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Heart of Darkness and the Congo Diary (Penguin Classics)
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Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Author: Joseph Conrad
Publisher: Penguin Classics
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Our Price: $8.00
You Save: $ ( % )
Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Author: Joseph Conrad
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Average Customer Rating:
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Heart of Darkness and the Congo Diary (Penguin Classics) Description
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.912
EAN: 9780141441672
ISBN: 0141441674
Label: Penguin Classics
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 192
Publication Date: 2007-09-25
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Studio: Penguin Classics
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.912
EAN: 9780141441672
ISBN: 0141441674
Label: Penguin Classics
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 192
Publication Date: 2007-09-25
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Studio: Penguin Classics
Editorial Review of Heart of Darkness and the Congo Diary (Penguin Classics)
Penguin inaugurates a series of revised editions of Conrad’s finest works, with new introductions
Exploring the workings of consciousness as well as the grim realities of imperialism, Heart of Darkness tells of Marlow, a seaman and wanderer, who journeys into the heart of the African continent to discover how the enigmatic Kurtz has gained power over the local people.
Exploring the workings of consciousness as well as the grim realities of imperialism, Heart of Darkness tells of Marlow, a seaman and wanderer, who journeys into the heart of the African continent to discover how the enigmatic Kurtz has gained power over the local people.
Customer Reviews of Heart of Darkness and the Congo Diary (Penguin Classics)
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: A Short but Interesting Journey
Review: I am not sure how I made it the last 34 years not having read Conrad's Heart of Darkness, especially as a literature buff. What is interesting about Marlow's narrative is that we can pinpoint him as both an anti-imperialist and a racist, two characteristics that are very difficult to reconcile indeed. Of course the book is about the white man going into the hinterland of Africa and taking what his heart desires (in this case, ivory). More than that, though, we meet Kurtz, a man who has given up civilization to live among the "savages." Marlow (the narrator), who is sent on a mission to retrieve Kurtz (who has essentially become a danger to himself and his country), sees much of himself in this spectral figure and his journey up the Congo to find him is rife with diversions, ponderances, lush imagery and precarious dilemmas.
Once you finish the book, I recommend seeing Apocalypse Now. As you may or may not know, it was based on Conrad's book (as well as Frazer's The Golden Bough). In the film, Vietnam is replaced with Africa, but we still get to see, quite clearly, the horror man bestows upon his fellow man, and on himself.
Both the book and the film are worth seeing and discussing.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: 'The Emperor's New Clothes', no less...
Review: Arriving at this page, inspired, enthused by Coppola's cinematic masterpiece 'Apocalypse Now'? Or maybe from the documentary 'Hearts of Darkness - A Filmmaker's Apocalypse'? Eager to learn more? maybe drink at the fountain from which perhaps the greatest piece of cinema, was born? Think again. What we have here is purely and simply a VERY mediocre novella, a work that was written not by a writer, but by a Mariner with a typewriter - a hobbyist. On no account could or should this be taken as a seminal work of either fact or fiction, and I wish those who are forever trying to have this work classified as such a literary milestone would find a real cause to champion. I mean why is this one of the supposed greats? Is it original? No! Well written? No! Does it have well-drawn characters? No! an intriguing plot, perhaps? No. Does it use language in a new or creative way? No. Does it re-define the novella? No! Does it have potential to influence, either in style or content, the works of other writers? No! - then what? What is it that reverberates so loudly? If not the work then the noise of the crowd surrounding the pedestal - eager for a glimpse of the masterpiece that (they have been told) is so revered, so special.
Between the pseudo-intellectual and the literary professor's attempts to 'interpret' this work (for interpret read: paint it their colour) there is nothing hidden, nor magical here, no genius lies between the poor structure and the even worse punctuation. A simple tale, nothing more. Had one not know Conrad actually ventured to the African Continent, one could have easily mistaken his poorly drawn figures, his stereotypical characters as being the stuff of a boyhood imagination - too many comics and children's novels read under the blanket with a torch...
