Heart of Darkness

Summary

Dark allegory describes the narrator’s journey up the Congo River and his meeting with, and fascination by, Mr. Kurtz, a mysterious personage who dominates the unruly inhabitants of the region. Masterly blend of adventure, character development, psychological penetration. Considered by many Conrad’s finest, most enigmatic story.

Stefan Zweig, Chess Story (New York  Review Books, New York, 1976 - 2006) Translated by Joel Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1990 - First published in London, England in 1902) -  80 pages.

Personal Opinion

An interesting read full of symbolism and metaphors. A hard to follow story of a dark (weird) adventure to Africa that depicts not only the maltreatment of natives, but the worst of human nature (greed, hate, thirst for power, violence, etc. etc.), and the price we pay for our own follies: insanity and desolation. A somber story , intense, full of hopeless longing and despair. Described as being written in beautiful prose by others, I found it depressing, dense and soporific, with some glimmers of wonder. Glad it was short, definitely not sweet.

Sample quotes:

"—A white patch for a boy to dream gloriously over. It had become a place of darkness."
"The fact is I was completely unnerved by a sheer blank fright, pure abstract terror, unconnected with any distinct shape of physical danger."

"Kurtz's life was running swiftly, too, ebbing, ebbing out of his heart into the sea of inexorable time."

http://shmoop.com/video/heart-of-darkness-summary/

My score (1-5):

   

About the Author:

Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) is regarded as one of the greatest novelists in English. He was granted British nationality in 1886, but always considered himself a Pole. Though he did not speak English fluently until he was in his twenties (and always with a marked accent), he was a master prose stylist who brought a distinctly non-English sensibility into English literature. He wrote stories and novels, many with a nautical setting, that depict trials of the human spirit in the midst of an impassive, inscrutable universe.

Joseph Conrad is considered an early modernist, though his works still contain elements of nineteenth-century realism. His narrative style and anti-heroic characters have influenced many authors, including T.S. Eliot, William Faulkner, Graham Greene, and more recently Salman Rushdie.Many films have been adapted from, or inspired by, Conrad's works.

Writing in the heyday of the British Empire, Conrad drew on his native Poland's national experiences and on his personal experiences in the French and British merchant navies to create short stories and novels that reflect aspects of a European-dominated world, while profoundly exploring human psychology. Appreciated early on by literary critics, his fiction and nonfiction have since been seen as almost prophetic, in the light of subsequent national and international disasters of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Source: Wikipedia