Heart of Darkness

The Book Club met on Wednesday to discuss Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.
Needless to say, opinions were mixed, at best.

Written around the turn of the 20th century, Heart of Darkness serves as a potent chronicle of colonialism gone wrong. While he and several friend boatmen wait for the fog to lift on the River Thames, Charles Marlow narrates the story of leading a riverboat journey into the darkest of the Belgian Congo to repatriate a rogue Ivory trader. The trader is the legendary Kurtz, known also as musician, painter, journalist and otherwise genius, who has managed to enthrall and subvert the natives at his trading station and wreak unknown havoc in the area. The riverboat journey is in part a recollection of one of Conrad’s own aborted journeys in the Belgian Congo.

Water imagery, vision and obscurity, from dusk to dark, visibility to fog, the story was a study of contrast and occlusion.

Themes of darkness, death, morbidity, slavery, human trafficking, abuse, and rape of a people and their land ran throughout. The contrast of supposed high civilization to pretentious, absurd, even obscene degree with the natural imagery going from light to dark was stunning. The reader was transported from the romance of The African Queen to the river Styx. The madness of extreme colonial exploitation.

Krysia commended the imagery of Conrad’s prodigious descriptive powers. Margaret, cited a fascinating and baffling dream sequence. Several readers gave up in disgust. One reader, having had first hand knowledge of African colonialists comportment could not finish the book saying it brought to mind horrifying circumstances. Circumstances which were the point of the story. A Heart of darkness, the heart of darkness. In the words of the dying Kurtz: "The horror! The horror!"

Thank you to Liz who generously hosted in the splendid venue and provided the delicious main course, and to all who brought other delectables, and to all who participated.

The March 21st meeting will be hosted by Janet and Elliot Grant and we will discuss Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons. The following month we will discuss The Snowman by Jo Nesbo.

Thank you again and we look forward to seeing you next month.