The only extra-ordinary factor here is the fact that Coppola, in his undisputed genius, took this simple, fragmented tale of no real literary worth and from its inspiration produced a moment in cinematic history which will never again be glimpsed, a peak never again scaled. That is the only thing one need be in awe of here.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: "Mistah Kurtz--he dead." An influential work on five 20th century seminal works
Review: I read this book for a graduate Humanities course. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, written in 1899 is a seminal work about the ills of colonialism, as well as a postmodern look at the subject of mankind. Conrad's book had a crucial influence on five important works of the twentieth century: J. G. Frazier's book The Golden Bough. Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual to Romance, T. S. Elliott's poem the Waste Land, Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces, and Francis Ford Coppolla's movie Apocalypse Now, screenplay by John Milius, was based on Conrad's book. Another interesting fact is that this work was read by Orson Welle's Mercury Theater Players on the radio and was to be his first movie. After doing some work on it he abandoned the project to do Citizen Kane! I would have loved to of seen what Welles could have done with this story. Conrad's story is so riveting in part, because he himself served as a riverboat captain. High school teachers and college professors who have discussed this book in thousands of classrooms over the years tend to do so in terms of Freud, Jung, and Nietzsche; of classical myth, Victorian innocence, and original sin; of postmodernism, postcolonialism, and poststructuralism.
Just a taste of the plot reels you in! Marlow, the narrator of Heart of Darkness and Conrad's alter ego, is hired by an ivory-trading company to sail a steamboat up an unnamed river whose shape on the map resembles "an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country and its tail lost in the depths of the land" (8). His destination is a post where the company's brilliant, ambitious star agent, Mr. Kurtz, is stationed. Kurtz has collected legendary quantities of ivory, but, Marlow learns along the way, is also rumored to have sunk into unspecified savagery. Marlow's steamer survives an attack by blacks and picks up a load of ivory and the ill Kurtz; Kurtz, talking of his grandiose plans, dies on board as they travel, downstream.
Sketched with only a few bold strokes, Kurtz's image has nonetheless remained in the memories of millions of readers: the lone white agent far up the great river, with his dreams of grandeur,his great store of precious ivory, and his fiefdom carved out of the African jungle. Perhaps more than anything, we remember Marlow, on the steamboat, looking through binoculars at what he thinks are ornamental knobs atop the fence posts in front of Kurtz's house and then finding that each is "black, dried, sunken, with closed eyelids-a head that seemed to sleep at the top of that pole, and with the shrunken dry lips showing a narrow white line of the teeth" (57).
I especially became interested in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness from the movie Apocalypse Now. There is a scene in the movie that shows Colonel Kurtz's nightstand in his cave. T. S. Elliott's poem the Waste Land is one of three books on the nightstand. The other two are Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual to Romance, and J. G. Frazier's book The Golden Bough. Anyone wanting to understand the movie Apocalypse Now, especially the character of Colonel Kurtz, and what Milius and Copolla are trying to tell their audience need to read these three books as well as Conrad's Heart of Darkness!
As a graduate student reading in philosophy and history I recommend this book for anyone interested in literature, myth, history, philosophy, religion and fans of Apocalypse Now.
Review Summary: A Short but Interesting Journey
Review: I am not sure how I made it the last 34 years not having read Conrad's Heart of Darkness, especially as a literature buff. What is interesting about Marlow's narrative is that we can pinpoint him as both an anti-imperialist and a racist, two characteristics that are very difficult to reconcile indeed. Of course the book is about the white man going into the hinterland of Africa and taking what his heart desires (in this case, ivory). More than that, though, we meet Kurtz, a man who has given up civilization to live among the "savages." Marlow (the narrator), who is sent on a mission to retrieve Kurtz (who has essentially become a danger to himself and his country), sees much of himself in this spectral figure and his journey up the Congo to find him is rife with diversions, ponderances, lush imagery and precarious dilemmas.
Once you finish the book, I recommend seeing Apocalypse Now. As you may or may not know, it was based on Conrad's book (as well as Frazer's The Golden Bough). In the film, Vietnam is replaced with Africa, but we still get to see, quite clearly, the horror man bestows upon his fellow man, and on himself.
Both the book and the film are worth seeing and discussing.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: 'The Emperor's New Clothes', no less...
