Heart of Darkness and the Secret Sharer

Book Description

A masterpiece of twentieth-century writing, Heart of Darkness (1902) exposes the tenuous fabric that holds "civilization" together and the brutal horror at the center of European colonialism. Conrad's crowning achievement recounts Marlow's physical and psychological journey deep into the heart of the Belgian Congo in search of the mysterious trader Kurtz.

Joyce Carol Oates on Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness:

"Heart of Darkness has had an influence that goes beyond the specifically literary. This parable of a man's 'heart of darkness' dramatized in the alleged 'Dark Continent' of Africa transcended its late Victorian era to acquire the stature of one of the great, if troubling, visionary works of western civilization."

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In Conrad's haunting tale, Marlow, a seaman and wanderer, recounts his physical and psychological journey in search of the enigmatic Kurtz. Travelling to the heart of the African continent, he discovers how Kurtz has gained his position of power and influence over the local people. Marlow's struggle to fathom his experience involves him in a radical questioning of not only his own nature and values but the nature and values of his society.

Customer Reviews:

The heart of noir.......2007-09-25

This book is not only the Heart of Darkness by title but by influence it is also the "heart of noir." The mood of the book and the language itself is dense and suffocating, creating an bleak atmosphere that would inspire many film noir movies of the 40s and 50s. (This is not even to mention Apocalypse Now many years later which is not-so-loosely based on this novel, but set in a different milieu.) Consider this book the grandaddy of noir if you will. The ending is as bleak as they come, and I don't think rivaled by any of its imitators.

Also I only think it fair to mention *twice* just how dense the writing is in this book. Be prepared!

It's a wonderful experience in a brooding sort of way if you can get through it though and learn to navigate the language like the narrator navigates the jungle.

If you have to read it for class, then my condolences. Under the gun this wouldn't be that fun of a read I don't think.

An Adventure Masterpiece of Profound Depth.......2007-09-24

Note: I made some Mormon reader angry over my reviews of books written by Mormons out to prove the Book of Mormon, and that person has been slamming my reviews. This review of the "Heart of Darkness" is very good if I do say so myself.

Your "helpful" votes are appreciated. Thanks.

Don't be put off by the word "masterpiece." The "Heart of Darkness" is a great adventure story, but so much more. You will find yourself plumbing its depths as Conrad describes a voyage up the Congo on an old steamer. Conrad's language is magnificent, and to be savored.

In modern times, Cormac McCarthy (see Blood Meridian) has recast Conrad's powerful style and made it his own. The following comparison reveals a lot about both writers.

"The Heart of Darkness," by Joseph Conrad:

"We could have fancied ourselves the first of men taking possession of an accursed inheritance, to be subdued at the cost of profound anguish and of excessive toil. But suddenly, as we struggled round a bend, there would be a glimpse of rush walls, of peaked grass-roofs, a burst of yells, a whirl of black limbs, a mass of hands clapping, of feet stamping, of bodies swaying, , of eyes rolling, under the droop of heavy and motionless foliage. The steamer toiled along slowly on the edge of a black and incomprehensible frenzy. The prehistoric man was cursing us, praying to us, welcoming us--who could tell" we were cut off from the comprehension of our surroundings; we glided past like phantoms, wondering and secretly appalled, as sane men would be before an enthusiastic outbreak in a madhouse. We could not understand because we were too far and could not remember because we were travelling in the night of first ages, of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sign--and no memories."

"Blood Meridian," by Cormac McCathy:

"That night they rode through a region electric and wild where strange shapes of soft blue fire ran over the metal of the hoses' trappings and the wagonwheels rolled in hoops of fire and little shapes of pale blue light came to perch in the ears of the horses and in the beards of the men. All night sheetlightning quaked and sourceless to the west beyond the midnight thunderheads, making a bluish day of the distant desert, the mountains on the sudden skyline stark and black and lived like a land of some other order out there whose true geology was not stone but fear. The thunder moved up from the southwest and lightning lit the desert all about them, blue and barren, great clanging reaches ordered out of the absolute night like some demon kingdom summoned up or changeling land that come the day would leave them neither trace nor smoke nor ruin more than any troubling dream."

A Difficult Story of Imperial Colonialism and the Individual.......2007-08-14

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

A testament........2007-08-12

This novel is a testament to the fact that Joseph Conrad's first language was not english. Easy to comprehend and inordinately difficult to read. It's emphasis on visual clarity means that you spend so much time imaging dark gloomy and oppresive that the story (what little there is) is quickly subsumed by the over descrpitive nature of Conrad's descent into the darkness of the human soul.

Different Price.......2007-08-01

The price on the book says 1.50... The text is too small and it may be better to pay a little more so you don't need a magnifying glass. Rip Off

Youth; Heart of Darkness; The End of the Tether (Penguin Classics)

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Oh, for the passion of life!
"To make you hear, to make you feel- and above all, to make you see"
Good stuff
Three of the finest short stories ever written

Youth; Heart of Darkness; The End of the Tether (Penguin Classics)
Joseph Conrad , and John Lyon
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0140185135

Customer Reviews:

Oh, for the passion of life!.......2007-05-09

Make sure you read the short story "Youth," as well as the "Heart of Darkness." Both are super, and youth is worth it for the following lines alone:

"And there was somewhere in me that thought: By jove! This is the deuce of an adventure--something you read about; and it is my first voyage as second mate--and I am only twenty--and here I am lasting it out as well as any of these men, and keeping my chaps up to the mark. I was pleased. I would not have given up the experience for worlds. I had moments of exultation. Whenever the old dismantled craft pitched heavily with her counter high in the air, she seemed to me to throw up, like an appeal, like a defiance, like a cry to the clouds without mercy, the words written on her stern: "Judea, London. Do or Die."

O youth! The strength of it, the faith of it, the imagination of it! To me she was not an old rattle-trap caring about eh world a lot of coal for a freight--to me she was the endeavour, the test, the trail of life. I think of her with pleasures, with affection, with great--as you would think of someone dead you have loved. I shall never forget her...pass the bottle."

"To make you hear, to make you feel- and above all, to make you see" .......2005-10-31

Conrad is the master tale- teller of English Literature. In this volume three stories, from three Ages of Life are included. The first 'Youth'is about a maiden vogage to sea, and the last "The End of the Tether" about an old man in his blindness. The story however which has been most written and thought about, and is considered one of Conrad's masterpieces is " Heart of Darkness".
It begins as a meditative reflection, a telling on the banks of the Thames to his friends by the veteran seaman Marlowe of a tale of exploration and disaster. He tells of a voyage into the heart of Africa in search of an enlightened European adventurer and merchant Kurtz . Kurtz has dealt in the deepest part of the jungle in trading in ivory. But what Marlowe comes to discover and see is someone who has seen into ' the heart of darkness' and dies crying out ,"The Horror, the Horror". Marlowe returns to Europe and civilization and tells Kurtz's fiancee that Kurtz's last words were her name.
But the tale is more than the story or the plot. With Conrad the meaning of the tale is the creation of the atmosphere and the meditation on the voyage throughout .It is in a kind too of bringing us into another whole mode of being in thinking about our lives.
" The heart of darkness" to the uncivilized African reality and it refers to the deepest recesses of the human soul, a soul which crosses through and transcends continents.As Conrad's great Literature does.

Good stuff.......2002-12-24

The only thing missing is "the nigger of the Narcisscus", but you can't have everything. As complex as "the heart of Darkness" is, you may be better served by starting this book with "The end of the Tether", it is great in its apparent simplicity, yet it has its own complexity.

Three of the finest short stories ever written.......2002-11-17

I first read "Youth" in my own youth, over 25 years ago. It has haunted me ever since. That it is difficult to describe why is, I believe, more a testament to Conrad's subtle skills than to my own undoubted incompetance as an expositor. On one level, "Youth" is little more than a tale of a ill-fated sea voyage, but its poignancy is unmatched by any work of short fiction I've ever come across. Good or bad, pleasant or horrific, our youth is what we all miss. The inclusion of this great novella and the magically exotic "End of the Tether" ought to be more than justification enough to buy this book--even if it didn't also include the justly famous, if sometimes obscure, "Heart of Darkness". No one should think he or she is familiar with Joseph Conrad who has not read all of these three wonderful tales. (If you can find a collection that also includes "The Nigger of Narcissus," even better.)

CliffsNotes on Conrad's Heart of Darkness & The Secret Sharer

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Essential companion for the book
CliffsNotes on Conrad's Heart of Darkness & The Secret Sharer
Fine guide, concise, well written
We are reviewing the "notes" not the book or movie

CliffsNotes on Conrad's Heart of Darkness & The Secret Sharer
Daniel Moran
Manufacturer: Cliffs Notes
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0764585843

Book Description

The original CliffsNotes study guides offer expert commentary on major themes, plots, characters, literary devices, and historical background. The latest generation of titles in this series also feature glossaries and visual elements that complement the classic, familiar format.

In CliffsNotes on The Heart of Darkness & The Secret Sharer, you come to understand how each of these stories deals with the "dark side" of the human character. Heart of Darkness is a journey up the Congo River to where an ivory agent, Kurtz, has succumbed to human weakness and evil, and has disintegrated into a grotesque creature. The Secret Sharer is an allegorical examination of a timid man who struggles to stifle the more physical and dangerous part of himself. Eventually, he resolves this duality and becomes more daring — and, therefore, more complete.

This concise supplement to Joseph Conrad's The Heart of Darkness & The Secret Sharer helps you understand the overall structure of the novels, actions and motivations of the characters, and the social and cultural perspectives of the author. Features that help you study include

Part-by-part summaries and commentaries
Character maps that graphically illustrates the relationships among the characters
Critical essays that provide expert insight on the novels' structure
Review sections that test your knowledge

Classic literature or modern modern-day treasure — you'll understand it all with expert information and insight from CliffsNotes study guides.

Customer Reviews:

Essential companion for the book.......2007-02-17

Anyone who has had to read either of these titles for school knows that teachers find a lot more in them than first meets the eye. Cliff Notes are a great way to gain insight into books and get a feel for the various interpretations. NOTE TO STUDENTS: You still have to read the book, folks. This just helps you understand it.

CliffsNotes on Conrad's Heart of Darkness & The Secret Sharer.......2007-01-11

Reviewing CliffsNotes on Conrad's Heart of Darkness & The Secret Sharer is an excellent way to delve into the novel before reading the novel. Cliffsnotes provides background information about the author Joseph Conrad and summative narratives of the book.

Cliffsnotes helps the reader understand the plot and subplots of the novel as well as a hint about the motives of the characters involved in the conflict.

Fine guide, concise, well written.......2005-12-29

This Cliff Notes guide provides a clear and concise analysis and discussion of the famous Conrad short novel. The author discusses Conrad's personal background as it relates to the story, and the characters, themes, plot elements, the social and cultural views and philosophy of the author, and many other aspects of the book in an easy to understand way.

Conrad is one of the few novelists, which include Melville, Tolstoy, Dostoevski, Lawrence Stern, and Jonathan Swift, whose work continues to impress me and has aged well as I've moved into my more mature years. Partly this is because of the dark themes he treats, such as the violence and cruelty and savagery lurking just below the thin veneer of civilization, the brooding and melancholy power of his prose, and partly because English wasn't even his native language--he even learned it as an adult on shipboard.

Heart of Darkness is one Conrad's shortest but greatest works in this sense, and after having read it in high school, I recently reacquainted myself with it after 30 years. I was just as impressed as I was back then. Most readers and movie fans will know the story's influence on Coppola's "Apocalypse Now," which is many ways a tribute to the Conrad book. This is a great book by one of history's greatest authors whose themes continue to resonate today. All an observant and intelligent individual has to do today to realize that Conrad was right about man's innermost nature and that we have not progressed at all in the last 10,000 years of "civilized history" is to look at the current sad state of the world and of humanity in general.

We are reviewing the "notes" not the book or movie.......2000-09-06

I could not stand reading or watching anything about Vietnam for about 10 years. I eventually watched the movie " Apocalypse Now" I found it interesting but it did not relate to anything in the central highlands. Later I saw "Pork Lips Now" and could relate this to the movie. Finally someone told me that the whole thing was based on "Heart of Darkness " ISBN: 0486264645. So I decided to read the book. I found it fascinating and much better than the movie. However I could not see the forest of the trees and needed some help in showing me what I was looking at. Because I was not in some school class, I turned to the "Cliffs Notes" Of course my views don't match the notes exactly but they gave me some questions to ask and showed me the forest. The notes include:

· Life of the Author

· Introductions to the Novel

· Lists of Characters

· Brief Plot Synopses

· Summaries & Critical Commentaries

· Critical Essay

· Suggested Essay Topics

· Selected Bibliography

Later I found a movie that was much closer to the original story,

Book Description

In this book, one of modernism's most insightful critics, Jane Marcus, examines the writings of novelists such as Virginia Woolf, Nancy Cunard, Mulk Raj Anand, and Djuna Barnes—artists whose work coincided with the end of empire and the rise of fascism before the Second World War. All these writers delved into the "dark hearts" of imperialism and totalitarianism, thus tackling some of the most complex cultural issues of the day. Marcus investigates previously unrecognized ways in which social and political tensions are embodied by their works.

The centerpiece of the book is Marcus's dialogue with one of her best-known essays, "Britannia Rules The Waves." In that piece, she argues that The Waves makes a strong anti-imperialist statement. Although many already support that argument, she now goes further in order to question the moral value of such a buried critique on Woolf's part. In "A Very Fine Negress" she analyzes the painful subject of Virginia Woolf's racism in A Room of One's Own. Other chapters traverse the connected issues of modernism, race, and imperialism. In two of them, we follow Nancy Cunard through the making of the Negro anthology and her appearance in a popular novel of the freewheeling Jazz Age. Elsewhere, Marcus delivers a complex analysis of A Passage to India, in a reading that interrogates E. M. Forster's displacement of his fear of white Englishwomen struggling for the vote.

Marcus, as always, brings considerable gifts as both researcher and writer to this collection of new and reprinted essays, a combination resulting in a powerful interpretation of many of modernism's most cherished figures.

Customer Reviews:

Fantastic.......2005-05-04

This book is insightful and brave. I just finished writing my MA English thesis on the interactions of modernism, race, and gender in the work of Mina Loy. I don't know what I would have done without Marcus' book. It dares to look at white women in modernism and what some of their gendered motives were in approaching race. (The chapter on Virginia Woolf's line in A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN is absolutely fantastic.) Although Marcus focuses on only a few writers her work holds great promise and opens the door for looks into other authors (in my case, that was Loy). In the tradition of PLAYING IN THE DARK, it really complicates how we think about modernism, race, and gender.

Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness: A Casebook (Casebooks in Criticism)

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Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness: A Casebook (Casebooks in Criticism)

Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0195159969

Book Description

Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad's fictional account of a journey up the Congo river in 1890, raises important questions about colonialism and narrative theory. This casebook contains materials relevant to a deeper understanding of the origins and reception of this controversial text, including Conrad's own story "An Outpost of Progress," together with a little-known memoir by one of Conrad's oldest English friends, a brief history of the Congo Free State by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and a parody of Conrad by Max Beerbohm. A wide range of theoretical approaches are also represented, examining Conrad's text in terms of cultural, historical, textual, stylistic, narratological, post-colonial, feminist, and reader-response criticism. The volume concludes with an interview in which Conrad compares his adventures on the Congo with Mark Twain's experiences as a Mississippi pilot.

Conrad's Charlie Marlow: A New Approach to "Heart of Darkness" and Lord Jim

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Conrad's Charlie Marlow: A New Approach to "Heart of Darkness" and Lord Jim
Bernard J. Paris
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1403969892
Release Date: 2006-01-05

Book Description

Whereas Marlow has usually been discussed as a literary device who is of no special interest in himself, this study argues that Conrad portrays Marlow and his relationships with a psychological depth that is unsurpassed in literature. In "Youth," "Heart of Darkness," and Lord Jim, he is a continuously-evolving character whose thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are expressions of his personality and experience. Understanding Marlow's motivations newly illuminates the formal complexity and thematic richness of these works, for his inner conflicts profoundly affect the structure of his narrations, his interactions with his auditors, and the elusive meanings of his tales.

The Cambridge Introduction to Modernism (Cambridge Introductions to Literature)

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The Cambridge Introduction to Modernism (Cambridge Introductions to Literature)
Pericles Lewis
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0521535271

Book Description

More than a century after its beginnings, modernism still has the power to shock, alienate or challenge readers. Modernist art and literature remain thought of as complex and difficult. This introduction explains in a readable, lively style how modernism emerged, how it is defined, and how it developed in different forms and genres. Pericles Lewis offers students a survey of literature and art in England, Ireland and Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century. He also provides an overview of critical thought on modernism and its continuing influence on the arts today, reflecting the interests of current scholarship in the social and cultural contexts of modernism. The comparative perspective on Anglo-American and European modernism shows how European movements have influenced the development of English-language modernism. Illustrated with works of art and featuring suggestions for further study, this is the ideal introduction to understanding and enjoying modernist literature and art.

York Notes on Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" (Longman Literature Guides)

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York Notes on Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" (Longman Literature Guides)
Hena Maes-Jelinek
Manufacturer: Longman
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 058202269X

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Marlow (Major Literary Characters)
Harold Bloom
Manufacturer: Chelsea House Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0791009637

The Appropriated Voice: Narrative Authority in Conrad, Forster, and Woolf

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The Appropriated Voice: Narrative Authority in Conrad, Forster, and Woolf
Bette London
Manufacturer: University of Michigan Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0472101609

Book Description

Uses feminist theory, cultural criticism, cultural ethnography, and narrative theory in critiquing traditional and revisionist criticism

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