Heart of darkness download free

That was evident in such things as the deplorable state of the station. He had no learning, and no intelligence. His position had come to him—why? Perhaps because he was never ill He had served three terms of three years out there Because triumphant health in the general rout of constitutions is a kind of power in itself.

When he went home on leave he rioted on a large scale—pompously. Jack ashore—with a difference—in externals only. This one could gather from his casual talk. But he was great. He was great by this little thing that it was impossible to tell what could control such a man.

He never gave that secret away. Perhaps there was nothing within him. Such a suspicion made one pause—for out there there were no external checks. You fancied you had seen things—but the seal was on. When annoyed at meal-times by the constant quarrels of the white men about precedence, he ordered an immense round table to be made, for which a special house had to be built.

Where he sat was the first place—the rest were nowhere. One felt this to be his unalterable conviction. He was neither civil nor uncivil. He was quiet. I had been very long on the road. He could not wait. Had to start without me. The up-river stations had to be relieved. There had been so many delays already that he did not know who was dead and who was alive, and how they got on—and so on, and so on. Kurtz, was ill. Hoped it was not true. Kurtz was I felt weary and irritable.

Hang Kurtz, I thought. I interrupted him by saying I had heard of Mr. Kurtz on the coast. Then he began again, assuring me Mr. Kurtz was the best agent he had, an exceptional man, of the greatest importance to the Company; therefore I could understand his anxiety. I interrupted him again. Being hungry, you know, and kept on my feet too. I was getting savage. That ought to do the affair.

He was a chattering idiot. In that way only it seemed to me I could keep my hold on the redeeming facts of life. Still, one must look about sometimes; and then I saw this station, these men strolling aimlessly about in the sunshine of the yard. I asked myself sometimes what it all meant. They wandered here and there with their absurd long staves in their hands, like a lot of faithless pilgrims bewitched inside a rotten fence.

You would think they were praying to it. A taint of imbecile rapacity blew through it all, like a whiff from some corpse. By Jove! And outside, the silent wilderness surrounding this cleared speck on the earth struck me as something great and invincible, like evil or truth, waiting patiently for the passing away of this fantastic invasion. Well, never mind.

Various things happened. I noticed there was a hole in the bottom of his pail. There was no hurry. You see the thing had gone off like a box of matches. It had been hopeless from the very first. The flame had leaped high, driven everybody back, lighted up everything—and collapsed. The shed was already a heap of embers glowing fiercely. A nigger was being beaten near by. They said he had caused the fire in some way; be that as it may, he was screeching most horribly.

I saw him, later, for several days, sitting in a bit of shade looking very sick and trying to recover himself; afterwards he arose and went out—and the wilderness without a sound took him into its bosom again.

As I approached the glow from the dark I found myself at the back of two men, talking. I wished him a good evening. The other man remained. He was a first-class agent, young, gentlemanly, a bit reserved, with a forked little beard and a hooked nose.

As to me, I had hardly ever spoken to him before. We got into talk, and by and by we strolled away from the hissing ruins. Then he asked me to his room, which was in the main building of the station. He struck a match, and I perceived that this young aristocrat had not only a silver-mounted dressing-case but also a whole candle all to himself.

Just at that time the manager was the only man supposed to have any right to candles. Native mats covered the clay walls; a collection of spears, assegais, shields, knives was hung up in trophies. Anyway, it could not be found there and as it was not likely to be sent from Europe, it did not appear clear to me what he was waiting for. An act of special creation perhaps. However, they were all waiting—all the sixteen or twenty pilgrims of them—for something; and upon my word it did not seem an uncongenial occupation, from the way they took it, though the only thing that ever came to them was disease—as far as I could see.

They beguiled the time by back-biting and intriguing against each other in a foolish kind of way. There was an air of plotting about that station, but nothing came of it, of course. It was as unreal as everything else—as the philanthropic pretence of the whole concern, as their talk, as their government, as their show of work.

The only real feeling was a desire to get appointed to a trading-post where ivory was to be had, so that they could earn percentages. They intrigued and slandered and hated each other only on that account—but as to effectually lifting a little finger—oh, no.

