|
Imserba Webstore - Heart of Darkness (Ultimate Classics)
![Heart of Darkness (Ultimate Classics)]()
|
List Price: $19.95
Our Price: $13.68
Your Save: $ 6.27 ( 31% )
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: Audio Literature
|
Average Customer Rating:  
|
|
Binding: Audio Cassette
EAN: 9781558006737
ISBN: 1558006737
Label: Audio Literature
Manufacturer: Audio Literature
Number Of Items: 4
Publication Date: 1993-03
Publisher: Audio Literature
Studio: Audio Literature
|
|
|
|
|
|
Editorial Reviews:
|
Conrad's classic work tells of the conflicting drives of two men who finally come to grips with their differences--and their similarities. 2 cassettes.
|
|
|
Spotlight customer reviews:
|
Customer Rating:
Summary: A journey into the darkness of the heart
Comment: Heart of Darkness is of course a great classic of Western literature and needs no summary or critique from me.
Nevertheless I could make some suggestions to readers coming to this work for the first time. It has many complexities and more than any other novel of Conrad's needs support by background material and literary guides. For one thing it is a narration within a narration, and for another it has several complex characters. I would recommend starting with the Spark notes available online. Use before or as you read.
Some familiarity with the historical setting and geography are helpful also before you start. (Other reviewers have mentioned this.) Heart of Darkness is very rooted in the ugliness and rawness of African colonialism and in particular the exploitation of the Congo. The fact that this area is still a scene of horrors adds poignancy to Conrad's novel. The geography is relevant too. Heart of Darkness involves essentially two rivers--the Congo and the Thames. The Congo is second only to the Amazon in terms of water flow volume. Tracing the course of the Congo from the ocean to the heart of the interior of Africa on Google maps is an enlightening exercise. Use the satellite function zoomed in--you'll be amazed at how vast, empty, and vertiginous, and long the river is.
Surely in the 1890s the journey up the Congo that Marlow made in a resurrected old paddle wheel steamboat must have been one of the most tedious, wearying, depressing, and difficult journeys one could make. It probably still is.
Heart of Darkness, however, is not just a story of a journey up a river into darkest Africa. It is also a story of a journey into the darkness of the heart.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Heart of Confusion
Comment: So help me, I tried. I really tried. Paragraph upon paragraph was read, re-read, and sometimes read a third time, trying to soak it all up. My efforts were often rewarded, but not necessarily with a mind-blowing epiphany or an intoxicatingly rich literary morsel. There were many times when I found myself asking if that was all there was to the stream of consciousness rambling, the scaffold of metaphors threatening to topple under their own weight, or the lofty word choices. Yes, there was insight. Yes there was truth. Yes there was a candid essay on imperialism, racism, and the consistently mentioned eponymous phrase that lingers in all of us. Is that all? How much am I missing? I found myself wishing I had Cliff's Notes or a critical edition just to see what others more experienced in deciphering this novella had to say. Alas, I had nothing but my own head and I came up short. Nothing in this story made me pause and wonder. Nothing in this story made me want to read it again. Nothing in this story helped me to understand why it is so widely regarded as a classic. One thing that did strike me, however, is the fact that it is regarded as a book to be read by young adults. Many of the reviewers were in high school when they read it. My God, how much harder would it be at that age? I'm freaking forty-six and have lived and learned a great deal and I found it hard to plow through. What sadistic bastard would assign this to a fifteen year old and expect anything but a lot of confusion and frustration?
Maybe I am not mentally up to what Conrad offers. Like pearls before swine, the book's brilliance is wasted on me. I'm cool with that. If I couldn't get it after putting my best into it, then it is something I'll never get. There are too many books out there with the label of "classic" and I'll try my luck with them. If you are like me and wonder what the fuss was all about, here's a raised glass to us all. Oink oink.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Read into the Darkness
Comment: In writing this novella, Joseph Conrad did many things well in applying some of his experiences on the Congo in this work of fiction. Using a framed narrative allowed Conrad tell the story in a first person perspective outside of himself. While the framed narrative may lose some readers, this may be the best useage of the literary device I have ever read.
It is hard to disagree with the stance that the Africans are portrayed as objects or sub-human in the text. Though flawed, it is a reflection of the thinking of that era. Europeans were exploiting Africa and its people. Though it is unsettling to some, the plot is centered on this historical event.
The central figure Marlow has two objects as he follows the unnamed river in Africa. First, he is asked to smuggle ivory. However, his second and more pressing task is to return the man known as Mr. Kurtz to civilization. Kurtz has taken control of the natives in his collection of ivory while ascending to a status near that of a deity. The journey into darkness reveals more about man than about the geography of Africa.
Like many readers, I had reckoned this to be among the standard bearers in English literature. My only disappointment was that I was waiting for something more to happen. Despite the plot being an "adventure", the action is sparse. The significance of this story is in the symbolism. If one can look past the objectification of Africans, he/she may genuinely enjoy this voyage into madness.
Customer Rating:
Summary: I tried very hard to like this book, but it was futile...
Comment: I am only a humble high school girl who was forced to read this as her summer reading assignment, so maybe I didn't understand the whole point of the book. I read the whole book in about four hours, and when I finished, I literally had no idea what I had just read. The language and sentences were overly convoluted, with some somewhat annoying grammatical errors in them (apparently Conrad's first language was not English), and I kept checking back to see if sections of the book had some sort of a deeper meaning (like the ruined book in the hut)... but couldn't find ANYTHING that really made sense.
I won't go out and accuse Conrad of being racist or imperialist, because I really did not understand this book at all. I liked Lord of the Flies, the other book I was supposed to read, much better because I grasped the symbolism more easily. If you're looking for a good classic book, I suggest you try Lord of the Flies instead of trying to slog through this book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Horror, The Horror....
Comment: My daughter read this for her senior year language arts class and, of course, there's all sorts of symbolism and stuff in it. Her general feeling about the book is in the title of this review. I, however, read this in the 1970's as a young woman and loved it. It's a classic; you've gotta read it, and you just might love it, too. Go rent Apocalypse Now for the general gist of the story.....
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
