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    Heart of Darkness
    Heart of Darkness
    Heart of Darkness
    Audiobook4 hours

    Heart of Darkness

    Written by Joseph Conrad

    Narrated by B. J. Harrison

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    “A weary pilgrimage amongst hints for nightmares.” This is how Marlowe describes his journey into the Belgian Congo. And while Europeans go mad, Corporations turn tyrannous, and the legend of a great Ivory hunter is dangled before him, Marlowe observes everything with a keen eye, as we journey with him, into the Heart of Darkness.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherB.J. Harrison
    Release dateJan 1, 2007
    ISBN9781937091408
    Author

    Joseph Conrad

    Polish-born Joseph Conrad is regarded as a highly influential author, and his works are seen as a precursor to modernist literature. His often tragic insight into the human condition in novels such as Heart of Darkness and The Secret Agent is unrivalled by his contemporaries.

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    Reviews for Heart of Darkness

    3.5/5

    313 ratings147 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Arrows, by Jove! We were being shot at!
    • 2/5
      I finished Joseph Conrad’s novella, “Heart of Darkness” this morning. I’m really a bit Ho-hum about it, can’t really recommend it.
    • 5/5
      This classic book is very intriguing and well-written. Kenneth Branagh's phenomenal narration made this one of the best audiobooks I have ever listened to (thus the five-star review). The book itself would probably get 4 stars, despite its unfortunate racist overtones.
    • 5/5
      Beautifully written, rich, rich imagery, totally absorbing.

      I really don't want to waste anything about it for anyone, except to tell you to please read it. It won't take you long and it's entirely worth it. One, perhaps slightly odd, thing I will note is that the narrative style really reminded me of F. Scott Fitzgerald, in particular The Great Gatsby. I'm not sure why, given that the subject matter and time period are so vastly different - I think it's the dynamic between the two male leads.
    • 4/5
      Brilliant, although you need multiple reads to uncover it.
    • 5/5
      I get annoyed at people who call this book racist for 2 reasons.1) The things said by the characters in this book were the truth of how people spoke during that time. If we start trying to erase our past bad behavior, we'll never learn anything in the future. 2) Anyone who's read more than just the book description on the back cover knows that this is a very snarky, very ironic book. Conrad obviously felt exactly the opposite of how the characters treated the Africans in the story. This book tells a story about European colonialism, but its very obvious that the author was showing great condemnation and contempt for it, not supporting it at all.
    • 3/5
      I read this my senior year of high school and immensely disliked it. It's probably time to read it again.
    • 4/5
      The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much - Heart of Darkness

      This is a book that is difficult to rate. On the one hand, it is very hard to read. The perspective of the book is a person listening to another person telling the story, which means that almost all paragraphs are in quotes, which can and will get confusing if the narrator starts quoting people, and gets worse once he starts quoting people who are quoting people themselves. Add to that the slightly chaotic narration, the long sentences and paragraphs, and an almost complete lack of chapters (the book is structured into only 3 chapters), and then add some jumps in causality in the narration for good measure, and you have a recipe for headaches.

      On the other hand, the book has a good story. It has no clear antagonist, all characters except for the narrator are in one way or another unlikeable idiots, brutal savages (and I am talking about the white people, not the natives). It is hard to like any of them, and, strangely, the character who is probably the worst of the lot was the one I liked best, just because he was honest about his actions and did not try to hide behind concepts like "bringing the civilization to these people". He was brutal, yes. He was (probably) racist, yes. But they all are. He seems to show an awareness of his actions, of the wrongness of it, in the end, while all the others remain focussed on their personal political and material gain.

      I am not a big fan of books that are considered "classics". They usually do not interest me, and being forced to read them by your teachers will probably not improve your view of the books. I am not sure if I liked this book, and that in itself is an achievement on the part of this book: I am unable to give it a personal rating compared to my other books, because it is so different.

      There are many people who have liked the book. There are many who have hated it. I cannot recommend it, because I know that many people will not like it. Some would say that these people "don't get it", but that would be wrong as well. You need a special interest in the topics of the book, or a special connection to the book itself, to properly enjoy it. But I also would not discourage anyone to read it either.

      It is part of the public domain, so it is free. If you are interested, start reading it. You can still shout "this is bullsh*t" and drop it at any point.
    • 2/5
      I really didn't get on with this. It would have been fascinating to 'see' Africa as it was before political subdivision, but it wasn't really that sort of book. Unless you were prepared to get with the symbolism there was no story. It was just too obscure for me. I do salute the author, however, for such skilful writing in a second (or even third?) language. Better than some writers achieve in their first.
    • 3/5
      This classic tale is of much historical interest, but I have to confess to finding it an unappealing read. Initially an engrossing adventure, it becomes mired in perplexing moral scruples. True, predominant attitudes toward the issues raised here have changed since the author’s time. No doubt I failed to set those changes aside and consider the book on the terms that prevailed in its own era—a time of colonialism and the rampant exploitation or both people and nature in Sub-Saharan Africa.

      Heated debates over the novella’s alleged endorsement of racist ideology have raged since the 1970s. I can only add a personal impression: Amid the wholesale destruction of animal life in service to the ivory trade, and the heartless maltreatment of African workers (which the narrator, at least, seems to recognize as inhumane), the book’s ethical outrage seemed misdirected at the focal character’s betrayal of civilization. It is implied that Kurtz “went native” to the disgraceful extent of taking an African woman as his willing consort—a shameful fact from which his European fiancée must be protected after his death.

      Literary critic Harold Bloom has applauded Conrad’s talent for ambiguity. So perhaps I misread this work entirely. Or perhaps I’m wrong to impose my ethical concerns on a book published in 1902. But I suspect many contemporary readers will have difficulties like mine. It’s a challenge to appreciate the talent in a tale that so thoroughly misses the moral target it appears to aim for.
    • 5/5
      This book has been recommended to me by a friend and was sitting on my to read list for years. When I saw that most of its reviews are either 5 star or 1 star I was intrigued. The book did not disappoint. Beautiful, evocative, mesmerizing, horrifying, revolting, it describes an abyss of a human soul. A story within a story, narrator's description sets the stage and his story takes you away into then disappearing and now non-existent primal world thus forcing you to see the events through his lenses.
    • 3/5
      Marlow is sent into the african congo to retrieve an unresponsive agent, Kurtz where the lines of civilization, wild human nature and quest for power blur.
    • 4/5
      Marlow recounts his time as a steamer captain in the interior of Africa; and his meet-up with the enigmatic Kurtz. The story was much more caustic in tone and raw in setting than I remembered it as having been; and it's hard not to picture 'Apocalypse Now' while the story spools out; but it's a rich evocative story more than capably narrated by Kenneth Branagh. I know celebrity narrators can be an issues; but he told the story with just a touch of color, without over-doing it.
    • 4/5
      Odd that I've never read this before. Yes, yes, good and evil, light and dark, the souls of man, etc. Brilliant and visionary, but all a bit ponderous for me. Also, the guy who narrates this audio book edition, Scot Brick, he's American evidently and puts on a fairly awful English accent for the entire book. Tedious. Four stars if not for Mr. Brick.
    • 5/5
      Apocalypse Then -- the original one. He puts you into it.
    • 4/5
      Conrad's Heart of Darkness explores the dark heart that lies within each of us and the extraordinary lengths of depravity we are willing to go to. This is mirrored in the "dark continent" of Africa in which Marlowe, our narrator for most of the story, travels as well as in the darkness within Kurtz and, to an extent, all of us. The story also left me pondering the darkness that lies within each of us and whether showing that was the purpose of opening and closing the story in London with Marlowe telling shipmates about his trip to Africa. Are any of us really better than Kurtz?
    • 4/5
      A tortured last gasp of old-school (Old World?) colonialism, I wish this book could serve as a lesson to so many people and on so many levels; How NOT To Represent People Of Color, What Imperialism Does To One, Men Do The Craziest Things, PTSD And Its Colorful Effects, How To Get Away With Being A Psychotic Megalomaniac...the list goes on! And finally: How To Write A Book So That Your Reader Feels The Hopeless, Contradictory Weight Of White Guilt Vs. Survivor's Guilt.

