A review by ed_moore
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

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

1.5

“We called at some more places with farcical names, where the merry dance of death and trade goes on in a still and earthly atmosphere as of an overheated catacomb; all along the formless coast bordered by dangerous surf, as if nature herself had tried to ward off intruders; in and out of rivers, streams of death in life, whose banks were rotting into mud, whose waters, thickened into slime, invaded the contorted mangroves, that seemed to writhe at us uh the extremity of impotent desire”
 
Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ describes a steamboat journey down the Congo river where the sailor Marlow is in search of the missing esteemed ivory trader Kurtz. Conrad’s work has been praised as a critique of the European blindness towards imperialism and the actions of empire, set in the brutal Leopoldian control of the Congo, however I struggled to identify many places where such was the case. It didn’t have much substance in regards to plot and was just extremely racist in language, (the use of objectifying terminology of the Congolese natives and tribespeople in addition to frequent use of drastic racial slurs), depiction of native characters as below human and also no such narratorial or descriptive condemnation of the actions of colonialism or treatment of native people by the protagonist Marlow or Conrad’s narrative voice. Whilst some claim in highlighting the atrocities of imperialism Conrad was critiquing it, with the awful way such was handled, the tragedies dismissed as normal and even praised in places, I cannot see how ‘Heart of Darkness’ was doing anything but serving as a product of and contributing to the racist societal systems of its time, and struggle to understand even further why it is so frequently referenced and canonised. 

Stepping away from the major problems with ‘Heart of Darkness’ and its handling of race, beyond that the plot nor the characters were even particularly well developed or engaging, Kurtz is just an awful ivory trader that is shaped out to be a hero and Marlow some opinion-less lackey who falls into the colonialist system he has built around him, and the plot of the novel constitutes of primarily racist remarks towards Congolese natives. 

I really struggle to look back and pick up much of value I took from reading ‘Heart of Darkness’ other than not to think or write alike to Jospeh Conrad. 
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