So I just finished pic related. Is this book as straightforward as I think it is, or am I missing some critical pieces of understanding?
>The jungle is the great emulsifier of the human condition and stands as an opposing force to mankinds perceived dominance
>The lines between civilization and barbarity are a matter of perspective and largely a transplanted concept in foreign lands
>Kurtz takes the role of a fallen great, a man with so much power and potential brought low and made a savage equal in the dark heart of the jungle
>Despite the posturing and the preening we do as humans, the animal inside us has only been subdued, and our true colors show when we are confronted with things we cannot or refuse to understand
>Men are men as they are the world over. Savage is a term for people who do not fit European notions of "civilized"
I feel like there's actually a lot here I'm not getting or was it truly that straightforward?
>>7437970
the real horror is slogging through that shit in the first place.
>>7437972
I actually thought it was a nice short read. The language alone was rewarding enough to keep going. Didn't like it?
I think the idea is to present man as aliens. Conrad talks a lot about the size and scope of the jungle/river, hold old it all is. He's almost portraying us as trespassers attempt to bend the earth to our will. I want to say it could be a romantic (the art movement) boom based upon that alone, but I don't think that'd be missing the point entirely.
>>7437979
yeah, i guess i just felt it boring, and had trouble giving a shit.
>>7437994
Tbh it was a bit boring. I've found a lot of "the classics" are actually kinda boring, but I read them anyway. They have a lot to say, and aren't just about pandering to my or yours short attention span. I couldn't care much a out the main character, but I had fun trying to figure out what he represented and how he fits into the authors vision.
The movie Apocalypse Now is based off this book and is what got me to read HoD. Watch that movie. Reread the book and visualize it as if it was Apocalypse Now and it gives it a more foreboding vibe and makes Kurtz feel more badass.
ITT: /tv/edditors
>>7438031
I've never seem the movie but I'm aware of the premise, and I did see the parallels between Kurtz and that guy who forms his own godlike jungle cult.
Anon, what do you think that says about leadership, or the nature of people?
>>7437997
actually, most classics i read arent boring at all. that one was.
>>7438037
I find a lot of them dry, except for all of Camus, which is funny because he's often touted as being the "driest".
>>7438036
I think Kurtz may have been predisposed to be insubordinate. He had his own internal motives that weren't the ivory trade. He started there but the further upriver he got, the more disconnected he became from the reason he was there and the people he left behind. It's like recognized the futility of the society he left and became one of the savages. He bought in to the "noble savage" idea. After he is contacted again by sane Westerners, he realizes there is no such thing as the "noble" savage but there are only savages and although society has its flaws is extremely hypocritical and excessively beauracratic, it still beats living like an animal.
Heart of Darkness has a caught a lot of flack for its depiction of indigenous peoples. (Chinua Achebe has condemned the novel.) Personally I think Conrad nailed it. Westerners have tried to bring the mudskins in the interior of Africa into modern times but they aren't capable of civilized society. The culture of primal violence is too far ingrained in them.
TL;DR Kurtz was a kind of fucked up idealist but realized that the natives are savages. Conrad was a racist.
>>7438091
I think you're missing a large part of the book when you fail to discuss the European's treatment of the natives. Take this in whatever narrative you'd like, but if the general premise of this is that "man is the animal", it's important to see how quickly we are able to discard lives. It's not just " hurrr durr colonialism was bad", that's only a small part of it. There's a lot to be said about "savagery" when a group of starved natives are able to refrain from violent cannibalism even at the hands of their abusive master. The purpose of the repeated abuse is to show that perhaps we as the idealist's are no more savage than the starved cannibals. We bend human life to our absurd will and then discard them like broken tools.
Interestingly enough this all occurs largely before the trip down river. The deeper into the jungle the more "equal" we all become, if that makes sense. We are bound by the overgrowth and humbled by the ancient powers of a world we don't understand. Conrad is very clearing trying to show that savagery is a matter of perspective
But desu I'd rather live in England than the fucking Congo.
>>7438122
This kind of what I meant when I said that Kurtz had his own motives although you said it better than I did. It was almost an experiment for him to see if he could bring the natives into some semblance of unity in a region that was given to turmoil. Once he realized he had failed and that civility was impossible he was ready to dip out and go home.
I think there's a strong "man vs nature" thing going on as well. The destroyed machines that are described as carcasses, the jungle influencing how people behave, the boat firing pointlessly into the jungle, etc.
There's a bunch of Buddhist stuff, Marlow is likened to Buddha multiple times...not sure how far you can go from this angle though.
A lot of the negativity toward the westerners is not directed to their project itself (i.e. I don't think Conrad identifies colonialism with "darkness") but the way in which they go about it (laziness, incompetence, pointless infighting, etc.)
