Heart of Darkness & Selections from The Congo Diary Paperback – August 10, 1999

** spoiler alert **Many individuals reduce books or movies to key quotes that over time have become cliches. Publishers also do this. Penguin Classics starts the back cover of "Heart of Darkness" with Kurtz's last words of horror.Quote repetition or scene reminiscing can lead some individuals to think they're familiar with a book or movie--even if they haven't read or seen it.Mention, for example, "Deliverance" to someone who was a young adult in the 1970s. They'll likely mimic the tune of "Dueling Banjos," though they never saw the film.I read "The Heart of Darkness" to let Conrad's character, Marlow, take me slowly up the Congo to the dim, muddy place that seems "of the first ages." Taking that trip, I'm reminded that the full story has as much richness and humor as darkness and horror. Kurtz's last words are frightening, but Marlow says something afterwards that's just as important.Those aware of the story easily recite the words that Kurtz "cried in a whisper," but they show no emotion since they can't say what brought Kurtz to that end. Few know who heard Kurtz's cry. They're not familiar with Marlow and what happens next.After Kurtz speaks his last (a whole year after), Marlow chooses to visit Kurtz's mourning fiancé. She knows that Marlow was the last one to see the man she loved, and she pushes Marlow to tell her what Kurtz said at his end.When a character has to make a big choice--one they can't go back on--that's key to a good story. Marlow either needs to tell the fiancé the truth, or he needs to make something up."It seemed to me that the house would collapse before I could escape, that the heavens would fall upon my head."That's what Marlow feels when he tells Kurtz's fiancé..."The last word he pronounced was--your name."

Published in 1899, Joseph Conrad's HEART OF DARKNESS is like a fingerpost for its time, pointing the way of human preoccupations as they probed the final frontiers left in the world to discover, both geographically and intrapersonally, equipped only with a 19th century worldview. Where fear and discomfort with the unknown had once been associated with leaving land and heading into the open sea, Conrad now placed it in turning inward, turning from the sea up a river that penetrates an unknown land.This is the story related one night to a group of London dwellers gathered on a dock boat in the safety and familiarity of the Thames. The speaker, a garrulous veteran seaman named Marlow, remembers how as a younger man he had pushed for the adventurous assignment of taking a steamboat up the Congo in search of a company's missing agent, Kurtz. His is a tale of horror, of what can happen to a person disengaged from civilization as it is known. This is an atmospheric exploration of knowledge, experience, innocence and morality. Conrad's language is complex but not opaque, has action but also a lot of description. As Virginia Woolf once said, Conrad could not write badly to save his own life.That his vision requires rooting the horror in a hostile jungle culture and its customs can present a problem for a contemporary audience. The Modern Library has done a good job in introducing this edition with notable criticism, positive and negative, excerpted from across the 20th century, including pieces by Mencken, Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster and, more recently, Chinua Achebe. This edition also includes passages from Conrad's 1890 journal when he was traveling in the Congo. Several different publishers are publishing this novel, but this edition is the best I found.

Book was in great condition. Thank you.

Glad I purchased this book for my collection. Great information. Knowledge is power.

Several layers of meaning, based on historical fact, and readers left to draw conclusions. Thought provoking, insightful, and yet mysterious- fully enjoyable. Should be read more than once.

It is a very hard book to understand because of the language and time period differences, plus there are recordings of it on YT so I ended up just listening to the audiobook there. I had to read this for my college class and I would not recommend. Also, personally the extensive description in every scene got to be annoying because you start to zone out by the time you get the actual information of the events occurring.

A classic thought-provoking book on how ambition and the absence of moral constraints can lead to great evil. Martin Scorsese's "APOCALYPSE NOW" was based on this book.

Not much more need be written about a book that's been analyzed and combed over on scores of occasions by some of the greatest scholars, intellectuals, professors, and literary critics to ever walk across the humanities and liberal arts stage.Yes, it's indeed racist and a testament to moral failing in its portrayals of the indigenous population that's overworked and exploited to the brink of death, crawling on all fours to fetch a drink of water. The pound of ivory is worth more than two natives' lives it seems. The Hobbesian world depicted is one of the most brutal yet put to the page. Constantly treated with barely concealed contempt and belittled as savage phantoms by the expeditionary crew, the inhabitants are treated shabbily and as a second thought.Kurtz's greatest and most intriguing attribute in Marlow's eyes was his gift for expression. The words flow out of the dark heart from a man who bowed out of contemporary society to take a seat among the devils in the thick of the jungle. He's a character full of ambiguity, taken to walking the jungle alone often to retrieve ivory and often just to ruminate. The natives adored him and he kept the ivory flowing back to the base camp of the imperial power.Marlow left the continent a totally changed man. The complex Kurtz seemingly always on his mind.

