Customer Reviews

Heart of Darkness and The Secret Sharer (Bantam Classics)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It should be noted immediately that "Heart of Darkness" is not an action packed morality tale like its cinematic cousin "Apocalypse Now", but an excursion into literary techniques such as symbolism and metaphor. As a result, many high school students and English under-grads are put to task to decode Conrad's frequently splendid, but occasionally arcane, use of English. Even if you are like me, (i.e. not a big fan of heavy symbolism, who prefers more literal writing) you will still enjoy this book with a little work.

Heart of Darkness takes place sometime around the turn of the 19th Century. The story is narrated by a worldly and morally ambiguous seafarer named Marlow. Marlow tells us, in great detail, about a voyage he took up the Congo River and his observations and tribulations thereof.

*Some Spoilers Follow*

A main theme to think about is Conrad's repeated thrashing of 19th Century Imperial Colonialism. There are numerous references throughout the book, including the title, of the moral ambiguity, discovery, and tension between "civilized" nations and "primitive" ones and, more importantly, applying this idea allegorically to an individual's internal struggle with his/her own individuality and moral compass.

On the negative side, this book is often over-analyzed to incomprehensibility as eager students and teachers find dubious meanings in admittedly confusing areas. I tend to chalk this up to unfortunate paragraph structure and disappointing anticlimaxes such as Marlow's visits with Kurtz.

Regardless, Conrad wrote a fine tale with historical relevance and personal insight. The trip up the river is especially brilliant. However, do not expect an action packed tale of heroes and villains, but rather think about what the "Heart of Darkness" means.

4/5

Joseph Conrad created a small masterpiece with the writing of Heart of Darkness (along with the near-miss of masterpiece status of the Secret Sharer, included in this volume) that still reverberates as an examination of the human pysche. Kurtz is a powerful creation that lasts because he is both so frighteningly unreal as he grows in Marlow's imagination but, in the end, too devastingly real as a product of the horrors around him. The territory surrounding the Congo river was truly as horrible as anything brought forth in this novel and reading Adam Hochschild's history, King Leopold's Ghost, along with this book by Joseph Conrad will give the reader a powerful view of the effects of colonization on the continent of Africa. A terrifying journey down the Congo that is important to take.

Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is a classic of British literature. Although Conrad was born in Russia-controlled Poland and did not become fluent in English until he was 21 years old, he demonstrates a tremendous mastery of the English language. Like many of his stories, Heart of Darkness is based on one of Conrad's own adventures (when he captained a steamboat down the Congo River).

Heart of Darkness chronicles the adventures of Charlie Marlow, a sailor and wanderer whose adventures lead him into the Congo Free State (under the control of Belgium) during the height of African Imperialism. As Marlow progressed further and further into the Congo, he confronts the growing darkness of mankind. The novel is often mistakenly taught in schools as a great anti-Imperialism novel, but this is not quite accurate. Almost every aspect of Heart of Darkness is ambiguous. Although Conrad clearly criticizes the false claims of humanitarian motives in imperialism, he does not condemn the act of imperialism. It is not even clear whether Conrad considers the Africans to be human.

Despite all its ambiguities, the Heart of Darkness is an important novel. At the very least, it paints a stunning and painful portrait of the cruelty and inhumanity of imperialist activities. If Conrad is not condemning imperialism, which is likely the case, then the novel ably portrays the underlying racism (and sexism, incidentally) in European thought during the time period.

The Secret Sharer is a short-story included with some copies of Heart of Darkness. The story follows a ship captain who rescues someone from the waters and allows him to stay on his ship, hidden from the ships' crew. The man turns out to have been a sailor on another ship who killed a crew-member during a storm. The captain protects the killer and eventually allows him to escape. Like the Heart of Darkness, the Secret Sharer is an ambiguous tale open to myriad interpretations.

Conrad's writing style is, admittedly, difficult at times. Although both stories are short, it takes a considerable amount of time to finish each one. The Heart of Darkness is told almost entirely through narrative which, at times, can become confusing and force the reader to go back and re-read some of the previous passages. Some readers are turned off by Conrad's writing style, while others find it very appealing. Whether you find it challenging or not, however, it is important to read the Heart of Darkness. It is difficult to find a better portrait of the horrors of imperialism.

Well, indeed the novel gives the reader an immense feeling of darkness as he/she traverses through the short novel's odyssey. Upon finishing the story, one feels as though one's entire environment is surrounded in darkness. Looking outside at the sunny day, taking a walk, or giving help to charity are all futile attempts to escape the newly digested darkness the reader has swallowed. Conrad is a master of bringing out the dark side in everyone. Marlow knows he can never escape this darkness, yet he makes an impressive attempt through the relating of this narrative itself.
Marlow's account of the story is the first time anyone has heard of Kurtz' actual outcome/fate. Thus the narrative gives Marlow the chance to tell this story to a certain group on the Nellie. Since the group (more than 1 person) digests the truth via this narrative they can then in turn outweigh the lie Marlow told to 1 person--Kurtz' Intended. Such an outweighing helps to somewhat free Marlow from the burden he has carried since his prevarication. A must read.