By heavens! Steal a horse straight out. Very well. He has done it. Perhaps he can ride. But there is a way of looking at a halter that would provoke the most charitable of saints into a kick. He alluded constantly to Europe, to the people I was supposed to know there—putting leading questions as to my acquaintances in the sepulchral city, and so on.

His little eyes glittered like mica discs—with curiosity—though he tried to keep up a bit of superciliousness. At first I was astonished, but very soon I became awfully curious to see what he would find out from me. It was very pretty to see how he baffled himself, for in truth my body was full only of chills, and my head had nothing in it but that wretched steamboat business. It was evident he took me for a perfectly shameless prevaricator.

At last he got angry, and, to conceal a movement of furious annoyance, he yawned. I rose. Then I noticed a small sketch in oils, on a panel, representing a woman, draped and blindfolded, carrying a lighted torch. The background was sombre—almost black. The movement of the woman was stately, and the effect of the torchlight on the face was sinister. To my question he said Mr. Kurtz had painted this—in this very station more than a year ago—while waiting for means to go to his trading post.

Every one knows that. He paid no attention. Today he is chief of the best station, next year he will be assistant-manager, two years more and You are of the new gang—the gang of virtue. The same people who sent him specially also recommended you.

I nearly burst into a laugh. It was great fun. The moon had risen. Black figures strolled about listlessly, pouring water on the glow, whence proceeded a sound of hissing; steam ascended in the moonlight, the beaten nigger groaned somewhere. Pitiless, pitiless. This will prevent all conflagrations for the future.

I was just telling the manager I went on to the riverside, and the other followed me. Several had still their staves in their hands. I verily believe they took these sticks to bed with them. The hurt nigger moaned feebly somewhere near by, and then fetched a deep sigh that made me mend my pace away from there. I felt a hand introducing itself under my arm. Kurtz long before I can have that pleasure. He talked precipitately, and I did not try to stop him. I had my shoulders against the wreck of my steamer, hauled up on the slope like a carcass of some big river animal.

The smell of mud, of primeval mud, by Jove! The moon had spread over everything a thin layer of silver—over the rank grass, over the mud, upon the wall of matted vegetation standing higher than the wall of a temple, over the great river I could see through a sombre gap glittering, glittering, as it flowed broadly by without a murmur. All this was great, expectant, mute, while the man jabbered about himself. I wondered whether the stillness on the face of the immensity looking at us two were meant as an appeal or as a menace.

What were we who had strayed in here? Could we handle that dumb thing, or would it handle us? What was in there? I could see a little ivory coming out from there, and I had heard Mr.

Kurtz was in there. I had heard enough about it, too—God knows! I believed it in the same way one of you might believe there are inhabitants in the planet Mars. I knew once a Scotch sailmaker who was certain, dead sure, there were people in Mars.

I would not have gone so far as to fight for Kurtz, but I went for him near enough to a lie. There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in lies—which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world—what I want to forget. It makes me miserable and sick, like biting something rotten would do.

Temperament, I suppose. Well, I went near enough to it by letting the young fool there believe anything he liked to imagine as to my influence in Europe. I became in an instant as much of a pretence as the rest of the bewitched pilgrims. This simply because I had a notion it somehow would be of help to that Kurtz whom at the time I did not see—you understand.

He was just a word for me. I did not see the man in the name any more than you do. Do you see him? Do you see the story? Do you see anything? It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream—making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams It is impossible.

We live, as we dream—alone You see me, whom you know It had become so pitch dark that we listeners could hardly see one another. For a long time already he, sitting apart, had been no more to us than a voice. There was not a word from anybody. The others might have been asleep, but I was awake. I listened, I listened on the watch for the sentence, for the word, that would give me the clue to the faint uneasiness inspired by this narrative that seemed to shape itself without human lips in the heavy night-air of the river.

I did! And there was nothing behind me! I saw it. What more did I want? What I really wanted was rivets, by heaven! To get on with the work—to stop the hole. Rivets I wanted. There were cases of them down at the coast—cases—piled up—burst—split! You kicked a loose rivet at every second step in that station-yard on the hillside. Rivets had rolled into the grove of death. We had plates that would do, but nothing to fasten them with.

