Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Heart of Darkness (1899) is a novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad, about a voyage up the Congo River into the Congo Free State, in the heart of Africa, by the story's narrator Charles Marlow. Marlow tells his story to friends aboard a boat anchored on the River Thames. Joseph Conrad is one of the greatest English writers, and Heart of Darkness is considered his best. His readers are brought to face our psychological selves to answer, ‘Who is the true savage?’. Originally published in 1902, Heart of Darkness remains one of this century’s most enduring works of fiction. Written several years after Joseph Conrad’s grueling sojourn in the Belgian Congo, the novel is a complex meditation on colonialism, evil, and the thin line between civilization and barbarity.

My 15-year-old asked if I'd be interested in reading this to help her with a school paper. (Worry not, this means I equipped myself to ask her interesting questions rather than doing the work for her!)

I'm so glad I said yes. Conrad was clearly a gifted writer, and had progressive (for his time) views about colonialism. What struck me most was this: while he clearly abhors the casual cruelty of colonialism, he seems even more repelled by its stupid futility.

Conrad's narrator is as artful and barbed as Jane Austen's, adroitly conveying his contempt with a factual description:

When near the buildings I met a white man, in such an unexpected elegance of get-up that in the first moment I took him for a sort of vision. I saw a high starched collar, white cuffs, a light alpaca jacket, snowy trousers, a clear necktie, and varnished boots. No hat. Hair parted, brushed, oiled, under a green-lined parasol held in a big white hand. He was amazing, and had a penholder behind his ear.

or even by merely relating a name: International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs

My English Major soul thrills at the potential points of analysis and comparison. Kurtz is the hypnotic center of the tale, yet barely appears himself (Rebecca, anyone?). I'm actually quite curious about Kurtz and can't wait to check out Brando's portrayal in Apocalypse Now. And the story hammers at the thoughtless, egotistical presumptuousness of the white characters as they attempt to invade and improve a “dark” place, resulting merely in the suffering of both the natives and themselves (this review is being written about two weeks after missionary John Chau got himself killed by flouting laws meant to protect the Sentinelese people - it's not clear yet if he also managed to exterminate them with any of his foreign microbes).

Conrad wasn't the most evolved in his attitudes toward native Africans (or women), but his portrayal of the evils of colonialism is so well crafted and evocative, it continues to resonate in the present day.