      I did think it was good, though.
    • 5/5
      This book is so very well written that many aspects of it seem to me to verge on perfection. It springs to mind a hundred times in discussing writing craft, in discussing what a story should do, how framing can work, or indeed, when contemplating John Gardner's theory that novellas at their best have a "glassy perfection". This book manages to be an experience as well as a literary work, and the effect of its final pages is profound, worthwhile, and haunting.
    • 5/5
      I thought for sure I'd hate this, given the racist language and the locale, which doesn't interest me. Instead, it was wonderful. A British man, yachting with friends on the Thames, tells them of a time when he took a job running a rundown boat up the Congo River. The central character to his mind is Kurtz (the character played by Marlon Brando in the film adaptation, "Apocalypse Now"), but to me it was the land and the narrator's reaction to his surroundings. There is a marvelous discourse early on about sailors being basically homebodies, because wherever they go their home is with them and they rarely leave it. And then there are his observations on the cannibals he hires to run the boat - as opposed to the whites on the boat, whom he thinks stupid and incomprehensible. And, of course, there are the words he hears on a dying man's lips: "The horror! The horror!". Just brilliant writing.
    • 5/5
      This isn't a book that anyone reads for fun. Its not exactly a lighthearted meditation on the nature of empire, nor is the writing a breeze to slog through. Although technically a "novella," its also a solid work of literature and has loads of symbolism and multiple layers of meaning sandwiched into the story which the reader needs to work to unravel. That said, this is a classic--its a dark and brooding indictment of the futility of empire. Over one hundred years after its original publication, this book continues to provoke debates over its major themes, namely, the nature and logic of the British empire in Africa. Critics charge that this is a fundamentally racist novel and there are plenty of cringe-inducing racial comments over the savagery of the black Africans that Marlow encounters on his trip up the Congo River. We're also made to understand that these same tribes are so savage that they are quite literally beyond the redemptive power of Western [and white and male] civilization. Indeed, Conrad's condemnation of imperial enterprises stems less from the effects of the empire of black Africans and more from the damages it inflicts on the white people caught up in its ruthless expansion. Conrad links the expansion of the empire to madness and we see it most clearly in the character of Kurtz, but also in the inefficiencies, the lack of understanding of the jungle, the callousness with which the colonizers treat the natives, and their pursuit of precious ivory at any cost. The metaphor of darkness surrounds every aspect of this book--the natives are dark, the jungle is dark, the Inner Station is dark. The hearts of the colonizers are also dark, but the most provocative part of this book comes from Conrad's suggestion that the heart of darkness, the capacity for evil, resides deep inside each and everyone of us and we should feel compelled to examine the ways that we personally participate in our own journeys into modern day hearts of darkness.
    • 4/5
      A tale within a tale, like so much of Conrad. The inner tale describes a man who sets out as an employee of a trading company with "outlets" in Africa, along the Congo River, around 1900. The trade is in ivory, and some traders are better at getting it than others. The man describes one trader in particular, the best trader, Kurtz. It's a dark tale.
    • 4/5
      "Mr Kurtz, he dead!" This novel is full of enticing and harrowing sentences like that. I found the novel dark and brutal, and Conrad's prose style led me along as if through the dense foliage of the Congo. Only when I finished the book did I start to wonder about everything that it said; whilst reading I was taken in by the mesmeric quality of some of the description. Reading 'Heart of Darkness' was not an enjoyable experience, but it was a disturbing one, which is something far rarer.
    • 3/5
      As an quazi-fictional example of cultural exploitation, corporate greed, everything a civilization is not supposed to be, this novel is ripe for the reading...the descriptions, a narrative, are of finite detail. The setting is during the wontan colonization, of a central Afrikan state during the late 1800's and the need for continuous profits after western slavery was arrested...Mr. Marlow is sent in to the dark continent to bring out a rogue company man who specializes in acquiring ivory in every way possible. But alas, it was to late, like most of the unwelcomed guest, Kurtz was long dead, of mind body and spirit and subsequently died of jungle diseases real and imagined, not long after retrieval. In its narrative form, you have to pay close attention or get lost with the story....
    • 4/5
      The first time I read this novel, in high school, I really hated it. Having re-read it since then, however, I've come to actually appreciate and enjoy it. It seemed so much longer back in 11th grade! The writing is still awfully dense and confusing in places, but I've come to realize that this is rightfully considered a masterpiece.
    • 3/5
      I read this book in high school and appreciated it, but made no personal connection. Interesting story, but no plans to pick it up ever again.
    • 3/5
      Setting: The main part of the story is set in the heart of Africa where the narrator leans about man's inhumanity to man.Plot: Marlow recounts his journey on the Congo where he meets the infamous Kurtz.Characters: Marlow (protagonist)- commands steamboat; Kurtz (antagonist)- manager at Inner Station; Canibals- worked the shipSymbols: Africa as a place of darkness, Kurtz's depravity, restraint of the nativesCharacteristics: Moral reflectionResponse: I was at first bored by the prose but towards the end I became morbidly fascinated with Kurtz.
