Why is this book so universally despised by normies despite being so great...

Was Conrad both anti-colonialist AND racist? That seems like an odd position, but that's the impression I get from reading this. Not only does he stress the evils of colonialism, but he also seems to be, if I'm not misreading him, suggesting that close contact with savage peoples, for lack of a better term, will bring white men into contact with some sort of primordial truth, or terrifying self-knowledge, that will drive us to insanity or barbarism or God knows what else. In other words, cut off from the bosom of white Christian civilization, with its laws, customs, social norms, etc., the white man will learn what he truly is, and this is something better left unlearned. You hear of people "going native", usually with a more benign connotation, or of returning solders having difficulty transitioning back to civilian life, almost as if they miss their time during war somehow. Maybe it's sort like that.

you sound like you don't belong here.
Morons who make one case against the other ought to stay to plebbit or Cuntblr respectively.

>Hurpity durpity Doo he said "the N word" instead of "Person of Color", he must be a Nazi!
Fuck off, the point is that people are savages in general, Whites just dressed it up in fluffy flowery terms that are different than the fluffy flowery terms the Africans use. Attempting to censor this book because you don't like that idea is fucking retarded.

He does compare contemporary colonialism to the arrival of the Romans in Britannia. So it's probably less of a racial thing than a civilizational one. He assumes that civilization itself has a tampering effect on our baser instincts

He never talked about censoring any book

Conrad is my favorite author and I will always until the end of my days argue that he is severely underrated.

He was /nostro uomo/

I'm not moralizing. I don't particularly care if he was racist. I don't judge art based on the unpleasant views or lifestyle of the artist, nor do I let that interfere with my enjoyment of their work.

Conrad, Joseph. A favorite between the ages of 8 and 14. Essentially a writer for very young people. Certainly inferior to Hemingway and Wells. Intolerable souvenir-shop style, romanticist clichés. Nothing I would care to have written myself. In mentality and emotion, hopelessly juvenile. Romantic in the large sense. Slightly bogus.

I suggest you take a trip to Africa and see whether the cannibal holocaust that awaits you interferes with your smugness.

Lol. Where did I say anything about censoring? I actually like the book a lot, which is why I wanted to discuss it.

Nabokov was an opinionated jerk.

>Conrad is more relevant than Nabokov will ever be
>Nabokov knew this and intentionally tried to slander him and many others
silly petty pedo

This reads like something directly plagiarized from your typical 9th grade book report. Insightful stuff user.

Nabokov, Vladimir. A favorite between the ages of 10 and 15, and thereafter. One would like to have filmed his outings in the Alps catching butterflies. Talent, but not genius. Not familiar with his poetry, but his translations contain deplorable blunders. A greater offender than Lowell. "Lolita." A particular favorite. Lovely swift speckled imagery. "Pale Fire." A particular favorite. Satisfying coherence.

>Intolerable souvenir-shop style, romanticist clichés.

This so accurately describes so many blurbs in critique threads it makes me wonder what is the interesection betwen their authors and Conrad bootlickers in this thread. Also the assumption of some people ITT that anyone who doesn't like Conrad's pompous pulp masquerading as a high brow writing has to be a dumb highschooler who "just duzn't get it maaaaahn" is hillarious. Pseuds strawmanning pseuds in their heads.

It's meant to be in the style of a Victorian sea yarn.

I agree with this. You could of course claim that his assertion that Africans don't have any culture is racist, which it is, but it was probably the common conception at the time. Everyone back then was racist by today's standars. Still a brilliant book.

>You could of course claim that his assertion that Africans don't have any culture is racist
Is this before or after you make up this fiction?

Some people find the prose and pacing too dense and slow but I think that's a bullshit excuse made by people who cannot appreciate good prose and atmosphere, as well as the obvious subtext that colonialism wasn't a great time for everybody.

Also I bet people who were forced to read it for class probably hated that over-analysis that english teachers usually do.

It's just how I interpreted it, but do you really not see where I'm coming from? He describes them as humans in their most basic form, primitive and free from the restraints in Europe.

nabokov you cunt

If Heart of Darkness can be said to have some kind of negative racial connotation it'd be against Europeans that they labor under false conceptions of civility.

The insinuation that Africans do not have that conception of civility can nevertheless be insulting. Conrad is very ambiguous about it and if you don't fully agree with me I understand that, but the implication is definitely there.

Confirmation bias.

Conrad literally goes to great lengths to suggest the two people are fundamentally alike. The savage with the filed down teeth steers the boat as well as any Englishman, Kurtz is a kang as well as any Zulu. It's circumstance that divides them not skin color.

Damn, I see these "why is this classic book despised/praised" bait threads everyday.

