I've never been much into literature, but I decided that I should stop being an uncultured pleb, so I decided to go borrow some books at the library, one of them being Heart of Darkness. However, I'm not entirely sure what to say about the book. I tried to be a good reader and keep track of key moments, but in the end, I'm just sitting here with a lot of unanswered questions. Why didn't the ~30 cannibals on the steamboat eat Marlow and the other Europeans? Marlow said there was some sort of restraint keeping them from overcoming hunger, but it is never brought up again. What does Conrad think about the role of civilization? Also, pardon my poor English.
>>8152010
> never being much into literature
> he dives straight into Joseph Conrad
wew lad
maybe try something like george orwell or fitzgerald first, sink into literature and then try something like conrad. conrad's not one to take lightly, especially for someone who hasn't delved much into literature beforehand.
>>8152058
Conrad is entry-level though. His dry prose is just a bore to go through, but it's not that deep at all.
>>8152058
Yes, 1984 was one of those books I borrowed. I just added this one because I read Moby Dick as a kid, and I heard this one was a bit similar.
>>8152064
Dry prose is bound to be off-putting to somebody who hasn't dove into much literature before.
>>8152010
>What does Conrad think about the role of civilization?
Conrad travelled a lot as part of the Merchant Navy and a lot of Conrad's work is satirical of colonialism (that's why Chinua Achebe was entirely wrong when he accused Conrad of racism). He was sceptical of "civilisation"- he turned down a knighthood.
Try reading a couple of his short stories such as "An Outpost of Progress".
As for the plot, remember Conrad was a novelist and wanted to reach a wide audience.
>>8152058
What? Conrad's work is not inaccessible.
>>8152172
I enjoyed the book. I'm a very patient person, so it doesn't matter to me. I did, however, read a translated version, and it was honestly so shitty that I just read a pdf online instead.
>>8152175
From what I read, it seems that Marlow/Conrad was not criticizing colonialism, but rather the "ineffective" colonizing of the Belgians and Romans. He seems to praise the British for their methods.
>>8152058
Conrad isn't hard to read at all, his prose is precise and straightforward. He actually criticized other authors like Melville for making their prose too bloated.