And every week the messenger, a long negro, letter-bag on shoulder and staff in hand, left our station for the coast. And several times a week a coast caravan came in with trade goods—ghastly glazed calico that made you shudder only to look at it, glass beads value about a penny a quart, confounded spotted cotton handkerchiefs. And no rivets. Three carriers could have brought all that was wanted to set that steamboat afloat. I said I could see that very well, but what I wanted was a certain quantity of rivets—and rivets were what really Mr.

Kurtz wanted, if he had only known it. Now letters went to the coast every week There was a way—for an intelligent man. There was an old hippo that had the bad habit of getting out on the bank and roaming at night over the station grounds.

The pilgrims used to turn out in a body and empty every rifle they could lay hands on at him. All this energy was wasted, though. No man—you apprehend me? I could see he was disturbed and considerably puzzled, which made me feel more hopeful than I had been for days. It was a great comfort to turn from that chap to my influential friend, the battered, twisted, ruined, tin-pot steamboat. I clambered on board. No influential friend would have served me better. She had given me a chance to come out a bit—to find out what I could do.

I had rather laze about and think of all the fine things that can be done. Your own reality—for yourself, not for others—what no other man can ever know.

They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really means. You see I rather chummed with the few mechanics there were in that station, whom the other pilgrims naturally despised—on account of their imperfect manners, I suppose.

This was the foreman—a boiler-maker by trade—a good worker. He was a lank, bony, yellow-faced man, with big intense eyes. His aspect was worried, and his head was as bald as the palm of my hand; but his hair in falling seemed to have stuck to his chin, and had prospered in the new locality, for his beard hung down to his waist.

He was a widower with six young children he had left them in charge of a sister of his to come out there , and the passion of his life was pigeon-flying. He was an enthusiast and a connoisseur. He would rave about pigeons. After work hours he used sometimes to come over from his hut for a talk about his children and his pigeons; at work, when he had to crawl in the mud under the bottom of the steamboat, he would tie up that beard of his in a kind of white serviette he brought for the purpose.

It had loops to go over his ears. In the evening he could be seen squatted on the bank rinsing that wrapper in the creek with great care, then spreading it solemnly on a bush to dry.

I put my finger to the side of my nose and nodded mysteriously. I tried a jig. We capered on the iron deck. A frightful clatter came out of that hulk, and the virgin forest on the other bank of the creek sent it back in a thundering roll upon the sleeping station. It must have made some of the pilgrims sit up in their hovels.

We stopped, and the silence driven away by the stamping of our feet flowed back again from the recesses of the land. The great wall of vegetation, an exuberant and entangled mass of trunks, branches, leaves, boughs, festoons, motionless in the moonlight, was like a rioting invasion of soundless life, a rolling wave of plants, piled up, crested, ready to topple over the creek, to sweep every little man of us out of his little existence.

And it moved not. A deadened burst of mighty splashes and snorts reached us from afar, as though an icthyosaurus had been taking a bath of glitter in the great river. Instead of rivets there came an invasion, an infliction, a visitation. It came in sections during the next three weeks, each section headed by a donkey carrying a white man in new clothes and tan shoes, bowing from that elevation right and left to the impressed pilgrims.

A quarrelsome band of footsore sulky niggers trod on the heels of the donkey; a lot of tents, camp-stools, tin boxes, white cases, brown bales would be shot down in the courtyard, and the air of mystery would deepen a little over the muddle of the station.

Five such instalments came, with their absurd air of disorderly flight with the loot of innumerable outfit shops and provision stores, that, one would think, they were lugging, after a raid, into the wilderness for equitable division. It was an inextricable mess of things decent in themselves but that human folly made look like the spoils of thieving.

Their talk, however, was the talk of sordid buccaneers: it was reckless without hardihood, greedy without audacity, and cruel without courage; there was not an atom of foresight or of serious intention in the whole batch of them, and they did not seem aware these things are wanted for the work of the world.

To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire, with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe. He carried his fat paunch with ostentation on his short legs, and during the time his gang infested the station spoke to no one but his nephew. You could see these two roaming about all day long with their heads close together in an everlasting confab. I said Hang! I had plenty of time for meditation, and now and then I would give some thought to Kurtz.

Still, I was curious to see whether this man, who had come out equipped with moral ideas of some sort, would climb to the top after all and how he would set about his work when there.

