Harp
I'll Lock Up
- Messages
- 8,508
- Location
- Chicago, IL US
That mystique is hard to pin down, is it the modern idea of man alone in a vast universe or is it a kind of negative pantheism? Even Heart of Darkness is open to these contrary interpretations - most people see it that Kurtz is corrupted somehow by the jungle and becomes barbaric, but it seems more likely that Conrad meant Kurtz corrupted the natives, given the activities of the Belgian rubber companies in the Congo that Roger Casement and others revealed, and which were largely the inspiration for Heart of Darkness. In Nostromo the character Decoud is stranded on a small island and, faced with the immensity of nature, kills himself. It's all very confusing but seems to keep Conrad popular.
Heart of Darkness is quite depressing, I cannot tolerate reading it. Conrad is great literature but he's a take or leave
author I chose to leave and let others sort it all out.