorly that I hesitated to even write a review. Then I realized that that was actually a reason to write one. I have never had this problem before. Allow me to explain.
I listen to audio books on my drive to and from work. As happens from time to time the road demands all of my attention and I miss a passage. I usually rewind it a bit and re-listen in case I missed something important. In this case, I listened to the entire first disc over and I simply had a great deal of trouble following the book while driving. Consider heading in to work in the morning and listening to music. You would have no problem singing along with the song and following the tune without incident. Now imagine listening to a lesson in algebra this way. You might learn algegra. You might even be great at algebra, but do you really want to learn it that way?
That said, I will review the parts I did get and explain why I didn't follow.
On a scale of one to ten most books pros are in the seven to eight range while the cons reside in the three or four range. This book pegged out the meter. Cons hit the ones regularly and pros, the ten. And strangely, many of the pros ARE the cons. One of the pros is that the writer has an amazing turn of phrase. Descriptions run long and deep and do not bore, yet at the same time, the books matter seems to be composed almost entirely of these descriptions. The actual story could be told in just a few paragraphs really. It is a short book with only four discs. Because the book was written around the turn of the century (the 20th century, not the 21st century), the English is just different. It's difficult for me to explain. It's not hard to follow, in the way Shakespeare might be for some, but still demands a similar attention. The recording of the book is tinny. From the first word to the last I very much got the impression that I was actually listening to a 1920's broadcast over the radio. Again, this was good and bad. It made me feel like I was IN the era it was written, but at the same time it made me feel like the quality was too poor to catch all of the nuances. I wanted to turn the bass up on my radio. The reader had a heavy English accent, which was a bit annoying at times. Yet again, this was necessary. I don't think anyone else could have read this book with as great an effect, because it was written at a time and in such a way that you might think the English could stop a hurricane if they wanted to. Could you image listening to that kind of colonial attitude read by an American? The combination of tinny audio and English narration really gave me the feeling I was on safari in the late 1800's. I loved that. At the same time, there was liberal use of the 'N' word. While I understood the book was written in a different time, my upbringing was such that it sent a small shock down my spine every time I heard it, which was often.
I'm not sure if I should recommend this book. I love science fiction and one of my favorite authors was Isaac Assimov. He was a classic author that was in no small part responsible for making science fiction popular: one of the founding fathers of science fiction. One of his great contributions to science fiction was the list of laws by which robots had to be designed. Violation of these laws was a common theme for his books. As dear as his is in my heart, I wouldn't actually recommend reading some of his robot books because decades later, they come across as common place. Oh boy another robot that comes across as more human than the people in the book. He was the first to write these books. They were ground breaking. But that almost doesn't matter, because they have been rehashed so many times, the ending is really no surprise. You'd really have to read them with a mind to see how the original was done and with the fore-knowledge that the ending won't be a surprise. This book is a little bit like that. You might want to read it to understand the flavor of Joseph Conrad, to familiarize yourself with him as an author, to educate yourself on the style of one of the classic authors but if you do, I highly recommend doing it in such a way as to allow yourself to concentrate on the content or you might come out not retaining what you just heard.
I listen to audio books on my drive to and from work. As happens from time to time the road demands all of my attention and I miss a passage. I usually rewind it a bit and re-listen in case I missed something important. In this case, I listened to the entire first disc over and I simply had a great deal of trouble following the book while driving. Consider heading in to work in the morning and listening to music. You would have no problem singing along with the song and following the tune without incident. Now imagine listening to a lesson in algebra this way. You might learn algegra. You might even be great at algebra, but do you really want to learn it that way?
That said, I will review the parts I did get and explain why I didn't follow.
On a scale of one to ten most books pros are in the seven to eight range while the cons reside in the three or four range. This book pegged out the meter. Cons hit the ones regularly and pros, the ten. And strangely, many of the pros ARE the cons. One of the pros is that the writer has an amazing turn of phrase. Descriptions run long and deep and do not bore, yet at the same time, the books matter seems to be composed almost entirely of these descriptions. The actual story could be told in just a few paragraphs really. It is a short book with only four discs. Because the book was written around the turn of the century (the 20th century, not the 21st century), the English is just different. It's difficult for me to explain. It's not hard to follow, in the way Shakespeare might be for some, but still demands a similar attention. The recording of the book is tinny. From the first word to the last I very much got the impression that I was actually listening to a 1920's broadcast over the radio. Again, this was good and bad. It made me feel like I was IN the era it was written, but at the same time it made me feel like the quality was too poor to catch all of the nuances. I wanted to turn the bass up on my radio. The reader had a heavy English accent, which was a bit annoying at times. Yet again, this was necessary. I don't think anyone else could have read this book with as great an effect, because it was written at a time and in such a way that you might think the English could stop a hurricane if they wanted to. Could you image listening to that kind of colonial attitude read by an American? The combination of tinny audio and English narration really gave me the feeling I was on safari in the late 1800's. I loved that. At the same time, there was liberal use of the 'N' word. While I understood the book was written in a different time, my upbringing was such that it sent a small shock down my spine every time I heard it, which was often.
I'm not sure if I should recommend this book. I love science fiction and one of my favorite authors was Isaac Assimov. He was a classic author that was in no small part responsible for making science fiction popular: one of the founding fathers of science fiction. One of his great contributions to science fiction was the list of laws by which robots had to be designed. Violation of these laws was a common theme for his books. As dear as his is in my heart, I wouldn't actually recommend reading some of his robot books because decades later, they come across as common place. Oh boy another robot that comes across as more human than the people in the book. He was the first to write these books. They were ground breaking. But that almost doesn't matter, because they have been rehashed so many times, the ending is really no surprise. You'd really have to read them with a mind to see how the original was done and with the fore-knowledge that the ending won't be a surprise. This book is a little bit like that. You might want to read it to understand the flavor of Joseph Conrad, to familiarize yourself with him as an author, to educate yourself on the style of one of the classic authors but if you do, I highly recommend doing it in such a way as to allow yourself to concentrate on the content or you might come out not retaining what you just heard.
November 24, 2008
Dear Joseph Conrad
This book was very confusing to read at first. It used a strong vocabulary that my class and I didn’t really understand until we looked up the words. The settings and plot didn’t make sense sometimes but after reading the pages repeatedly, it made sense. This short story had a lot of meaning once I got into it. I bet it was a challenge to think of the ending to this story. I can’t believe Marlow lied to Kurtz’s girlfriend! I understand why though since it wasn’t clear that Kurtz had a girlfriend until he got the picture. If I took the place of the girlfriend in the story, I wouldn’t want to know that my boyfriend’s last words were “the horror the horror”. Especially since Kurtz’s girlfriend was morning a year after his death. The points of insanity were very strong and caught a lot of interest. The themes to this story are tragedy, mystery, and adventure.
This book was very confusing to read at first. It used a strong vocabulary that my class and I didn’t really understand until we looked up the words. The settings and plot didn’t make sense sometimes but after reading the pages repeatedly, it made sense. This short story had a lot of meaning once I got into it. I bet it was a challenge to think of the ending to this story. I can’t believe Marlow lied to Kurtz’s girlfriend! I understand why though since it wasn’t clear that Kurtz had a girlfriend until he got the picture. If I took the place of the girlfriend in the story, I wouldn’t want to know that my boyfriend’s last words were “the horror the horror”. Especially since Kurtz’s girlfriend was morning a year after his death. The points of insanity were very strong and caught a lot of interest. The themes to this story are tragedy, mystery, and adventure.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 24, 2008
Reading this novella is a torment. Not only it is hard, its content also tortures readers. Marlow and Kurtz, they were similar. The only difference between Marlow and Kurtz was that the darkness failed to take over Marlow. Kurtz was a talented, eloquent, powerful man. These merits somehow was the origin of his fall. If, he was an idiot, he could never be able to use his advantages to control the inner land, the heart of darkness. It is dangerous for a man have too much power for too long, Kurtz holded his power for too long, that is why I think Marlow saw a tyrant, not the remarkable Kurtz people talk about. Kurtz was an interesting character.
November 25, 2008
This highly detailed novella was about a man named Marlow on his life changing hunt to find a missing man that became over- assimilated in the African culture and his crave/lust for ivory. His name was Mr. Kurtz. This book took place in the heart of Africa, which is the Heart of the Congo. This book was a bit over detailed and did not get its meaning across very well. The novella was unnecessarily extended without a twist, or climax. I do not reccomend this book to other scholars. I would rather learn about imperialism in Africa by reading a textbook.
November 26, 2008
The book Heart Of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is absoultley horrible. I hated this book. the reason why i didnt like this book was because 1st of all it was very difficult to read and 2nd it was just hard to get into. The character Marlow kept talking about insanity on and on and on and the person he was trying to find (Kurtz) was insane. This Congo that he went to turned people insane and it just seemed too unrealistic to me. i wouldnt reccomend this book to people who are looking for an easy read or a nice story about people falling in love because its far from that.
September 11, 2007
this book gives you that nice warm delicious feeling in your tummy IF you understand it. Its definitely one of the most dense books i've ever come across and no one should be forced to read it.
My advice is steer clear of the book and watch 'apocalypse now' instead. while it may be an awful movie it might keep you more entertained than a book which has you looking up the online synopsis every few minutes.
My advice is steer clear of the book and watch 'apocalypse now' instead. while it may be an awful movie it might keep you more entertained than a book which has you looking up the online synopsis every few minutes.
September 23, 2008
While I can honestly say that I enjoy Heart of Darkness, it's definitely dense reading material. Conrad's style doesn't especially suit to my tastes, and I feel that the realm of the nature of humanity was more brilliantly executed in the Lord of the Flies. Or, for the matter, I think Moby Dick (cliche, but still true,) covers it best. I've met so many people who list this book as one of their major defining influences, but I really can't wrap my head around the writing style.
December 5, 2017
I think that people who were confused by "Heart of Darkness" probably didn't read "Youth" beforehand. "Youth" is almost like a preface for "Heart," and I would imagine that it would be hard to contextualize without the earlier work.