Am I the manager—or am I not? I was ordered to send him there. I became aware that the two were standing on the shore alongside the forepart of the steamboat, just below my head. I did not move; it did not occur to me to move: I was sleepy.

Look at the influence that man must have. Is it not frightful? Is he alone there? I had rather be alone than have the kind of men you can dispose of with me.

Can you imagine such impudence! Then silence. They had been talking about Kurtz. The other explained that it had come with a fleet of canoes in charge of an English half-caste clerk Kurtz had with him; that Kurtz had apparently intended to return himself, the station being by that time bare of goods and stores, but after coming three hundred miles, had suddenly decided to go back, which he started to do alone in a small dugout with four paddlers, leaving the half-caste to continue down the river with the ivory.

The two fellows there seemed astounded at anybody attempting such a thing. They were at a loss for an adequate motive. As to me, I seemed to see Kurtz for the first time.

It was a distinct glimpse: the dugout, four paddling savages, and the lone white man turning his back suddenly on the headquarters, on relief, on thoughts of home—perhaps; setting his face towards the depths of the wilderness, towards his empty and desolate station.

I did not know the motive. Perhaps he was just simply a fine fellow who stuck to his work for its own sake. His name, you understand, had not been pronounced once.

The two below me moved away then a few paces, and strolled back and forth at some little distance. Why not?

Anything—anything can be done in this country. And why? You stand the climate—you outlast them all. I did my best. And he wants to be manager! I was surprised to see how near they were—right under me.

I could have spat upon their hats. They were looking on the ground, absorbed in thought. The manager was switching his leg with a slender twig: his sagacious relative lifted his head. The other gave a start. Like a charm—like a charm. But the rest—oh, my goodness! All sick. It was so startling that I leaped to my feet and looked back at the edge of the forest, as though I had expected an answer of some sort to that black display of confidence.

You know the foolish notions that come to one sometimes. The high stillness confronted these two figures with its ominous patience, waiting for the passing away of a fantastic invasion. The sun was low; and leaning forward side by side, they seemed to be tugging painfully uphill their two ridiculous shadows of unequal length, that trailed behind them slowly over the tall grass without bending a single blade.

Long afterwards the news came that all the donkeys were dead. I know nothing as to the fate of the less valuable animals. They, no doubt, like the rest of us, found what they deserved. Make sure you know what you are getting into before you buy this brutal game. Thumbs up! Screenshots from MobyGames. Hiraeth 1 point. What am I doing wrong?

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How much is that worth? In a world where truth is unknowable and men's hearts are filled with either greed or a primitive darkness that threatens to overwhelm them, Marlow seems to find comfort only in work. Marlow notes that he escaped the jungle's influence not because he had principles or high ideals, but because he had a job to do that kept him busy.

Work is perhaps the only thing in Heart of Darkness that Marlow views in an…. Students and critics alike often argue about whether Heart of Darkness is a racist book. Some argue that the book depicts Europeans as superior to Africans, while others believe the novel attacks colonialism and therefore is not racist.

There is the evidence in the book that supports both sides of the argument, which is another way of saying that the book's actual stance on the relationship between blacks and whites is not itself black and…. Heart of Darkness. Plot Summary. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3. LitCharts Teacher Editions. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts. Well, that is a question, a question that is extremely difficult to answer.

There are certainly racist aspects within Heart of Darkness. How far can Is Joseph Conrad a racist? Marlowe could just be the embodiment of an ignorant Westerner with a misguided superiority complex. So, everything Marlowe says could be bias; it could be slightly twisted with his perspective. Is this the intended effect? Nor can anybody fully argue who Marlowe represents. I cannot personally tell whether he is an accidental suggestion of Conrad or a deliberate attempt to satirise the Western man.

Convincing, and inconclusive, arguments can be made in either direction. This text is incredibly dense with conflicting interpretations. Well for all the difficulties with the racism angle, one thing is undeniable: Conrad does provide a harsh critique for colonialism. That cannot be ignored. Firstly, it can be seen as detrimental to the colonised. The Westerners exploit the tribes for their ivory and ship it back home. They take the wealth of the tribe folk, rouse their wrath and cause war between neighbouring villages.

