Heart of Darkness: Final Thoughts

This was my first Conrad book and i can't say that i enjoyed it very much. Although i really liked the tone of the book (quite modern for 1902 i thought), i didn't find the narrative very engaging. The destructive, intrusive nature of imperialism is well demonstrated...BUT...is it me or was everyone's obession with Kurtz a bit overblown?

Let me ask you this: did you find the heart of darkness and if so where?

I thought the "heart of darkness" was more evident in the other people employed by the company than it was in Kurtz. Kurtz assimilated himself, however brutally, with the indigenous people while the others showed no such interest...only greed. Yes, Kurtz was also motivated by power/money but his methods sought to involve himself more with the local culture.... not that i approved of course!

When I read The Heart of Darkness, and that's actually pretty often, I'm a fan of Marlowe's story telling in general, I see the heart of darkness in the woman knitting in the Whited Sepulchre, the offices of the company by whom our protagonist was employed, all ship shape and Bristol fashion, decks cleared for making money, clean, organized, knitting the fate of the Belgian Congo. I see it in the trip back in time (an unnatural act, time flows only in one direction, toward the future)/up the river, and I see it in conflict within the human heart. As you say the intrusive nature of imperialism is well demonstrated, but that imperialism is not just intrusive but destructive in a soul crushing way. Crushing the souls of the imperialists, as well as the captive native population. Kurtz refused to yield his soul to the clash of cultures in which he found himself an actor. We might think of Kurtz as tragic, but he might think of himself as the honorable man in a dishonored world. Many people who go native do so because they find the local culture is superior for the time and place than any imported culture. There's no reason to disapprove of Kurtz, just try to understand him.

Coincidentally, I've been reading HoD, on my cellular phone at odd times. Strange, isn't it? And slow-going. I've been logging my favorite quotes into common knowledge. One bit that is not as amenable to quoting is when a hut goes up in flames and an agent comes running down to the river with a bucket and departs with it a only a quarter full AND, Marlow notes, there is a hole in the bucket. So many situations are illuminated in that set piece.

Anyhow, this is another of the growing list of books I have really enjoyed as an adult but was nonplussed by as a teen given a reading assignment.

I see shadows in my own heart at times.

I found Heart Of Darkness to be an interesting study
from a psychological perspective and I would have enjoyed using it as a text in
a psychology course to spur discussion around the complex and partially
mysterious central figure-- most are so "text book". But I can't say that it
lived up to expectations in the literary sense. It was a slow read and I
couldn't get really into it.

I agree with you technodiabla... I found the writing very dense and difficult to weed through. The fact that my mind is being forced into Christmas (why must the folly begin now?) did not help. I did often think about geneg's question though... where is the heart of darkness? It seems to be everywhere, but I agree mostly in the distant British complacency in a well-furnished living room. I felt Marlow was sucked in as well. He was witness to all that happened but did not say anything, covering a reality that he could not describe and enforcing misconceptions.
I'll have to have another crack at it, I think.

This is late, because I read it late, but I have exactly the same response I had it when I read it in late adolescence. I can see the beauty of the words, but I can't get past the racism. I can't see making a group or human beings a symbol of human "dark side". The best the Africans get from Marlow is an extremely patronizing approval of the - if I may put it this way - "good niggers." Some of the Europeans, as well, are symbolic of the "dark side", but as best I can see, that is only because they weren't going about the theft, exploitation, and subjugation in the big, heroic way that Kurtz was. I am amazed that this book is still taught in high schools - surely there are plenty of other well-written books that don't carry this weight of outdated prejudice.

Just checked in to see what you all have been reading. I've read--well, been forced to read--Heart of Darkness at least three times. You'd have to threaten my life to get me to read it again . . .

#9 - Deborah . . . I'll be walking the plank along with you . . . although I can appreciate why it is thought of highly, I am not a fan of HoD. I had to read it twice in uni, and the second time was soooo much longer than the first. Which was already too long. How can 60-something pages feel like 600?

There is unique density to Conrad's prose, I'm glad it wasn't just me. But interesting nonetheless, making 60 somehow feel like 600...

I am a little surprised at the comments on Conrad's prose. I think it glides along quite nicely.

It's not the density . . . it's just a BORING novel.

>13 Cariola:
Ha!

I've been meaning to read Nostromo for a long time, but am worried about getting bogged down...

Beware, I liked Nostromo quite a bit. It does sag a bit now and then.

Seems like The Wages of Fear/Sorcerer, or maybe I'm just hoping it is...

*couldn't help to include this, such a breathtaking scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as7AcALNTvI