Heart of Darkness

Right now I'm reading Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness for my Literature class. I find it very interesting and I, apart from many in my class enjoy his style of writing. With that said what does Veeky Forums think of Heart of Darkness?

Apocalypse now was awesome

This is an 18+ website

Used to have this picture on myspace. Wild.

Duly noted, but please remind me how this relates to Heart of Darkness?

He is assuming you are in high school

i liked it but i thought the conclusion was underwhelming. hard to talk about why without feeling like i'm spoiling it, though. conrad is always that engaging, it's incredible. he does get a little carried away with metaphors and symbols that he thinks are more complex than they are, but manages to mostly avoid that in heart of darkness

If you like Heart of Darkness you must check out Conrad's other shit. This user's favorite author.

Are you in an IB program?

My first language isn't English, but I read it in English. I had a hard time.
I had a harder time when I learned that the author's first language isn't English either.
Feels pleb, man.

There's a second year eng lit class called adaptations, covers heart of darkness/apoc now, clueless/emma, fightclub, brokeback mountain, great Gatsby (both adaptations) etc.

Spoiler: Adaptations stimulate conversation, if the adaptation is true to the source or not.

Hmm, doesn't sound like a great book to me

Give it a shot, user. It's not very long and if after 10-15 pages you're not gripped then fair enough. I can see why people feel like they do in that image but I would have to strongly disagree.

...

this, Nigger of Narcissus is his opus

You aren't wrong

>mfw at used book store
>see "Nigger of Narcissus" leather bound for 3.50
>think about buying it
>black girl at the counter
>oh god what do I do
>grab East of Eden centennial edition for 5 bucks
>try to hide the "nigger of narcissus" underneath it
>she opens EoE, types in the number
>oh fuck
>in giant, golden letters is the word NIGGER
>"i-i like joseph conrad"
>she looks like I just murdered her whole family
>put card into reader
>look down for the entire transaction
>"You need to sign, --sir"
>oh fuck.
>can't do anything. Fingers pure spaghetti, sign my name with I'm sorry
>leave bookstore

Guess I'm never coming back. At least it's a nice edition.

Glen Allen?

>No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one’s existence--that which makes its truth, its meaning--its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream--alone.

What is the life-sensation?

>It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream - making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams. . . .

When you're dreaming, the experience is pervaded by a dreamlike quality, if the dream has a ubiquitous essence which is distinct from the "quality" or "essence" of reality, then life must also have this essence. But like a dream, we can only really recognize that essence in retrospect, and even then it is often merely the feeling that something was different. The life-sensation is realities equivalent of the dream-sensation.

btw what page is that quote from?

fucking pussy, nothing would have been wrong if you hadn't been such a bitch about it

HoD is shit

i think it's joseph conRADICAL!

I was I was!

You got screwed?

Yeah that's certainly the gist of it I think. I always connected it to this quote:

>the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of these misty halos that, sometimes, are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine

I always though there was some sense that the life-sensation was the purest sense of reality, that could only be experienced in the moment. You seem to be drawing it as a quality that pervades reality, that makes it distinct (or maybe not so distinct) from a dream, which I think is all certainly in there as well.

>btw what page is that quote from?

Different for every edition, obviously, but mine's on p 30. Near the end of the first section, before he starts going on about rivets and shit.

I'm black and even I felt awkward about buying it at the store. I got the bigass Heritage Edition with the nice book sleeve and boat paintings and title in all-caps so it announces itself over the rest of the books on my shelf. It was only like six bucks though

>was the purest sense of reality, that could only be experienced in the moment.

Absolutely, the important part being that it can be "experienced" in the moment but not understood, or even really conceived because of its ubiquity. Well put user.

So Nigger of Narcissus is his best? any others from him y'all would recommend.

no. It's on the same level as Heart of Darkness as far as philosophical merit and existential themes, but more accessible and artistically driven, by which I mean NotN is the book that, at that point in his career, Conrad claimed would be the deciding factor of his legitimacy as an artist. It's what academia would be equally as focused on as HoD as Conrad's existential novellas if it didn't shoot itself in the foot with that title.

Anyways, Nostromo is his magnum opus. His "Ulysses"; by far his most ambitious and highly regarded work

thanks user, I'll check out Nostromo