Interesting to compare today's values and practices with those of Conrad's time.

The book itself is high quality, and the story of course is great.

Recebi rapidamente em perfeitas condição, ainda não lido.

Huge gap of 20+ pages missing. So annoying!

Heart of Darkness, do escritor Joseph Conrad, é uma novela curta que discorre sobre o presente e o passado em seus conflitos intermitentes, travados não em sua divisão temporal, mas em forças opostas vivendo neste exato momento em pólos totalmente divergentes, social, étnica e tecnologicamente. Logo antes do início do romance, primeiramente publicado em 1902, o escritor nigeriano, Chinua Achebe, tece comentários nos quais as críticas à obra de Conrad tratam basicamente do conteúdo racista, às vezes subliminar; outras, muito claro ao se referir às diferenças culturais que envolvem os dois continentes. A Europa pós-revolução industrial e  civilizada serve a todo momento como parâmetro para justificar as atrocidades cometidas pelo explorador do imperialismo britânico, no qual as interferências servem como fundamento à modernização e civilidade de uma África "desumanizada". Obviamente, as discussões não se resumem a uma suposta tese de redenção de toda uma sociedade, mas as causas e consequências de relações estabelecidas por meio de supressão de direitos de autonomia de um povo sob a precedência de outro. O jovem Charlie Marlow, homem do mar, é conduzido à função de comando de um barco cuja missão é subir o rio Congo na tentativa de resgate do moribundo senhor Kurtz, último comandante e responsável pelo envio de marfim à Coroa Britânica.À medida em que a viagem inicia, estabelece-se a construção da personalidade de Kurtz e uma espécie de admiração idílica se configura, à medida em que a psique se transforma rapidamente num modelo de idolatria mística.O mal que acomete Kurtz serve como pano de fundo para a jornada a seu posto localizado na última curva do Congo e, consequentemente, o mais imediato restabelecimento do comércio entre os dois países. Porém, o resgate torna-se um desafio em razão da mudança de ideário colonizador de Kurtz e suas experiências no "coração das trevas" (título do livro em português). As tramas desenvolvidas pelas relações de comércio e suas implicações sociais decorrentes da própria exploração colonizadora tornam-se catalisadoras de uma nova e indesejável postura do ex-aliado da Coroa. A recusa à continuidade do envio da valiosa matéria-prima serve como metáfora a um modelo inacabado de revolução social e que representaria uma cisão com o arquétipo imperialista e total subversão dos papéis aos quais eram submetidas, de forma precária e desumana, todas as instâncias colonizadas. As trevas, com as quais o comandante Kurtz depara-se, faz com que uma conexão interna seja estabelecida, obrigando-o a confrontar-se com sua própria escuridão. O conceito de civilização é, dessa forma, questionado a partir do momento em que seu papel é revertido, interiormente, transformando-se, ele próprio, em agente questionador das velhas relações entre dois mundos cultural e socialmente opostos. O capitão toma para si a tarefa de representante, idealizador intelectual de uma mudança de postura do ser colonizado e dependente para a de protagonista de sua autonomia e independência econômico-social. O império colonizador torna-se, assim, tão selvagem quanto suas colônias, posto que vítima e algoz de suas próprias ações. A desumanização que advém das sucessivas políticas de exploração do trabalho e dos recursos naturais de um povo serve como elemento fundamental para a própria escravidão do explorador, pois à medida em que nos aproximamos da escuridão intrínseca da alma do desconhecido, acabamos por confrontar a nossa própria desumanidade.A humanidade, enfim, concretiza-se através das constantes tentativas em construirmos pontes que redefinam, em última instância, o conceito de civilização e humanidade. Kurtz viraria, neste sentido, a epítome dessa conceituação. A Europa se torna iluminada graças à confrontação com a escuridão de uma África primitiva, essencial e em carne viva.