Quote:
Originally Posted by powerclown
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad. 5/10. The book that inspired Apocalypse Now. The movie was much better. An exploration of hypocrisy, ambiguity, imperialism, moral confusion and absolute power corrupting absolutely, or something. The longest 100 page book I've ever read.
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I also had a really hard time with this. The second half is so abstract and vague I didn't know what was really happening. But it provoked me into picking up and reading King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hothschild - a nonfiction account of one of colonial Africa's nastiest secrets. It's not a very happy read but it pulls what Conrad seems to be hinting at with Heart of Darkness into sharp focus.
Right now I've somehow found myself in the middle of loads of books: Moby Dick by Herman Melville, The Getaway by Jim Thompson, Chickenhawk by Robert Mason, The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck and Swann's Way by Marcel Proust. That last one is really REALLY hard so I'm going to leave it until I get a little older and wiser before continuing. The rest should be done in a couple of weeks though.