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davefilkins's review against another edition
4.0
Terribly dark, heavy material, and the author knows it, but this is WAY too good to pass up. Quite different than Apocalypse Now, despite what many reviewers seem to claim, but I love the novella and the film for their own unique reasons.
cinhein's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
rashidmalik's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
emotional_bedding's review against another edition
Marlow speaks and thinks too much
ldomo's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
haxpress's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
dyno8426's review against another edition
4.0
While the story justifies the title with its journey of the central character, Mr. Marlow, a member of the English Company, through the forests of untamed central Africa and up the Congo river (during the colonial era of the British), literally into the darkness of civilisation and human contact, it has much more symbolism in it as one reads on. Because at the "heart of darkness", in the inner hostile reaches of unconquered land and far from the grasp of human civilisation, lies the treasure of unharnessed ivory and a certain Mr. Kurtz, another Company official whose control and profitability over these treasures is unparalleled. Mr. Marlow's business becomes a pursuit for this enigmatic and revered persona, until he starts realising another darkness which is at the heart of humans. Living in a country whose history and people have been tormented by colonial powers, the horrors of the brutality and the costs of fulfilment of an accumulated and organised human desire is very much known to us. The author presents some really terrifying images of the darkness outside in those forests (in the form of absence of the enlightening judgement and conscience of civilisation) penetrating the hearts of people like Mr. Kurtz, who go to extremities of power and purpose. It then goes on to becoming a comment on the ruthlessness of colonisation and the facade of civilisation and humanitarian duty that such colonies justified to the "underdeveloped". As Mr. Marlow sees into the recesses of the foreign and the native people around him, he acquires a realisation of the dormant, darker side of human nature which makes us afraid of each other; and in that way connects us with each other universally, even in absence of something as fundamental as language. This story is told with that biblical framework of the temptation of knowledge poisoning the purity of human mind, and carries the same haunting and allegorical narration of a regretful sailor (Mr. Marlow) looking back through the horrors that he has been through as in Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, which has an underlying observation of the corruption of human spirit.
tomasthanes's review against another edition
3.0
Conrad certainly had a way with words, however, in the end, it is still a sad, dark, lonely, and purposeless: the universe of a man who denies the only source of meaning and morals.