All in all, they shape the culture of the colonised; they destroy it. It provides an image of a society totally obsessed with monetary wealth, and how much they can gain through the evils of Imperialism. Secondly, it can be seen as detrimental to the coloniser. Kurtz enters the heart of the jungle and becomes completely corrupted. Conrad suggests that Kurtz becomes ruined as a result. If both cultures can become ruined, then it can be read as a suggestion that colonisation is detrimental to all.

They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force - nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others.

They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got. But, does this mean Conrad can no longer be considered a racist? If he wants to get rid of servitude and pull the white man out of the jungle, does this mean that this display of liberty ignores the difference between skin colours?

He views the black man as a little brother, someone to be taught and led around. An educated black man then becomes whiter; he stands apart from his brethren. Granted, the paragraph is terribly racist; it is patronising, offensive and vulgar. Six black men advanced in a file, toiling up the path.

They walked erect and slow, balancing small baskets full of earth on their heads, and the clink kept time with their footsteps. Black rags were wound round their loins, and the short ends behind waggled to and fro like tails. I could see every rib, the joints of their limbs were like knots in a rope; each had an iron collar on his neck, and all were connected together with a chain whose bights swung between them, rhythmically clinking. Another report from the cliff made me think suddenly of that ship of war I had seen firing into a continent.

It was the same kind of ominous voice; but these men could by no stretch of imagination be called enemies. They were called criminals, and the outraged law, like the bursting shells, had come to them, an insoluble mystery from the sea. All their meagre breasts panted together, the violently dilated nostrils quivered, the eyes stared stonily uphill. They passed me within six inches, without a glance, with that complete, deathlike indifference of unhappy savages. Behind this raw matter one of the reclaimed, the product of the new forces at work, strolled despondently, carrying a rifle by its middle.

He had a uniform jacket with one button off, and seeing a white man on the path, hoisted his weapon to his shoulder with alacrity. This was simple prudence, white men being so much alike at a distance that he could not tell who I might be.

He was speedily reassured, and with a large, white, rascally grin, and a glance at his charge, seemed to take me into partnership in his exalted trust. After all, I also was a part of the great cause of these high and just proceedings. Marlowe describes them as having tails and remarks on their bodies in a way that suggests that they are beasts; they are mere tools for work in which the effectiveness of their body is their stock and trade.

Marlowe is repulsed by this idea; he recognises the absurdity of treating men like this, men who are apparently criminals. This is a criticism of Colonialism; it is a criticism of treating men this way. But, he, personally, describes them as savage; he, personally, suggests that their overseer, a black man who is employed by the Coloniser, is less black. Because he is guarding his fellow black man, he is now, according to Marlowe, whiter. This is blatant evidence that Marlowe not Conrad views the black man in a patronising manner.

He opposes Colonialism, but he still views the black man as less than him. The evidence he provides is inconclusive. The ironic creation of such a character would achieve this without having to directly say it; it would be implied. There is not enough strong evidence to prove or disprove such an argument within the text.

However, Conrad wrote at the end of the Victorian period. Half the English canon was probably racist. The Victorians, as a society, were racist. So was most of Western society for centuries. This is, of course, a terrible thing. But it was the norm.

If you dismiss Conrad based upon this, then you can dismiss many, many other authors too. So, for Joseph Conrad, who may or may not be racist, to condemn Imperialism and Colonialization is kind of a big step. He is arguing against his entire government; he is suggesting that it is evil and corrupt. This is forward thinking stuff.

They cruelly, and systematically, built their wealth one of the most horrible situations in human history. For Conrad to point this out is almost revolutionary. I enjoyed reading his critique on it; I enjoyed the irony and how he suggests the evil of such a regime.

But, regardless of this, I could never rate this book five stars. It is written phenomenally; it is bursting with literary merit; it is wonderfully interesting to read.

Some of the prose is just beautiful. However, I will always see the unattributed whispers of racism in this work; I will always be aware of the possibility that it belongs to the author, and I cannot ignore that. View all 73 comments. Jul 19, Lyn rated it it was amazing Shelves: all-time-most-favorite-books. But darkness was here yesterday. And that, to me, is the greatest appeal of this book, it is timeless. We live in the flicker. As the Britons and Picts were to the Romans, so to are the Africans to the Europeans and Conrad has demonstrated his timely message.