Review: Arriving at this page, inspired, enthused by Coppola's cinematic masterpiece 'Apocalypse Now'? Or maybe from the documentary 'Hearts of Darkness - A Filmmaker's Apocalypse'? Eager to learn more? maybe drink at the fountain from which perhaps the greatest piece of cinema, was born? Think again. What we have here is purely and simply a VERY mediocre novella, a work that was written not by a writer, but by a Mariner with a typewriter - a hobbyist. On no account could or should this be taken as a seminal work of either fact or fiction, and I wish those who are forever trying to have this work classified as such a literary milestone would find a real cause to champion. I mean why is this one of the supposed greats? Is it original? No! Well written? No! Does it have well-drawn characters? No! an intriguing plot, perhaps? No. Does it use language in a new or creative way? No. Does it re-define the novella? No! Does it have potential to influence, either in style or content, the works of other writers? No! - then what? What is it that reverberates so loudly? If not the work then the noise of the crowd surrounding the pedestal - eager for a glimpse of the masterpiece that (they have been told) is so revered, so special.
Between the pseudo-intellectual and the literary professor's attempts to 'interpret' this work (for interpret read: paint it their colour) there is nothing hidden, nor magical here, no genius lies between the poor structure and the even worse punctuation. A simple tale, nothing more. Had one not know Conrad actually ventured to the African Continent, one could have easily mistaken his poorly drawn figures, his stereotypical characters as being the stuff of a boyhood imagination - too many comics and children's novels read under the blanket with a torch...
The only extra-ordinary factor here is the fact that Coppola, in his undisputed genius, took this simple, fragmented tale of no real literary worth and from its inspiration produced a moment in cinematic history which will never again be glimpsed, a peak never again scaled. That is the only thing one need be in awe of here.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: "Mistah Kurtz--he dead." An influential work on five 20th century seminal works
Review: I read this book for a graduate Humanities course. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, written in 1899 is a seminal work about the ills of colonialism, as well as a postmodern look at the subject of mankind. Conrad's book had a crucial influence on five important works of the twentieth century: J. G. Frazier's book The Golden Bough. Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual to Romance, T. S. Elliott's poem the Waste Land, Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces, and Francis Ford Coppolla's movie Apocalypse Now, screenplay by John Milius, was based on Conrad's book. Another interesting fact is that this work was read by Orson Welle's Mercury Theater Players on the radio and was to be his first movie. After doing some work on it he abandoned the project to do Citizen Kane! I would have loved to of seen what Welles could have done with this story. Conrad's story is so riveting in part, because he himself served as a riverboat captain. High school teachers and college professors who have discussed this book in thousands of classrooms over the years tend to do so in terms of Freud, Jung, and Nietzsche; of classical myth, Victorian innocence, and original sin; of postmodernism, postcolonialism, and poststructuralism.
Just a taste of the plot reels you in! Marlow, the narrator of Heart of Darkness and Conrad's alter ego, is hired by an ivory-trading company to sail a steamboat up an unnamed river whose shape on the map resembles "an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country and its tail lost in the depths of the land" (8). His destination is a post where the company's brilliant, ambitious star agent, Mr. Kurtz, is stationed. Kurtz has collected legendary quantities of ivory, but, Marlow learns along the way, is also rumored to have sunk into unspecified savagery. Marlow's steamer survives an attack by blacks and picks up a load of ivory and the ill Kurtz; Kurtz, talking of his grandiose plans, dies on board as they travel, downstream.
Sketched with only a few bold strokes, Kurtz's image has nonetheless remained in the memories of millions of readers: the lone white agent far up the great river, with his dreams of grandeur,his great store of precious ivory, and his fiefdom carved out of the African jungle. Perhaps more than anything, we remember Marlow, on the steamboat, looking through binoculars at what he thinks are ornamental knobs atop the fence posts in front of Kurtz's house and then finding that each is "black, dried, sunken, with closed eyelids-a head that seemed to sleep at the top of that pole, and with the shrunken dry lips showing a narrow white line of the teeth" (57).
I especially became interested in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness from the movie Apocalypse Now. There is a scene in the movie that shows Colonel Kurtz's nightstand in his cave. T. S. Elliott's poem the Waste Land is one of three books on the nightstand. The other two are Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual to Romance, and J. G. Frazier's book The Golden Bough. Anyone wanting to understand the movie Apocalypse Now, especially the character of Colonel Kurtz, and what Milius and Copolla are trying to tell their audience need to read these three books as well as Conrad's Heart of Darkness!
As a graduate student reading in philosophy and history I recommend this book for anyone interested in literature, myth, history, philosophy, religion and fans of Apocalypse Now.