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A review by kafkay
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
2.0
Ok so, strange book. This is about a sailor, Marlow, who goes into the Congo River to retrieve Mr. Kurtz, a fabled, mysterious and brilliant man.
I did like the vision Conrad had with this. Witnessing the untamed African wilderness and what it does to people, and seeing the utter disparity and difference that existed between humans. The word ivory was a phantom that floated everywhere and controlled everything. Mr. Kurtz was a greater phantom that kept people afraid, yet yearning to see him.
I even liked the writing. The story begins with “This has also been one of the dark places.” Some of Marlow’s ramblings were interesting. But in the end this was just bad.
The story structure was all over the place. The narrative was inconsistent. The story felt loose, like pieces put together without care for the right thing to focus on, or to let the story breath a bit. It was a short book, but still I struggled to get through it. The journey through the river was basically non-existent. I have no knowledge of the functioning of a European export company in Africa in the 1800’s, nor of working a steamboat, so I was lost on a lot of things. There was a single significant physical incident, other than that it was all a distant dreamlike series of events with no attempt to make it readable or interesting. I genuinely want to stress how absent the story was, it’s like there was no story at all. There were just thoughts, and concepts of people instead of real people. We saw how impressive Mr. Kurtz was, but never really got to know it. The dreamlike approach is just an excuse if the story ends up being bad.
It felt lazy, like the author had a vision and wrote it without trying to make it a compelling story. It annoys so much. And of course there are the racist and sexist problems. This was just bad, and the fact that it tries to seem like more than it is so that you feel like you are missing out on something makes it even worse.
I did like the vision Conrad had with this. Witnessing the untamed African wilderness and what it does to people, and seeing the utter disparity and difference that existed between humans. The word ivory was a phantom that floated everywhere and controlled everything. Mr. Kurtz was a greater phantom that kept people afraid, yet yearning to see him.
I even liked the writing. The story begins with “This has also been one of the dark places.” Some of Marlow’s ramblings were interesting. But in the end this was just bad.
The story structure was all over the place. The narrative was inconsistent. The story felt loose, like pieces put together without care for the right thing to focus on, or to let the story breath a bit. It was a short book, but still I struggled to get through it. The journey through the river was basically non-existent. I have no knowledge of the functioning of a European export company in Africa in the 1800’s, nor of working a steamboat, so I was lost on a lot of things. There was a single significant physical incident, other than that it was all a distant dreamlike series of events with no attempt to make it readable or interesting. I genuinely want to stress how absent the story was, it’s like there was no story at all. There were just thoughts, and concepts of people instead of real people. We saw how impressive Mr. Kurtz was, but never really got to know it. The dreamlike approach is just an excuse if the story ends up being bad.
It felt lazy, like the author had a vision and wrote it without trying to make it a compelling story. It annoys so much. And of course there are the racist and sexist problems. This was just bad, and the fact that it tries to seem like more than it is so that you feel like you are missing out on something makes it even worse.