Does anyone know why this book seems to be such a slow read?

>It's circumstance that divides them not skin color
Indeed. Those circumstances seems to be that Europeans are kept under control by civilization while Africans are not, since they don't have any. Kurz changes because he is no longer kept under control.
It's prejudice or ignorance rather than racism, but you get the idea.

I didn't like it, desu. There nature aspect of it was cool, but I personally find micro interactions and anecdotes to be lackluster. Some guy died and it had an effect on the protagonist? Big whoop. The prose is alright, I suppose, especially for someone who's fourth language was English or some shit. The only reason I read it was because some literature professor in my German class recommended it to me.

It sure is summer in here

Because monkey king achebe says that Conrad is a racist, it's not allowed to like his work

I've been on this board for years fag

you seem like a very reasonable and not-racist fellow

I read it after I watched Psycho Pass. The ending was great.

This is the same theme of early Melville in Typee and Omoo. The only people who could have a high opinion of the savages are those who have never interacted with them. Melville, like Conrad, needed to go back to civilization because he felt himself physically sick, decaying. You'll see this in other books by sailors too.

god I wish psycho pass did more with heart of darkness than just name-dropping. The Marlow-Kurtz parallels were just too good to pass up. It's a shame how they fucked up s2

Now, I have nothing against niggers but there's little more aggravating than the opinions of apes like achebe being esteemed over Aryan supermen like Conrad

This is wrong and shows that Nabokov didn't pay any attention to Conrad. Conrad isn't cliched, unless you think that his choice of settings are cliched, which would be idiotic considering that Conrad was a sailor himself.

Conrad's worst flaw is the shallowness of his themes, which basically boil down to nihilism. In Heart of Darkness he tries to "suggest" terror indirectly instead of writing about the emotion directly, which shows that he himself didn't understand it. He is also a bad creator of character and many of his protagonists are self-inserts.

true terror can only be suggested

This response is somehow even more pleb

>newfag detected

You have to go back

You sound pathetic

newfag pretending to be an oldfag detected. you haven't been here for longer than three years, have you?

Does anyone understand the harlequin guy? I don't.

It is dense in terms of style and also is raciiiiz

He's certainty underrated. How much is he even read apart from HOD? Almost a flawless bibliography.

>implying

It's nothing to brag about, but I've been here for at least 4 years, friend. Now, fuck off back to Rebbit.

>Is it because they're required to read it in school?
you should fucking be so lucky to read it in school
in Canada, unless you're in some top tier education, you won't be arsed to read a book with any complex language or even over 300 words until higher level english courses in grades 11 and 12 (which is usually shit tier anwyays)
we have to spotlight on mediocre native and canadian authors, and are usually led word-by-fucking word by the teacher, as if we can't read it ourselves
also, we stopped EVERY FUCKING FIVE MINUTES to tal kabotu the last 3 pages and made sure no one missed any glaring and easily observable themes in the book, and the teacher then would actively ask the dumbest or least interested person in the class a question, they wouldn't have a fucking clue, and we'd talk another 5 minutes or so

I've been out of high school for 3 years and i have no clue why this still bothers me so much

>shallowness of his themes, which basically boil down to nihilism
That doesn't make them shallow.

I agree, and I read GRAVITY'S RAINBOW BY THOMAS PYNCHON

It's middlebrow at best and its fanbase is the kind of people who spend more of their time browsing goodreads for reviews to get mad about than reading.

I'm a complete pleb and even I managed to read through it in a couple of days.

shut up racist

>tfw reading the Congo diary while my air conditioner is broken

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A favourite quote of mine:

"Let the fool gape and shudder—the man knows, and can look on without a wink."

It's been some time since I read it, but I thought Conrad acknowledged that all the barbarism and insanity is inherently human and within us all - suppressed through culture or 'culture'.
A different time, a different place and you too will show your savagery.

I think Conrad is actually sympathetic to the natives in a way - he understands the ugliness of human nature.

Can you please explain what you mean by this?

It's ok, let it out

Hated it the first time I read it.

Thought it was a masterpiece the second time I read it.

I liked it way more than i thought i would.
Kurtz was an amazing character

I was introduced to it in a World Literature class. We read parts of it and I think I found it boring at the time but since I've been exposed to Veeky Forums I really hope to go back and read it sometime soon.

Can confirm this shit, I grew up in Winnipeg. Imagine how bad it was having to put up with fucking squaws not being able to read half a sentence without stuttering and shit. Legit had to beg teacher to do reports on books I chose myself or I'd complain about cunts preventing me from learning even remotely.

Not him, but it essentially means that it tries to resemble the account a sailor would give about his travels. A cultured sailor, not unlike Conrad himself, who had spent quite some time on ships.