Mario Taboada wrote: Currently rereading Conrad's _Heart of
Darkness_, fantastic.
************** HEART OF DARKNESS holds a special place in my
heart. When I first read it many years ago I didn't
understand it and thought it dull and tedious. Even now I'll
admit that Marlowe tends to beat issues into the ground, but
consequent readings really impressed me. Characteristic of
the good stuff, a new impression is gained with every
reading.
One of things that I like is his habit of serving up cerebral
ruminations punctuated by fantastic visuals. The following is
when they have carted Kurtz off on a stretcher and the boat
is starting its long trip back:
"Dark human shapes could be made out in the distance,
flitting indistinctly against the gloomy border of the
forest, and near the river two bronze figures, leaning on
tall spears, stood in the sunlight under fantastic
headdresses of spotted skins, warlike and still in statuesque
repose. And from right to left along the lighted shore moved
a wild and gorgeous apparition of a woman."
"She walked with measured steps, draped in striped and
fringed clothes, treading the earth proudly, with a slight
jingle and flash of barbarous ornaments. She carried her head
high; her hair was done in the shape of a helmet; she had
brass leggings to the knee, brass wire gauntlets to the
elbow, a crimson spot on her tawny cheek, innumerable
necklaces of glass beads on her neck; bizarre things, charms,
gifts of witch-men, that hung about her, glittered and
trembled at every step. She must have had the value of
several elephant tusks upon her. She was savage and superb,
wild-eyed and magnificent; there was something ominous and
stately in her deliberate progress. And in the hush that had
fallen suddenly upon the whole sorrowful land, the immense
wilderness, the colossal body of the fecund and mysterious
life seemed to look at her, pensive, as though it had been
looking at the image of its own tenebrous and passionate
soul."
"She came abreast of the steamer, stood still, and faced us.
Her long shadow fell to the water's edge. Her face had a
tragic and fierce aspect of wild sorrow and of dumb pain
mingled with the fear of some struggling, half-shaped
resolve. She stood looking at us without a stir, and like the
wilderness itself, with an air of brooding over an
inscrutable purpose. A whole minute passed, and then she made
a step forward. There was a low jingle, a glint of yellow
metal, a sway of fringed draperies, and she stopped as if her
heart had failed her. The young fellow by my side growled.
The pilgrims murmured at my back. She looked at us all as if
her life had depended upon the unswerving steadiness of her
glance. Suddenly she opened her bared arms and threw them up
rigid above her head, as though in an uncontrollable desire
to touch the sky, and at the same time the swift shadows
darted out on the earth, swept around on the river, gathering
the steamer into a shadowy embrace."
WAHOOOO! That's damn good! By the way, I've got an HTML and
PDF copy of the book if anybody is interested.
It's interesting to compare the American version of HEART OF
DARKNESS, McCarthy's BLOOD MERIDIAN, to Conrad's Brit
version. And yes, I know of Conrad's origins and don't care.
He's as Brit as they come.
My only complaint about HEART OF DARKNESS is the ending. It
fizzled. I preferred the ending in Apocalypse Now. It plays
closer to the fisher king myth.
Should we discuss if the book is hardboiled or noir?
;-)
miker
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