For the next installment of our 2018 Siblings’ Book Club, we chose this classic story by Joseph Conrad, a book which (along with The Secret Sharer) had likely been on all our bookshelves for two decades or more, untouched and collecting dust. I’m so happy I finally picked it up and enjoyed it! For this review, I’ll discuss the story itself, Conrad’s writing style, and the book’s ties to other works we’ve selected for our reading list this year.

The Story

The story is a monologue from Charlie Marlow (apparently a recurring figure in Conrad’s writing, as I’ve just also seen him in Youth, which I picked up immediately after I finished Heart of Darkness), as he relates to a crowd of fellow sailors on an overnight jaunt up the Thames about an experience he had many years before. He’s not even sure if any of the men are listening as he speaks, but that doesn’t sway him in the least. Conrad’s character himself is attentive throughout, eventually recording every word Marlow speaks.

I’m not sure if anyone’s tried it, but I think that this book would make an enjoyable play, where the audience sees nothing but a starry sky and the outlines of the men (with the occasional lit match for their pipes), and where they hear nothing but the speaker, the wash of the waves, and the creaking of the boat. I’d pay for that kind of show.

Marlow’s experience is not so much the interesting, months-long excursion he had into of the Heart of Darkness—some unnamed river in an Africa populated by cannibals—as it is the intriguing bond he built there with a man he knew for only a few minutes. Throughout the story, he looks forward to meeting this man, Kurtz, a foreigner who collects double the ivory that any other agent can procure, though reports say he does so via methods that are unsound. Some believe that Kurtz is a man of unique gifts, who could go anywhere and do anything, finding success in any endeavor. Others say he’s a rotten, conniving cuss-word who must be stopped at all costs. The disparity sparks Marlow’s interest to the point where he’d risk his own neck just to hear the man’s voice.

Conrad’s Writing Style

The story is an odd one. In fact, as I read it, I didn’t feel pulled into the plot. For all the set-up regarding Kurtz, I didn’t really look forward to meeting him myself. And yet throughout the story, I felt myself drawn to its unfolding. I could barely put the book down! For this, Joseph Conrad has earned his place in the annals of literature. His style is so engaging, I felt as though I were a part of some fireside culture of old. I felt a sense of what it must have been like to be part of a traditional oral culture, where epics were passed on, not by paper and pen (or Kindle app), but by voice. This story has driven me to read others like Typhoon and those mentioned above, and I still long for more.

All that being said, I don’t think that Conrad’s plot structure in Heart of Darkness would succeed were it written today, merely because the strength of adventure is the story and its telling, not the climax or conclusion (which itself is somber and hopeless). Such a literary device would go unappreciated today.

Tying It to Our Other Reads

All I had ever known about this story before reading it was that it’s the story of a boat that sails up a river into the thick of nowhere. For this reason, I felt from the outset that it might have close ties to another of our Book Club selections from this year, The Mosquito Coast. By the end, I found that it had much closer ties to Paul Theroux’s book than this mere thematic coincidence. Both deal with concepts of “savagery,” both reference the toll that “loss of civilization” takes on a man, and both are inherently racist in their treatment of the locals, though in their own unique ways. This racism also helps link Heart of Darkness to another of this year’s reads, Go Set a Watchman. That fully three-eighths of our selections deal with racism surprised me.

I’m glad to have read this book and been introduced—at long last!—to Joseph Conrad. I look forward to reading more from him. Perhaps he’ll even make it to our Siblings’ Book Club for 2019.

©2018 E.T.

Read More from Joseph Conrad:

• Heart of Darkness (1899)
• Youth (1898)
• Typhoon (1902)
• The Secret Sharer (1910)
• Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (2020; adapted by Peter Kruper)