Conrad winds it all up in this classic. Looks like this is the third in the Goodreads era. As a scholar I have to be concise and methodical, precisely citing and referencing to a given treatise or authority.

The connection he makes between the Romans coming up the Thames and the Westerners traveling up the Congo is provocative and somber. As always, this is a story about Kurtz and his voice, that eloquent but hollow voice in the darkness, a civilized man gone native, but more than that, a traveler shedding away the trappings of an enlightened age and looking into the abyss.

Whether the natives are dark skinned or white with blue tattoos, the image is the same and the message is all the more haunting. On a short list of my favorites or all time, this may be my favorite. View all 30 comments. Marlow tells his story to friends aboard a boat anchored on the River Thames. This setting provides the frame for Marlow's story of his obsession with the ivory trader Kurtz, which enables Conrad to create a parallel between "the grea Book From Books - Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness is a novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad, about a voyage up the Congo River into the Congo Free State, in the heart of Africa, by the story's narrator Charles Marlow.

This setting provides the frame for Marlow's story of his obsession with the ivory trader Kurtz, which enables Conrad to create a parallel between "the greatest town on earth" and Africa as places of darkness. View 2 comments. Picture Review of Heart of Darkness Visual Key: White Man named Michael Cera — represents Imperialism Sunset — shows the impending darkness that is latently inside man Sea — represents the Congo River Moustache — represents author Joseph Conrad who also has his own impressive facial hair Red Bonnet — is a horrible choice of headwear thus might prompt one to remark "the horror!

View all 9 comments. View all 72 comments. Blessed was Odysseus, who returned, full of wisdom, after many conquests and adventures to live a peaceful old age with his wife and family. Conrad himself sailed up the Congo in his youth, so his novella is, in many ways, autobiographical. In the book, like Odysseus or Sindbad, Marlow tells the story of his adventures, and it, in turn, is told by an unnamed narrator, making it a second-degree account of the facts.

So much so that, at some point towards the middle of the novel, putting his narrative in doubt, Marlow cries out: Do you see him? Do you see the story? Do you see anything? It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream — making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream — sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams… Heart of Darkness is a groundbreaking text that digs into the dark depths of the human psyche.

And while it is written in sumptuous, almost marmoreal prose, it searches for sensations underneath language, nightmares underneath clear thought, the unutterable, silence, darkness. In short, only read Heart of Darkness with a double Polish vodka or a potent antidepressant close at hand!

However, at the same time — and this shows how ambiguous and murky this short novel gets — Heart of Darkness can also be construed as a criticism of Western colonialism and a denunciation of White, Western ferocity — in this sense, there is a kinship between Heart of Darkness and Moby-Dick. Now flowing through one of the most civilised cities on earth, the River Thames was, not long ago, curving and coiling over a primitive wilderness.

Or some other deeper voice that surfaces from a hollow, dark, ominous silence? He electrified large meetings. He could get himself to believe anything — anything. He would have been a splendid leader of an extreme party.

Heart of Darkness has been an immensely influential novella. There are also many similarities between the atmosphere of this novel and the sense of cosmic terror that H. Lovecraft developed in his novellas. Heart of Darkness has also obviously influenced the cinema, starting with Orson Welles, who unsuccessfully attempted to adapt it. Nowadays, the upper Congo is no longer the heart of a ruthless ivory trade. As a result, under the convergence of this new mineral rush, significant financial interests, military conflicts and political instability, this part of the world is once more the scene of human greediness, atrocities, murder, slavery and rape.

View all 27 comments. I still don't know what I read here. I finished this book with one sort-of word spinning around in my head Every page, every sentence, every word. And I couldn't tell you what it was about. I think I must have read more challenging books than this - Ulysses , Swann's Way , etc. View all 22 comments. It was a breathtaking read. There are few books which make such a powerful impression as 'Heart of darkness' does. Written more than a century ago, the book and its undying theme hold just as much significance even today.

Intense and compelling, it looks into the darkest recesses of human nature. Conrad takes the reader through a horrific tale in a very gripping voice. I couldn't say enough about Conrad's mastery of prose. Not a single word is out of place.

