Reviews tagging 'Colonisation'

El Corazón de las Tinieblas by Joseph Conrad

76 reviews

werewolfacct's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
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librarymouse's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I'm rating this higher than I did last time around, but not by much. It's not my favorite book by a long shot, but after learning more about Joseph Conrad and writing about textile manufacturing practices  contemporary to Conrad's writing of the book in how they relate to its content, I got a lot more out of it this time around.
It's a slow paced book, but time moves quickly for the characters.
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cinderellalovesbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

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saraaaa's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark reflective fast-paced
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

A very mild read, whose status as a classic is surely upheld by its relevance as a historical document. Conrad harshly criticizes colonialism, but does so from within the racist framework of his times.
I liked that the reader is constantly reminded that the story is being told by a specific character with specific views on life, and therefore is only one of many different perspectives on the narrated events.
Conrad paints the colonial environment and the Congolese forest as engulfed in a haunting, menacing spell that gives an air of magic realism to the novella – when it did not have the tones of exoticism, it painted a beautiful picture.
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saturn_rage's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Ya know, I get why this has become such a cultural mainstay, with its themes of obsession, domination, and the mystery of your self and others carrying through to numerous other pieces of media, a lot of which I love. On the other hand though, the hand that looms much much larger, this book is racist as shit, and it really makes it a pain to get through. I’m glad it’s as concise as it is, and I have no desire to ever return to it. 
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calebph's review against another edition

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adventurous dark informative reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I read a lot of reviews lambasting this book as “racist”. I assumed it was mostly just zoomers whining about a book that was written in a time before they were born. Nope. There’s some passages in here that made me crinkle my nose and think, “ah, that’s the racism they mentioned”. It’s hard to decouple the racism from a book inherently about colonialism from the POV of the white guys doing the colonizing. A lot of folks have derided the book as being just another one of those ol’ things, but baby, Joseph Conrad wrote the book(s) on the matter…

 I was about to yap about this book for paragraphs, but I’m suddenly overwhelmed with the desire to not to. Good book. Fun Congo river adventure with lots of colonialism. Norton edition had some great essays too. Only read a few of them, but they were fantastic.
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hotkoolaidpotato's review against another edition

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slow-paced
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jade_smith's review against another edition

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adventurous dark slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This was me revisiting this book for the first time since studying it in high school. I still find it to be such an incredibly interesting novel. To say I "enjoy" this book doesn't feel right -- but to say it enthralls me as a historical object is definitely true. 
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oliviatheron's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

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duarshe's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

So... I can safely say I didn't enjoy this. I felt like there was nothing happening and even the climactic moment of the story was extremely  bland and underwhelming. I appreciate the theme and topic of the novella, the playing with the light and dark... But this was not for me.
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