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Heart Of Darkness : (Paperback)

by Joseph Conrad (Author) "The Nellie,1 a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest ..." (more)
3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (17 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 224 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; 1st. Penquin Edition edition (24 Feb 1973)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0141182431
  • ISBN-13: 978-0141182438
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.4 x 1.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 112,940 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #26 in  Books > Fiction > 20th Century Classics > Conrad, Joseph

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Product Description

Product Description
Marlow voyages into the wildness and jungle of the Belgian Congo to meet Kurtz, a company agent, and having found him, realizes that Kurtz has won supremacy over the natives through unrestrained violence. The story explores the workings of the subconscious, and addresses political imperialism.
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The Nellie,1 a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews

17 Reviews
5 star:
 (7)
4 star:    (0)
3 star:
 (4)
2 star:
 (2)
1 star:
 (4)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.2 out of 5 stars (17 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Dense and difficult, ultimately rewarding., 25 Jul 2006
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.
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18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Genuine Classic., 21 May 2003
By Matt (MIDDLEWICH, CHESHIRE United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
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.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Unbelievable!, 8 Sep 2008
By G. P. Akerman "g p a" (Oxford, England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Heart of Darkness (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)
I find it absolutely unbelievable that anyone could regard this novel as "dull"! And if novels shouldn't be depressing... well, don't bother with the rest of the Western canon. Maybe you need to try a little harder with the source novel than you do with the Hollywood film. (Consider this: if it's such an average read, why was Francic C. so inspired by it in the first place?)
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Not entirely sure
...what to think about this. Found it quite hard to read but the introduction did help. Suppose, it's a classic and therefore had to be read.
Published 11 days ago by Corinna Witt

3.0 out of 5 stars Heart of Darkness
`Heart of darkness' is probably Joseph Conrad's most well know novel and it makes for short but powerful reading. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Spider Monkey

1.0 out of 5 stars The Heart of Confusion
What is it with me and classics? I am beginning to get a little bit distressed by this now. Apart from Brideshead Revisited none of the ones I have tried this year have set my... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Simon Savidge "savidgeread...

2.0 out of 5 stars Hard Going
I decided to read this book after reading the End of The Affair which I love especially the internal struggles of the main characters and from what I could remember of the film I... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Trickle Tree

1.0 out of 5 stars An unpleasant read
I found this a rather disappointing read, especially after all the favourable reviews and publicity surrounding the book. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Mr. Ayodeji Odelusi

5.0 out of 5 stars 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. Read more
Published 15 months ago by G Pelloni

1.0 out of 5 stars Dull and undeserving of its high reputation
I found this very dull all through and, despite its high literary reputation, it did not evoke any chords in me. Read more
Published 16 months ago by John Hopper

1.0 out of 5 stars 'The Emperor's New Clothes', no less...
Arriving at this page, inspired, enthused by Coppola's cinematic masterpiece 'Apocalypse Now'? Or maybe from the documentary 'Hearts of Darkness - A Filmmaker's Apocalypse'? Read more
Published 17 months ago by Andrew Woollock

5.0 out of 5 stars Dark Heart
I first read Heart of Darkness in my teens. Thirty years on, it has chilled to the bone, again.
Published 19 months ago by Denis Ponsonby

3.0 out of 5 stars An uphill struggle
I'd wanted to read this book for years but only got around to it this year. I confess, I wanted to do so more as a fan of 'Apocalypse Now' than as a literary buff. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Dr. S. T. Walker

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