Among several things, I liked Marlow ex It was a breathtaking read. Among several things, I liked Marlow expressing his difficulty in sharing his experiences with his listeners and his comments on insignificance of some of the dialogue exchanged aloud between him and Kurtz.

The bond between the two was much deeper. Whatever words he uses to describe them, no one can really understand in full measure what he had been through. In Marlow's words: ". It is impossible. We live, as we dream--alone. It deserves multiple reads.

View all 29 comments. Kurtz is a modern day Prometheus. He dares to peer upon the hidden Dark Side of the Moon, and All the Heavens then seek revenge upon his startled soul. And he must Pay. Until this modern-day Oedipus, now an ancient, cursed soul in faraway Colonus, expiates the last dirty remnants of his crime before the very gods themselves.

But you know what? When T. As the Hindu sacred books say, endless Kalpas will seem to pass before that glad dawn. Kurtz is like Adam. And of course ALL Adams, like you and me and all my negligently disobedient friends! Dante Alighieri once said us poor blokes who pass up a Life of Faith as a kid will have to slowly slog around Mount Purgatory for a hundred painful years before even getting our tickets punched at the door!

And so we continue to run the unforgivingly downward and rapid rails of Perfectionism, or Guilt, or Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, maybe. But, you know, there are moments when pure sunlight breaks through our heavily curtained minds A child laughs innocently, a bird chirps cheerily, or an old person smiles an incredibly crinkled smile of joy.

Those moments are meant for US - that we may have eyes to see! But, sooner or later, just like the rest of you - and Mr. Kurtz - we have to Face the Face that Kills. Shelves: classics , review-poems , favorites , brain-bheja-fry , r-r-rs , lit , lit-fic. Revisiting The Heart of Darkness After passing past that Castle of Ego, Laying siege on the very borders of Mind, We entered the vast and bristling forests, Of that strange, strange land, that Id, Which doth divide the knowing, waking, From the land of dreaming, unknowing.

But this way is much too hard to follow; And is harder even to describe to you: We are more likely here to perish, Here in these vast, dense hinterlands; For these woods that we see arrayed, Has never previously been crossed, By mortal men Revisiting The Heart of Darkness After passing past that Castle of Ego, Laying siege on the very borders of Mind, We entered the vast and bristling forests, Of that strange, strange land, that Id, Which doth divide the knowing, waking, From the land of dreaming, unknowing.

But this way is much too hard to follow; And is harder even to describe to you: We are more likely here to perish, Here in these vast, dense hinterlands; For these woods that we see arrayed, Has never previously been crossed, By mortal men or by Gods before, Except by the Duke, on his missions, To plunder and to subjugate.

He had sliced a path so wide and true, For himself and his army vast, Marking along the trees as he trode, Deeper and deeper into these woods, Holding fast to his own marks, And to the crude compasses of his day, Wary of the beasts and birds, And of dark shadows of the serpents, And the importunities of bugs and bites.

Vexed he was by silence and dark, But angered more by lonely shrieks. So we move on in this path of old; Those old trees that the Duke had marked, Now but marshy ground to mire our carts, When will we cross these woods so dark, And reach the sparkle at the other end? That river which we truly seek, That drowned the Duke and freed the Mind: That river so cool, called Sanity. View all 38 comments. If anybody ever struggled with a soul, I am the man.

Can the wilderness of humanity be disseminated Soul! Can the wilderness of humanity be disseminated through its existence? Does civilization take humanity away from the path of evolution whose milestones are empathy and compassion? Does the path of human evolution necessarily pass through river of power, imperialism which is built upon under-currents of darkness, racism, butchery and savagery?

Does the gene responsible for human coloration also underline the superiority of human beings? The sombre snake of darkness, whose head is a sea of human wilderness, whose body runs through various expressions of human wilderness, if uncoiled it will spit out the abashed, ferocious, dingy poisons of humanity, which may send a feeling of harrowing terror if it comes face-to-face with humanity.

Is mother Nature capable of enduring the possessions which humanity asserted through its evolution. Could humanity withstand itself on the first hand? Is humanity storing enough to deny to fall into trap of its own avarices and gluttony- the darkness it contains in itself?

Do we fall into the void—do we drown or come out with a stronger sense of self?