I have always loved this book.
> Why did he do this? Kurtz had
>obviously forgotten all about anything that used to
matter to him at home,
>but why did Marlowe spare her feelings? The best I
can come up with is that
>it was the civilized thing to do.
"'His last word--to live with,' she insisted.
...<snip>
"It seemed to me that the house would collapse before I could
escape, that the heavens would fall upon my head. But nothing
happened. The heavens do not fall for such a trifle. ...I
could not tell her [the truth]. It would have been too
dark--too dark altogether.'
...for her? For him too, I think. Very laconic --
hard-boiled, it seems to me. Lessons for Chandler here.
>>My take on HEART OF DARKNESS is how close
"civilization" is to barbarism.
You've forgotten the ending, perhaps. the whole book is a
story which is being told by Marlowe to friends aboard a
yacht moored on the Thames, which in Conrad's day still
seemed like the sea road to the rest of the geographical and
historical world, and above all to the colonial world with
all its barbarism. But the heart of darkness is the human
heart with all its dark mystery. The final lines say that the
heart of darkness is universal:
"I raised my head. The offing was barred by a black bank of
clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost
ends of the earth flowed somber under an overcast sky--seemed
to lead into the heart of an immense darkness."
The "offing" is what can be seen from their morring; it is
not safely far away in uncivilized Africa, the darkness is
over London too.
Conrad was incredibly noir.
>waiting for someone to defend Mr. Prufrock's
hardboiledness
Perhaps only one challenge per 24 hours....
MM
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