No Subject

[Jon the Postman]

"Heart of Darkness" is a book filled to the brim with expectation but it ultimatley fails to deliver. The innovative use of sentence structure is considered by some to be the prelude to the "stream of consciousness" prose used by Joyce and Woolf but this adds little to the plot, which consists of "man on boat in the jungle" "Where's Kurtz?" "more man on boat in the jungle" "where's Kurtz" and concludes with a disappointing ending. There is only so much jungle scene descriptive one reader can take! If you wish to write a novel and want some ideas about acceptable structure, read the book. But, be warned, go elsewhere if you want a gripping plot.

[okamaflower]

"Heart of Darkness" is a book filled to the brim with expectation but it ultimatley fails to deliver. The innovative use of sentence structure is considered by some to be the prelude to the "stream of consciousness" prose used by Joyce and Woolf but this adds little to the plot, which consists of "man on boat in the jungle" "Where's Kurtz?" "more man on boat in the jungle" "where's Kurtz" and concludes with a disappointing ending. There is only so much jungle scene descriptive one reader can take! If you wish to write a novel and want some ideas about acceptable structure, read the book. But, be warned, go elsewhere if you want a gripping plot.

Well, I agree that the ending is a bit of a letdown. But I think the intention of the book was not to entertain or to create a fantastic story--it was meant mainly to explore the human mind and the nature of insanity, to criticize greed and to present the frailty of human resolve when faced with the darkness of that place created in greed.

The descriptions, at face value, seem excessive--however, I've found that none of the words in the book are without purpose. I read the book for a college class, and we were told to "actively read" (read with pen in hand)...it was all I could do not to highlight the whole page. Every word, every sound, every sentence, means something. That's why the book is so short--Conrad is actually pretty economical with his words. To convey the right sense of darkness, he needed those descriptions--every time he told you that the jungle was leering, he wanted you to feel the angry eyes of the darkness on your skin.

I may seem like I'm trying to sound like a literature scholar here...I'm not. I was terribly affected by the book and I wanted to share my perception of it. :banana: