Play Book Tag discussion

Heart of Darkness
by Joseph Conrad
3 stars

Wow! What a dense read! Heart of Darkness may be one of the most difficult books I've ever read.

The story takes place in the year 1890, during the colonization of the Congo by Belgium. Conrad was so horrified by the greed and brutality among white men he witnessed that his view of human nature was permanently changed.

*************************Spoiler Alert*****************************

Heart of Darkness is one of the most damning indictments of imperialism in all literature, but its author considered himself
an ardent imperialist where Britain was concerned. Conrad fully recognized Leopold's rape of the Congo for what it was: "The horror! The horror! " his character Kurtz said on his deathbed.

Marlow, the narrator of Heart of Darkness and Conrad's alter ego, is hired by an ivory-trading company to sail a steamboat up an unnamed river. His destination is a post where the company's brilliant star agent, Mr. Kurtz, is stationed. Kurtz has collected legendary quantities of ivory, but, Marlow learns along the way, is also rumored to have sunk into unspecified savagery. We remember Marlow, on the steamboat. looking through binoculars at what he thinks are ornamental knobs atop the fenceposts in front of Kurtz's house-and then finding that each is "black, dried, sunken, with closed eyelids-a head that seemed to sleep at the top of that pole.

At 188 pages, Heart of Darkness zeros in on a tightly packed plot, and detailed character development while delving into the horror and atrocities of colonizing of Africa during the 1890's.

I gave it three stars.

Good review. I have been meaning to reread this - even have the book in the stack by my bed - your review encourages me to get to it. We are not doing some of the things that Marlow describes but Vietnam, Afganistian, Haiti -- our race relations here in the US. Thanks for a good review and for reminding me of the book. I need to read it. peace, janz