Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
29 Rating(s)
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Heart of Darkness

Author: Joseph Conrad

Narrator: David Rintoul

Unabridged: 4 hr 6 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/04/2014

Categories: Fiction, Classic


Synopsis

Joseph Conrad’s searing tale of one of the strangest and most memorable journeys ever taken

Quite simply the scariest book ever written, this is a searing tale of one of the strangest and most memorable journeys ever undertaken – to the heart of a geographical and psychological wilderness from which no-one returns unscarred. For this isn’t simply a journey up an uncharted river into a geographical wilderness; rather, it’s a trip deep into our collective subconscious.

This story – about what happens when so-called “civilized” human beings go off the rails - was the inspiration for Francis Ford Coppola’s movie “Apocalypse Now”.

Conrad himself had undertaken such a river journey as a ship’s captain back in 1889 when he was in his early 30’s and before he took to writing full time. Back then, the Congo Free State, as this area of Africa was known, was a Belgian colony under the personal control of King Leopold II.

Atrocities were commonplace, to the point where the international community finally had to sit up and take notice; in a report published in 1904, over 3 million people were said to have died as a direct result of European intervention in the area.

It has long been argued whether “Heart of Darkness”, which first appeared in 1902, was in any way influential in bringing Leopold’s violent regime to the public’s attention; but whether or not, it remains a searing indictment of human rapacity – and depravity.

About Joseph Conrad

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Reviews

Goodreads review by Richard on February 16, 2024

First of all, get this straight: Heart of Darkness is one of those classics that you have to have read if you want to consider yourself a well-educated adult.     Having watched Apocalypse Now doesn’t count — if anything, it ups the ante, since that means you have to think about the similari......more

Goodreads review by Vit on February 28, 2023

Joseph Conrad seems to have known every nook and cranny of human soul… And this priceless knowledge made him one of the greatest innovators… And Heart of Darkness is simultaneously a polestar and milestone in the world literature. But as I stood on this hillside, I foresaw that in the blinding sunshi......more

Goodreads review by Leonard on September 29, 2021

Blessed was Odysseus, who returned, full of wisdom, after many conquests and adventures to live a peaceful old age with his wife and family. It didn’t go that well for Charles Marlow. Heart of Darkness is like The Odyssey or The Divine Comedy or the story of Sindbad or any hero’s journey for that ma......more

Goodreads review by Sean Barrs on July 17, 2016

Is Joseph Conrad a racist? Well, that is a question, a question that is extremely difficult to answer. There are certainly racist aspects within Heart of Darkness. However, how far this is Conrad’s own personal opinion is near impossible to tell. Certainly, Marlowe, the protagonist and narrator, h......more

Goodreads review by Lisa of Troy on September 24, 2024

Blast you, F. Scott Fitzgerald! After reading this book twice, I now have to read this book a third time for "after-effects" on the reader's mind! Earlier this year, I was reading The Great Gatsby: A Literary Reference. In that book, there were two articles that discussed Conrad’s influence on F. Sco......more