    • 2/5
      Heart of DarknessBy Joseph ConradPublisher: Knopf Everyman’s LibraryPublished In: New York City, NY, USADate: 1902/1967/1993Pgs: 110REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERSSummary:Marlow on a journey into the Congo works a riverboat for a Belgian company trading upriver. His travelogue shows the company up as imperial in its attitudes and actions toward the natives. The ivory must flow. The Congo must pay for herself and swell the coffers of her European masters. How it is done doesn’t matter. It only matters that it is done.Genre:fiction, the classics, africa, colonialismWhy this book:It was next to another book that I was looking at...and it jumped into my cart and came home with me.This Story is About:questing for a chimera, the failure of that most wanted to live up to expectations built up in the quester’s eyes/mind.Favorite Character:The exposition kept me from becoming attached to any of these characters.Least Favorite Character: Kurtz. He comes across through the exposition of the other characters as a modern cult leader. One wonders if this story and the character of Kurtz was an inspiration to the likes of Jim Jones in Jonestown.Character I Most Identified With:We’re supposed to identify with Marlow, to see him as us questing for a goal, but the attachment doesn’t communicate.The Feel:The early part of the book when the narrator is describing the meeting of Marlow with his compatriots is very much a portrait of the book’s age. The descriptions of the Thames and London and their reaching backward through time is a classic paradigm used in much period pieces. The heavy exposition colors the narrative.Favorite Scene:The scene where, as his first act in Africa, Marlow recovers the bones of his predecessor captain from the native village where he was struck dead after assaulting the village chieftain and left to molder as the village lies deserted.Marlow’s discovery of Kurtz having gone native and Godhead all at once.Settings:London waterfront; the River Congo; the upriver stations, villages, and shantiesPacing:The pace is fairly classic through the opening, very pretentious, not in a bad way, but in the classic sense of all writing of that period. Marlow’s voyage to the Congo picks up the pace a bit, but the prose.Plot Holes/Out of Character:Do those caught in his orbit love Kurtz or fear him? Seems a little bit of both.Last Page Sound:Woof.Author Assessment:His writing is definitely a product of his time. I say that not in a good way or a bad way, it just is. The exposition is thick here. Case by case basis.Editorial Assessment:Would have liked the exposition of the story to have been put on a diet, but as I’ve stated before, I believe this was more a function of the times and styles in which it was written than an indictment of the author or editor. The story with half as much exposition would have been roughly half its, already short, length.Did the Book Cover Reflect the Story:The book has a felt cover and no illustrated dust jacket.Song the Story Reminds me of or That Plays in my Head While Reading:Illustrations:NoHmm Moments:That moment when Marlow commented on having to recover his predecessor’s bones from the abandoned native village.Knee Jerk Reaction:real classicDisposition of Book:Irving Public Library, Irving, TXWhy isn’t there a screenplay?There have been. Heart of Darkness has made it to the screen a few times, once as a Vietnam War era tale, Apocalypse Now. It also appeared as a 1993 TV movie with John Malkovich and Tim Roth in lead roles. There is another version in development that MIGHT see the light of day in 2015.Casting call:I would have loved to have seen Sean Connery in one of the roles, either, when he was younger, as Marlow or, before his current virtual retirement, as Kurtz.Would recommend to:fans of the classics, people who are wanting to read the “must reads” of literature
    • 4/5
      The fiction, and the non-fiction. The prose are not for the unexperienced reader. Part of this great story explains of the ills of colonialism at the turn of the century. It posits probably, an accurate account of what one may have seen on the ground and "up country" at that time. Conrad certainly opens the pages of man's baseness, his sordidness. I eagerly anticipate reading his other works.
    • 4/5
      This is short novel (~100 pages), following an adventure up the Congo to the deepest darkest part of Africa. It is set in the 19th Century when the continent was relatively unknown to European explorers. The main character Marlow is from London, and he narrates his adventure, starting from the time when he decides he wants to explore the continent (being interested in maps from a young age), through his finding a job as a steamboat pilot, and the ensuing voyage. The company employing him has set up stations along the river, with the object of trading and obtaining ivory from the natives. The adventure reaches its finale after he finds the final station and realises what has been going on there.Though this obviously deals with colonialism and imperialism, what is perhaps a more dominant theme is the banality of evil, and the psychology of being in an extreme and often alien environment. Conrad, despite English not being his native language, writes in a finer literary style than many of his contemporary English language novelists of adventure. Indeed, his use of English here being subtly non-native provides some quite expressive and poetic turns of phrase, which in a sense heighten the exotic atmosphere and the sense of strangeness. This is very easy reading, and highly recommendable due to both its depth and its compactness.
    • 2/5
      This was pretty boring. The reader was fantastic but I just never could get into the story. Not my cup of tea.