In my estimation, Heart of Darkness is one of the greatest novels written in English. Conrad's language is what sells it for me. I ordered the Enriched Classics version of the novel for my class next term, and as I was reviewing the text, I came across a startling textual inaccuracy.

One of the crucial moments of the text is when Marlow discusses Kurtz's last words. He calls Kurtz's final gasp "an affirmation, a moral victory paid for by innumerable defeats, by abominable terrors, by abominable satisfactions." However, on page 173 of the Enriched edition of the novel, Marlow says that the words are "an affirmation, a moral victory paid for by innumerable satisfactions." I have checked the text of an old Signet Classics edition and a Norton Critical edition. They both contain the full line. Such a mistake makes me doubt the accuracy of the Enriched version of the text.

I hope I don't sound as though I'm nitpicking. The particular line that I have cited is one of the most important (and one of the most famous) of the novel, and I think its inaccuracy drastically changes the tone and meaning of the scene in which it appears.

I read this book for a graduate Humanities course. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, written in 1899 is a seminal work about the ills of colonialism, as well as a postmodern look at the subject of mankind. Conrad's book had a crucial influence on five important works of the twentieth century: J. G. Frazier's book The Golden Bough. Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual to Romance, T. S. Elliott's poem the Waste Land, Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces, and Francis Ford Coppolla's movie Apocalypse Now, screenplay by John Milius, was based on Conrad's book. Another interesting fact is that this work was read by Orson Welle's Mercury Theater Players on the radio and was to be his first movie. After doing some work on it he abandoned the project to do Citizen Kane! I would have loved to of seen what Welles could have done with this story. Conrad's story is so riveting in part, because he himself served as a riverboat captain. High school teachers and college professors who have discussed this book in thousands of classrooms over the years tend to do so in terms of Freud, Jung, and Nietzsche; of classical myth, Victorian innocence, and original sin; of postmodernism, postcolonialism, and poststructuralism.

Just a taste of the plot reels you in! Marlow, the narrator of Heart of Darkness and Conrad's alter ego, is hired by an ivory-trading company to sail a steamboat up an unnamed river whose shape on the map resembles "an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country and its tail lost in the depths of the land" (8). His destination is a post where the company's brilliant, ambitious star agent, Mr. Kurtz, is stationed. Kurtz has collected legendary quantities of ivory, but, Marlow learns along the way, is also rumored to have sunk into unspecified savagery. Marlow's steamer survives an attack by blacks and picks up a load of ivory and the ill Kurtz; Kurtz, talking of his grandiose plans, dies on board as they travel, downstream.

Sketched with only a few bold strokes, Kurtz's image has nonetheless remained in the memories of millions of readers: the lone white agent far up the great river, with his dreams of grandeur,his great store of precious ivory, and his fiefdom carved out of the African jungle. Perhaps more than anything, we remember Marlow, on the steamboat, looking through binoculars at what he thinks are ornamental knobs atop the fence posts in front of Kurtz's house and then finding that each is "black, dried, sunken, with closed eyelids-a head that seemed to sleep at the top of that pole, and with the shrunken dry lips showing a narrow white line of the teeth" (57).

I especially became interested in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness from the movie Apocalypse Now. There is a scene in the movie that shows Colonel Kurtz's nightstand in his cave. T. S. Elliott's poem the Waste Land is one of three books on the nightstand. The other two are Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual to Romance, and J. G. Frazier's book The Golden Bough. Anyone wanting to understand the movie Apocalypse Now, especially the character of Colonel Kurtz, and what Milius and Copolla are trying to tell their audience need to read these three books as well as Conrad's Heart of Darkness!

As a graduate student reading in philosophy and history I recommend this book for anyone interested in literature, myth, history, philosophy, religion and fans of Apocalypse Now.

Every day people have moral issues they have to grapple with. They may have witnessed an accident, but decided to keep it to themselves because of fear of getting involved. They might have gone to the store and seen someone steal, but ignored it. When this moral issue has to do with a murder, though the offense can not be taken lightly. This is what happens in Joseph Conrad's story "The Secret Sharer".

In the Secret Sharer, a young captain of a large ship quickly finds himself in a tight situation. A complete stranger finds his way upon his ship during the middle of the night. As the captain hears and listens to the stranger's story about how he killed someone in self-defense on another boat, he welcomes the stranger inside and hides him. In a way the captain often describes himself as being "a stranger on the ship," because the whole crew already knew each other and spent a lot of time together. The fact that the captain and the newcomer were both strangers brought them closer together. This new stranger was soon accepted into the captain's life as being a friend. The captain even hid him in his own personal living quarters. The fact that the captain was housing a known murderer caused a conflict in his life. He had to decide whether to turn the stranger in or persuade himself that it's morally correct to keep the secret hidden.