That said, I found "Heart" to be a little hard to get through. Maybe it's a style issue, but it seemed like we were never supposed to connect with the narrator or his quest. I may give it another try in ten years or so, and see if the problem is with me...
That said, I found "Heart" to be a little hard to get through. Maybe it's a style issue, but it seemed like we were never supposed to connect with the narrator or his quest. I may give it another try in ten years or so, and see if the problem is with me...
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January 12, 2015I was a bit disappointed with Heart of Darkness. I had heard only good reviews about it, but the fact that the entire novella was told through Marlow's dialogue was off-putting for me and made it harder for me to understand what was going on. The messages were good, but the execution made it hard to get through. It was, however, a good example of a story that wasn't particularly for or against African Colonialism, but instead mostly just told details.
February 26, 2008
I learned that sometimes even somewhat interesting stories can get boring if they go on too long with nothing happening.
This book started out ok, but I could hardly finish it. If it had not been assigned reading I don't think I would have finished it. It just kept going ON and ON and ON without anything new or interesting happening.
Thumbs down! Not a good read.
This book started out ok, but I could hardly finish it. If it had not been assigned reading I don't think I would have finished it. It just kept going ON and ON and ON without anything new or interesting happening.
Thumbs down! Not a good read.
December 17, 2008
To be honest, I find this book pretty enjoyable but at the same time I feel as,"wow its boring."However, I did learn things concerning to real life and how things like that occurs.Infact,one of thos thing I have learned from this book would be,"never let drakness consume you even when you think you have control over your life.You got to see things from different perspectives."
May 14, 2009
Yes, I realize I've only given this two stars, and I hate doing that to books that are deemed "classics" because I wonder if I've missed something...But I can't bring myself to reread Heart of Darkness and find out! The first reading of Heart of Darkness was a chore, and there are too many books out there that I actually WANT to read. Sorry, Conrad.
November 15, 2007
I had expected more from this book. It was much shorter than I would have hoped for and not a lot really happened. Having said that, enough happened to make it provocative and deep meaning. This book is proof that a book doesn't need to be long to be good.
April 10, 2008
I remember hating reading this book in AP English (aka, AP Scrapbooking) senior year of HS. BUT, it was amazing when I went to South Africa, I was drawing some odd parallels between what Conrad writes and the situation the South African economy was in...brick layers with no bricks...
April 21, 2008
I read a different edition, don't see it listed here.
This was for an advanced writing class, so I read it at least three times during that semester. Each time I read it, my respect and admiration grew for the story and Conrad's gift.
This was for an advanced writing class, so I read it at least three times during that semester. Each time I read it, my respect and admiration grew for the story and Conrad's gift.
April 24, 2008
Full marks for concept and atmosphere! There's a great character study here, and some chilling scenes right out of the Necronomicon, but still and all I found the actual narrative a bit slow and tedious.
May 27, 2008
This book was very challenging. I totally don't understand what this book meant. The text was way too complicated for me to understand. At one point, he's talking about alligators and then he talks about this boat. What's going on?? O_O
September 22, 2008
Interesting and provocative. Gives you a different idea of what colonialism was like. Also, this was referenced for a Seinfeld episode, and the inspiration behind Apocolypse Now, so worth reading the 90 or so pages to log in an often-alluded-to classic.
November 19, 2008
I tried to get into this book but just couldn't get past page 5. I know that's pathetic but there are so many other books I am dying to read I couldn't see reading a book I didn't really care about. Maybe someday I'll go back to it. It's awfully short. Surely I can get through it.
January 13, 2009
I did not enjoy the book Heart of Darkness. To me it was boring and not interesting. I would only reccomend this book if you have high reading level or you just like reading books. I would never like to read this book again, it was a waste of time.
January 22, 2009
didnt really like this one too much. the horror, the horror. pretty deep though. i think i was too young and skimmy of pages to understand its depth. may have to go back to this one. buuuut probablly not.
June 1, 2009
Okay, this sounds like a really nerdy book to read "for pleasure", but I re-read it (read it first years ago at UofT) because my son had to read it in order to pass grade 12. I decided that I'd read it at the same time so I could "discuss" it with him.
(And he passed!)
(And he passed!)
July 11, 2009
not the lightest summer reading (everything is dark and brooding and darkness) but it's referenced in the movie 'Up' that I saw this summer so I thought I'd check it out from the library. A short and good read.
December 26, 2013
I don't know about this. I enjoyed bits of it, but found myself getting lost at points and I didn't quite get the point of it...I think I'll give Joseph Conrad another go in the near future, but for now, it wasn't that incredible.
March 25, 2007
Probably one of the most dense books I've ever read in my life.
September 24, 2007
I bought this book after finding out that Apocalypse Now was based on it and I wanted to check it out to find the similarities and differences. Its a short book but it is great.
January 31, 2008
opening paragraph captures the essence of a particular feeling better than almost anything.
January 31, 2008
I really enjoyed this book and I know many don't. It is a dark book, but it is speaking of a dark part of a dark parctice. Conrad makes wonderful use of the framing literary technique.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews