by Joseph Conrad
Short, spooky classic novel on the dark heart of colonialism in Africa – and the heart of darkness we all have within ourselves.
Reviewed by: Nancy Chapple
About Nancy Chapple
You may know that Francis Ford Coppola’s frightening Apocalypse Now about the amoral depths to which a man can sink was loosely based on Joseph Conrad’s 1902 novel. But the similarities are not in locale (Africa vs. Vietnam), nor plot (plundering ebony or taking hallucinogenic drugs in enemy territory), nor language (no movie could be rendered in Conrad’s lush and highly personal prose). It’s the feeling: the fatal temptation of total power over others, the frightening character named Kurtz and his lack of scruples.
The novel starts somewhat slowly: the quiet Thames landscape of the first few pages is not the scene of the actual story. So bear with Conrad, master stylist (astonishingly enough, he was writing in his third language, Polish and French being the first two). Get used to his rhythm. The story, a long journey down an almost unmapped river in a beat-up steamboat, gets heavier from page to page: "We called at some more places with farcical names, where the merry dance of death and trade goes on in a still and earthy atmosphere as of an overheated catacomb;... the tremor of far-off drums, sinking, swelling, a tremor vast, faint; a sound weird, appealing, suggestive, and wild."
"The conquest of the earth, which mostly means taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter nose than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much." You can read Heart of Darkness politically. It is certainly a condemnation of colonial actions, but more from a moral standpoint than a purely political one. Who are we to assume that we have the key to civilization in our hands? Why do ‘we Westerners’ assume we have the right to conquer and plunder foreign lands? In fact, on what basis do we believe ourselves superior to these distant countries’ natives? Perhaps that whole set of assumptions is just a house of cards. "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. 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." We get a vague sense that there could be, should be a moral explanation for the mindset leading to man’s desire to colonize, but that Conrad, or his narrator Marlow, can’t quite define it. Probably because in actual fact it’s indefensible.
As in many literary masterpieces, the author makes use of sophisticated techniques. There’s the double frame around the narrator Marlow’s story – he’s sitting on a boat on a quiet evening telling his old friends of events long ago and far away, so we’re not sure how immediate the whole thing is: did it really take place? How has the story he tells changed over the vantage of time and distance? Marlow runs across other ebony agents who have a great loyalty to the central character Kurtz, who seem to have been obsessed; Marlow claims only to have made their acquaintance and not to understand the phenomenon himself. But what part does the narrator himself play in this exploration of the fine line to amorality? That’s left ambiguous. As with other classics, one can explore these literary questions, or just leave them for the experts – either way, Heart of Darkness is a tremendously absorbing read.
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Copyright © by Nancy Chapple, 2003
Reviewed by Nancy Chapple:
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