The "Secret Sharer" compares a lot with "Huckleberry Finn". In Huckleberry Fin and Secret Sharer at least one main character was hiding and not liked by "civilized society". Jim and Huck soon became friends just like the Captain and the Stranger. Throughout the Secret Sharer the young Captain was torn between duty to the ship and loyalty to his new friends. In Huckleberry Finn, Huck was torn between duty to society (harboring a slave was wrong) and his friendship with Jim. The Secret Sharer is a story which I think is definitely worth reading. I specifically like Joseph Conrad's style of writing, his attention to detail and strong story line. Everyone who reads this book can identify with the difficulty of making good decisions.

Well I have seen apocalypse now a few times and so I thought this would simple be a literary review of what I had seen...wrong! I found out that Francis Ford Copolla took alot of liberty with the script of his movie...because there are many, many differences between the movie and its origins.
First of all, if you are deciding whether or not to read 'The heart of darkness' then don't have any more doubts. It is undoubtedly a classic...If for no other reason then to gaze in wonder at Conrads unbelievable ability to describe anything. His descriptions are beautiful and fitting and truly make his books works of art. Also the story is a great one...If you don't know it is about a captain of a ship who takes his riverboat far into the interior of Africa to relieve an agent who has been in the woods way too long. But the story is not the reason this book is a classic. It attained that status by the way it looks at the darkness inside of each of us and what the results of courting that darkness can be. The deeper meaning behind this book is what endears it to the reader. And you will find yourself thinking about the book and its meaning long after you have closed the cover.

And this particular copy of the book is a good one to buy because you get two great stories for the price of one!

The secret sharer was a good short story that had many complex elements to it, while being a simple and fast read. Heart of Darkness is a very slow methodical read, which me be a purposeful thing. Though once in grossed in the story it is hard to put down. I do not advise trying to read this at night because it will put you to sleep.

I read this book for a graduate Humanities course. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, written in 1899 is a seminal work about the ills of colonialism, as well as a postmodern look at the subject of mankind. Conrad's book had a crucial influence on five important works of the twentieth century: J. G. Frazier's book The Golden Bough. Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual to Romance, T. S. Elliott's poem the Waste Land, Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces, and Francis Ford Coppolla's movie Apocalypse Now, screenplay by John Milius, was based on Conrad's book. Another interesting fact is that this work was read by Orson Welle's Mercury Theater Players on the radio and was to be his first movie. After doing some work on it he abandoned the project to do Citizen Kane! I would have loved to of seen what Welles could have done with this story. Conrad's story is so riveting in part, because he himself served as a riverboat captain. High school teachers and college professors who have discussed this book in thousands of classrooms over the years tend to do so in terms of Freud, Jung, and Nietzsche; of classical myth, Victorian innocence, and original sin; of postmodernism, postcolonialism, and poststructuralism.

Just a taste of the plot reels you in! Marlow, the narrator of Heart of Darkness and Conrad's alter ego, is hired by an ivory-trading company to sail a steamboat up an unnamed river whose shape on the map resembles "an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country and its tail lost in the depths of the land" (8). His destination is a post where the company's brilliant, ambitious star agent, Mr. Kurtz, is stationed. Kurtz has collected legendary quantities of ivory, but, Marlow learns along the way, is also rumored to have sunk into unspecified savagery. Marlow's steamer survives an attack by blacks and picks up a load of ivory and the ill Kurtz; Kurtz, talking of his grandiose plans, dies on board as they travel, downstream.

Sketched with only a few bold strokes, Kurtz's image has nonetheless remained in the memories of millions of readers: the lone white agent far up the great river, with his dreams of grandeur,his great store of precious ivory, and his fiefdom carved out of the African jungle. Perhaps more than anything, we remember Marlow, on the steamboat, looking through binoculars at what he thinks are ornamental knobs atop the fence posts in front of Kurtz's house and then finding that each is "black, dried, sunken, with closed eyelids-a head that seemed to sleep at the top of that pole, and with the shrunken dry lips showing a narrow white line of the teeth" (57).

I especially became interested in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness from the movie Apocalypse Now. There is a scene in the movie that shows Colonel Kurtz's nightstand in his cave. T. S. Elliott's poem the Waste Land is one of three books on the nightstand. The other two are Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual to Romance, and J. G. Frazier's book The Golden Bough. Anyone wanting to understand the movie Apocalypse Now, especially the character of Colonel Kurtz, and what Milius and Copolla are trying to tell their audience need to read these three books as well as Conrad's Heart of Darkness!

As a graduate student reading in philosophy and history I recommend this book for anyone interested in literature, myth, history, philosophy, religion and fans of Apocalypse Now.