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/lit/ - Literature

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3460799 No.3460799[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

how does /lit/ feel about Heart of Darkness? I've had it on my list for a while and was wondering if it's worth a read?

>> No.3460813

OP, have you ever accidentally smoothed your balls?

>> No.3460819

>>3460813
*smooshed

>> No.3460823

Read the shit out of it, then move on to more Condrad, even if HoD disappoints you or whatever read his other major works as well. Shit's good

>> No.3462394

>>3460799
i love it but i see why other people might dislike it

>> No.3462402

I would read that, The Secret Agent (my favorite of his), and Nostromo. Conrad has some of the best prose I've ever read. There is a chance you won't like him at all, though.

>> No.3462420

>>3462402
>Not Lord Jim

>> No.3462431

>>3462420
I couldn't in good conscience recommend that one because I haven't read it yet.

>> No.3462443
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3462443

>>3462402
But whose fault is that anyway, right?

>>3460799
You're contemplating reading a 100-page story. Difficult, but only 100 pages. Step up 2 the streets cindy.

Disregard the claims of it being racist, some shit-for-brains can't into modernist masterpieces and the things that are natural to the world inhabited by the narrator

>> No.3462458
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3462458

Conrad is a remarkable writer. His works are startling expressions of ontological and epistemological inquiry, particularly 'Heart of Darkness' and 'Lord Jim', which sustain stunningly ambitious explorations of the relationship between language and reality, partly through complex innovations in narrative structure, constructed with a prose (almost uncomfortably) saturated in erudition, experience and polylingualism.

He has a quality, in common with Yeats, that I find hugely engaging. It suffuses romantic sensibility with modernist instability. He's still capable of constructing a tangible, coherent imaginative world, but there's a low, unnerving rumbling on all sides - as if his whole universe might cave at any moment. It's somewhere between one of Stevenson's jungles and Eliot's nameless 'Waste Land' metropolis. And, by jove, it's a winner.

>> No.3462464

>>3462458
Couldn't have said it better myself.

>> No.3462521

Read it, then watch Apocalypse now

>> No.3462572

>>3462458
>Conrad
>epistemological enquiry
>wtf
stop repeating buzzword you dont understand

>> No.3462577

>>3462572
He's right. Do you know that?

>> No.3462654

>>3462572

Explain the significance of Marlow's narrative position in the two novels I mentioned if epistemology isn't a significant element of Conrad's literary enterprise. Honestly, take this opportunity to prove that posters, like you, who offer needlessly aggressive refutations of ideas without any justification beyond an appeal to their own dubious, barely literate authority actually have something to contribute. Hell, I'll concede the whole argument and admit my complete and utter misunderstanding of the word 'epistemology' if you can tell me what Jim is doing when the Patna sinks. I really don't mind being wrong if it means the people correcting me have actually read the books they comment on.

Please, prove me wrong.

>> No.3462667

>>3462654
yeah seriously i don't know wtf he's on about if he doesn't think epistemology has anything to do with Conrad's work

I mean, what the fuck does he think is going on with basically everything in Heart of Darkness

>> No.3462695 [DELETED] 

>>3462667

There was another thread about it recently. The prevailing opinion seemed to be that it was a 'bad book about imperialism'. I suppose that's the standard of reader we have here. People recycling superficial opinions from high school. If /lit/ was even ten percent as knowledgeable about literature as it was about philosophy, we'd be golden.

>> No.3462699
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3462699

>>3462667

There was another thread about it recently. The prevailing opinion seemed to be that it was a 'bad book about imperialism'. I suppose that's the standard of reader we have here. People recycling superficial opinions from high school. If /lit/ was even ten percent as knowledgeable of literature as it is of philosophy, we'd be golden.

>> No.3462811

I heard Conrad spent historic amounts of time picking out every word for each sentence he would write. Sounds crazy

>> No.3464256

Absolutely masterful writing regardless of whether you appreciate the content.

"The man was too sick to moan, the flies hummed in the great peace."

Just showstopping stuff.

>> No.3464266

>>3462654
This guy owned you, anon.

>> No.3464274

>>3462420
A teacher at my old high school used to believe that Lord Jim was the only book a student needed to read in order to get a good English education. He only taught one book, that book, and it was the only book the kids read all year. Needless to say he doesn't teach there anymore, but this still went on for years.

>> No.3464278

>>3462521
this guys knows

>> No.3464279

>>3462699

It's a great book about a lot of things, one of them being a critique of imperialism.

Regardless of its themes it is one of the greatest novels I've ever read, truly an amazing work

>> No.3464310

>>3464274
Fucking Lord Jim. I got it for birthday like 7 years ago, when I was just starting to read books in English.
Today, I still can't get further than a few pages in because of the way it's written. The day I read it whole, I'll declare myself a proper English speaker.

>> No.3464340

I'm reading for my AP Lit Class right now.
Great book so far. I love the brutality and honesty. It's really refreshing after reading a lot of trite, overly-emotional shit throughout high school .

>> No.3464354

I loved it. I watched Apocalypse Now first and I thought I would crearly picture Kurtz as Marlon Brando, but the character is so well written that it completely blew away M. Brando's performance. So go figure.
The thoughts about being an imperialist or racist book have some of true, but it's not terrible or anything. I'm a socialist leftist and I didn't feel a thing about it. If you want Imperialist literature, read Kipling. Who, however, is a masterful writer.

>> No.3464440
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3464440

Heart of Darkness is a poignant, beautifully descriptive book. The balance between humanity and the unknown (the darkness of the jungle, the darkness of it's people and the darkness in everyone's heart) is unparalleled in anything else I have ever read. Yes, it is racist. It was written in a different time.

>> No.3464540
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3464540

>>3462654

Holy shit I had to screencap this whole exchange.

FWIW I really like Heart of Darkness but I haven't read it since early college and I really need to get down to it again...

>> No.3464547

>>3464540
guy got told thank god hate those kind of d-bags. a thoughtful and carefully worded post is nearly always more honorable than a meaningless, spiteful one liner. seriously wish people would post like that more often i might feel compelled to involve myself more.

>> No.3464549

Nostromo is my favorite of his. He has a lot of good stuff. Heart of Darkness is good too.

>> No.3464550

Hey OP I had to read it for school. Some of my friends thought it was boring but they're plebs, I thought it was great.

Have you ever had a dream where a plane crashes near you and you're not in danger yourself but you can see the whole thing happening? Or someone has an accident near you? It's the same feeling as the one you get from certain parts of the book.

Also I would recommend you watch Apocalypse Now afterwards. They both do a very good job of creating that foreboding feeling of collapse, but it's also very exciting. Like society's rules are being broken and someone else is suffering from it.

>> No.3464588
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3464588

>>3462654

Anyone connecting epistemology and ontology to inquiry needs a lesson in redundancy, and a further lesson in pretentiousness. Your use of broad, meaningless words taken from a community college English class syllabus, were correctly pointed out by the previous poster as buzzwords. Which is already too much of a compliment, since your sparse understanding of Conrad clearly comes from a high school AP Lit class.

>> No.3464597

>>3464588

not him but I'd just like to point out that you didn't actually discuss the book at all, in your post. please explain what it was about his post that demonstrated a sparse understanding? and explain why?

>> No.3465420

>>3464588

You are contributing nothing to this thread. You are the 'redundancy' that makes discussion of literature impossible on /lit/.