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| Heart of Darkness (Penguin Classics) | 
 enlarge | Author: Joseph Conrad
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy New: £1.81
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Avg. Customer Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 7436
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 192
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 4.7 x 0.6
ISBN: 0141441674
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.912
EAN: 9780141441672
ASIN: 0141441674
Publication Date: August 2, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New. Shipped from UK Mainland. Delivery is usually 4 - 5 working days from order by Royal Mail, International Delivery is by Airmail.
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| Customer Reviews:
 'The Emperor's New Clothes', no less... February 5, 2008
2 out of 19 found this review helpful
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'? Eager to learn more? maybe drink at the fountain from which perhaps the greatest piece of cinema, was born? Think again. What we have here is purely and simply a VERY mediocre novella, a work that was written not by a writer, but by a Mariner with a typewriter - a hobbyist. On no account could or should this be taken as a seminal work of either fact or fiction, and I wish those who are forever trying to have this work classified as such a literary milestone would find a real cause to champion. I mean why is this one of the supposed greats? Is it original? No! Well written? No! Does it have well-drawn characters? No! an intriguing plot, perhaps? No. Does it use language in a new or creative way? No. Does it re-define the novella? No! Does it have potential to influence, either in style or content, the works of other writers? No! - then what? What is it that reverberates so loudly? If not the work then the noise of the crowd surrounding the pedestal - eager for a glimpse of the masterpiece that (they have been told) is so revered, so special.
Between the pseudo-intellectual and the literary professor's attempts to 'interpret' this work (for interpret read: paint it their colour) there is nothing hidden, nor magical here, no genius lies between the poor structure and the even worse punctuation. A simple tale, nothing more. Had one not know Conrad actually ventured to the African Continent, one could have easily mistaken his poorly drawn figures, his stereotypical characters as being the stuff of a boyhood imagination - too many comics and children's novels read under the blanket with a torch...
The only extra-ordinary factor here is the fact that Coppola, in his undisputed genius, took this simple, fragmented tale of no real literary worth and from its inspiration produced a moment in cinematic history which will never again be glimpsed, a peak never again scaled. That is the only thing one need be in awe of here.
Addendum
Anyone who adds more weight or reads into this flimsy story more than is either present or visible needs to ask themselves the following question "Have I seen Copolla's film 'Apocalypse Now'" - if your answer is 'yes' then quite clearly you are transferring the depth and clarity of that masterpiece and overlaying it on this very unsubstantive text. What you have done is to confuse an essentially non-eventful, poorly penned novella with perhaps the best piece of cinema ever recorded. You are deluded. I wish 'intellectuals' would stop their pointless musings over such poor works as this and let it drift into the past where it belongs. Why some works get unfairly labelled as 'keep, don't throw away' whilst other perfectly fine texts get 'consign to history' stamped on them is quite beyond me. In elevating such a non-starter to such heights totally distorts the surroundings and makes it doubly difficult for better written, more original works to get the audience they rightly deserve.
 Dark Heart December 14, 2007
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I first read Heart of Darkness in my teens. Thirty years on, it has chilled to the bone, again.
 An uphill struggle September 4, 2007
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. I chose not to read any review of it in advance, I knew it was a classic and therefore needed no justification. However...I was totally unprepared for the uphill struggle of Conrad's narration. Quite how he inspires such an obsessive following (see: josephconradsociety.org) I can not understand.
In truth I was fairly disappointed: the narrative is dull and confusing, the parallels between the darkness of Africa and the darkness in the soul of Man are not as apparent nor striking as more scholarly readers would lead you to believe.
If, like me, you feel that you owe it to yourself to find out why a particular 'literary classic' is considered to be so by reading it yourself rather than reading the Cliff Notes version, then I would recommend this version: the introduction and notes by Robert Hampton were in some instances highly educational, especially the detail regarding Henry Morton Stanley (not a nice fellow after all...).
If you read simply for enjoyment and entertainment then I suspect you may be disappointed by Heart of Darkness, but don't let that put you off, as long as you're prepared to scale a big hill.
The Engine Of Life Basks In The Recesses Of Inverted Light January 29, 2007
5 out of 9 found this review helpful
Conrad's Heart Of Darkness is not an easy read. The text is dense and ornamental - suffering from frequent procrastination - but the substance and subject matter compelled me to persevere with this slim novelette. The story revolves around a sailor Marlow recounting his journey into the wilds of the Africa by river to meet Kurtz - the most successful ivory-procurement agent in the Congo. Marlow becomes obsessed with tales of the enigmatic and successful Kurtz, who seems to have more substance than all the shallow disdainful bureaucrats he encounters throughout his journey. But when he eventually discovers Kurtz, and the savage reality of his methods, it shakes Marlow's beliefs and makes him reassess his own values.
What really lets this novelette down is the fact it's supposed to be Marlow recounting a tale to a group, and the true narrator and the rest of the group are supposedly listening attentively to Marlow. But if in reality someone really spoke like this recounting a story you would lose interest because of the overly descriptive language, or you would demand the person to get to the point. No one who recounts a tale with such intricate language could expect an enthralled audience. On paper - yes, it works as you can go back and savior on the sentences, but as a spoken word tale the words would tangle together and their subtle meaning would be lost. Try reading a few pages out loud to someone you know and you'll see their interest start to waver.
Aside from the language, and its context, I felt there was something vital Conrad was striving towards here. The darkness and emptiness of soul and of society are beautifully rendered without ever becoming overtly moral or dogmatic. This is a book would read again as I feel there is so much more to discover. But I believe it is best taken on in one sitting in a setting with few distractions. An airplane companion it is not.
Dense and difficult, ultimately rewarding. July 25, 2006
15 out of 16 found this review helpful
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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