Reviews with content warning for Violence - Heart of Darkness

This is really fascinatingly written; a very evocative portrayal of a man journeying both into the barbarity of his own culture and the psychological darkness of his on mind. The elliptic narration that grows more and more unsure of its own truthfulness is genuinely frightening and unsettling and had me at the edge of my seat. What does of course not work anymore is the use of local Congolese (for lack of a better discriptor) cultures as a "prehistoric mirror" the "savagery" of which reveals the darkness also lurking within European culture, I don't need to tell anyone that this is racist. But it's also a story with a distinctly anti-colonialist position, depicting and denouncing the mindless hypocrotical violence inflicted onto Africans under Colonialism, published in a mostly pro-Colonialism magazine, no less. So I think this is an interesting study in how anti-colonialist writing in Europe developed and how racist rhetoric was still very much a part of that, which we can use to reflect on our current political rhetoric, especially progressive ones which are nonetheless undoubtedly still marked by racist bias. I would recommend this both for quality of writing and relevance to contemporary discourse.

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jemappellecat's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

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jasminawithab's review against another edition

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challenging slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

2.0

read for a uni class and it was okay

i hated pretty much every character but i got a 100 on my essay for it so thats something i guess

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scorpi07's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

2.0

I listened to this one to fulfill the prompt: A book I should have read in high school.
I’m not sure why they were teaching this in high school. I guess the storytelling style (a narrator retelling Marlow’s narration) is interesting and the prose itself is well written and artfully packed with metaphors. However, with all of the options out there, this is a poor book choice to critique colonialism, or to suggest imperialism is bad. Marlow is racist and doesn’t grow much, and the objectification of black people is pervasive throughout the book. Gross.

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mrx99's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

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maricasement's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.25

I picked this audiobook up because it was one of the shortest one in my Mother's library. Kenneth Branagh is amazing, as is to be expected, but the contents weren't as enjoyable as his performance. Conrad's descriptions are captivating and definitely set the scene for the story, which was something I really enjoyed. But this book is still a product of it's time and uses a lot of racist language and is very colonialist in its messages. It might be an interesting study, but I wouldn't read it again or particularly recommend it to people.

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librarymouse's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

I don't know if I want to rate this. I'm reading it for a class. There's some interesting parts to it, and a lot to write about, but it would be a stretch to say that this is an enjoyable book. I'm glad I'm reading it in grad school, rather than in highschool like a lot of my peers were required to.

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