Another depressing book, with no characters that are likeable and an ending that left me unsatisfied (just like Apocalypse Now!), leaving us with the sad image of a mourning widow being lied to. I’ve got to hope that Things Fall Apart is a light romantic comedy, otherwise I don’t know what I’ll do.
I’m surprised that Heart Of Darkness was published in a British magazine at the time, considering how reserved it is on choosing sides with the colonial project. I don’t know who comes off worse, the white colonisers or the black natives, but it certainly isn’t an X good, Y bad situation.
There’s a part of the novella, when they’re waiting for the boat to be repaired, when I really had no idea what was going on. People were talking, there was an expedition (or something), and we see some pilgrims, but I found it all a bit confusing.
Another question: why is Marlow so unmoved by Kurtz’s death, when he was ‘obsessed’ by him beforehand? Did the honeymoon phase wear off?
The depictions of evil in all it’s many manifestations is very gripping though. Was everyone this evil in the late 1800s? It must have been due to all the violent video games they played back then.
A few years ago, I went to Disneyland Paris with my family and I had to take my baby brother on the ‘It’s a Small World’ ride over and over and over again. It is due to this that I feel I can empathise with Marlow and his similarly horrifying boat ride, though I guess his probably had less upbeat music.
