Product Description

Heart of Darkness has been considered for most of this century as a literary classic, and also as a powerful indictment of the evils of imperialism. It reflects the savage repressions carried out in the Congo by the Belgians in one of the largest acts of genocide committed up to that time. Conrad's narrator encounters at the end of the story a man named Kurtz, dying, insane, and guilty of unspeakable atrocities. First appearing as a three-part series in Blackwood's Magazine in 1899, it was soon after published as a novella, in 1902 in the volume Youth: A Narrative; and Two Other Stories.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12970 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

About the Author
Joseph Conrad was born in the Ukraine in 1857 and grew up under Tsarist autocracy. In 1874 Conrad travelled to Marseilles, where he served in French merchant vessels before joining a British ship in 1878 as an apprentice. In 1886 he obtained British nationality. Eight years later he left the sea to devote himself to writing, publishing his first novel, Almayer's Folly, in 1895. The following year he settled in Kent, where he produced within fifteen years such modern classics as Youth, Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, Typhoon, Nostromo, The Secret Agent and Under Western Eyes. He continued to write until his death in 1924.

Customer Reviews

Dense and difficult, ultimately rewarding.
I'm sure many readers will, like me, find this a difficult read, the prose almost as dense and impenetrable as the jungle that Marlowe travels down in order to find his truth. Still, having only read it through once, I did get enough out of it to believe that further study will reveal some profound light in the heart of darkness. At only 100 odd pages, it does seem to have been designed by the author to be returned to again and again, small enough to swallow, but needing longer to fully digest.

Some passages are genuinely quite unnerving, with a sense successfully conveyed of a man who has cut away the veneer of civilisation, looked into the soul of humanity, and seen something truly disturbing. In short, this book is about nihilism, about the flimsy and shifting world of language that alone seperates humanity from the other animals (but only in a delusory sense). The power of Kurtz is almost wholly cast by his words, a potency maintained even whilst barely existing as a decaying, dying body. The story juxtaposes the power of language, through the dense tale spun by Marlowe of the mythical but ultimately physically insubstantial Kurtz, with the raw natural savagery of the African jungle and its muscular and visceral inhabitants. Language is what seperates the human from the animal, but in the heart of darkness, language, and through it civilisation, is revealed to be a false god created ultimately to serve animal passions.

Moreover, the novel contains the message that when man tries to shed his 'civilising' light on those judged to be savages, he merely succeeds in laying bare the moral emptiness of his own soul. Something to think about and to fruitfully connect with the war in Iraq, just as others did with Vietnam.

A Genuine Classic.
Right from the opening paragraph it is obvious that this book is going to be special. Conrad's Russian background gives his use of language a robust economical style, and he often conjures powerful vivid images in two or three words. The world around the character, in particular the jungle, seems to be more than just a backdrop. People enter the jungle and are swallowed up as if it is a living malignant force, but as you progress you realise that it is the Europeans who are the real source of darkness. Conrad's style of writing has real impact on the surface, but it is only when you delve deeper than the surface that you realise what Conrad is really writing about. I would go as far as saying that this is a must read for anyone interested in literature. Few writers ever attain such skill with the English language and it was not even Conrad's first language.

one of the greatest masterpieces of literature
an illuminating, profound, tragic trip at the heart of human nature. it is a book to be read and pondered. it is not easy reading (though it can grip your attention from beginning to end and you can read it a single afternoon) but it is highly rewarding reading.