Why does this book make people seethe so much?

gotta agree with nabakov on this

It does? Seems to me as if it is held in the highest regards. In fact, most people hear Conrad and think Heart of Darkness. It's certainly a good read but I'd actually rank it somewhere in the middle with works like The Duel, for example, being far better. Strange no one mentions that and probably of the few people that appreciate The Duellists even fewer are aware that it is based on The Duel.

people will say you got filtered but this is the book

Newfags are so bad at detecting irony and sarcasm

retard-kun... it was a joke

kurtz glimpsed a universal truth you retard

For me? It's Youth: A Narrative.

Attached: heart of darkness.jpg (1500x2342, 252.19K)

Never heard anyone ‘seethe’ over this. It’s excellent, as is Nigger of the Narcissus

That niggers are made to be enslaved?

I liked the videogame better
>spec ops: the line

what is it? no joke.

>Why does this book make women seethe so much?
FTFY
just looked at the goodreads page for it and almost all women gave it 1 star while almost all men gave it 4 or 5 stars, why is that?

women have smaller brains than men

women are worthless

> what was so horrible?
How easily corruptible man is by power and how sadistic when unleashed
Or something

Lord Jim and Nostromo are better introductions to Conrad than Heart of Darkness.

Lord Jim was actually not very good. Conrad being an english third language really showed in that one. can't speak for Nostromo

lol no

But there barely was any sadism or grand corruption. The book just a example of how to turn a short story into feeling like a eternity with no pay-off or interesting parts

Mistah Kurtz — he sus.

CONRAD!

Attached: maxresdefault.jpg (1280x720, 88.17K)

this book fucking sucked

>as an African, his word is gospel
gOd BlEsS aMeRiGa XD

>Leopold did nothing wrong.

True. Find me some modern examples of the Belgians cutting each others hands off. Yet it still happens in the Congo to this very day. I think most of the atrocities attributed to Belgians were just the Congolese doing it to each other.

That life is suffering probably

Honestly, I think it's nothing concrete it's left to interpretation and imagination. It can be some truth about the world, something unknown and magical about the tribals. Reading the story gave an almost Lovecraftian vibe in certain parts
At least some do because they say it has no point, and I do agree that it's not for everyone. And it definitely is not all they cracked it up to be through the ages. In my opinion, the heart of darkness is a personal pseudo memoir of sorts, that would have been obscure and seldom talked about if it hadn't been caught up in the whole congo controversy. Conrad himself refused the invitation saying that he was just a writer.
But I liked it, it was absurd, almost unreal. I enjoyed it a lot.

Because as one of the greatest novellas ever written, it is the perfect size to wedge into a highschool or college class as required reading, and therefore many people bear great resentment at having been "forced" to read it

you had to be there

>entire book hypes up kurtz
>finally meet him
>he does nothing then dies
>narrator goes home to tell kurtz's gf that he's dead
>both agree that he was the most incredible, otherworldly, one-of-a-kind men to ever exist, truly a living god
HE DIDN'T FUCKING DO ANYTHING
FUCK YOU

It's about the Abyss of man.

lol

>almost unreal
I'm somewhat convinced that it is supposed to be. On the other hand, think about what that means for the people that A: Take it serious and claim it is racist or B: identify it as some sort of statement against colonialism and the western man.

You honestly expect someone from Yea Forums to read?

Ultimate pseud wisdom.

This

This is objectively correct. There simply weren't enough white colonial administrators to do even a fraction of the supposed atrocities. It was largely africans being cruel to other Africans, which isnt exactly unusual

I believe the tale is more just about a dude who was been thrown into a strange and alien environment. Everything seems strange absurd and irrational.

This book QUITE LITERALLY spoonfeeds you in the beginning, and tells you what it's going to be about. There is almost no excuse for not understanding this book. The narrator for the rest of the book says this about the river Thames in the first chapter:

> Imagine the feelings of a commander of a fine—what d’ye call ‘em?—trireme in the Mediterranean, ordered suddenly to the north; run overland across the Gauls in a hurry;
> Imagine him here—the very end of the world, a sea the colour of lead, a sky the colour of smoke, a kind of ship about as rigid as a concertina— and going up this river with stores, or orders, or what you like. Sand banks, marshes, forests, savages,—precious little to eat fit for a civilized man,
>Here and there a military camp lost in a wilderness, like a needle in a bundle of hay—cold, fog, tempests, disease, exile, and death—death skulking in the air, in the water, in the bush. They must have been dying like flies here.
>Land in a swamp, march through the woods, and in some inland post feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round him— all that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men.
>And it has a fascination, too, that goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abomination—you know, imagine the growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust, the surrender, the hate.

This is the "horror" referred to. Conrad builds up the oppressive atmosphere of the jungle and you only realise the effect it's had on you when he brings it full circle with those words.

Specifically to . The point of Kurtz was to see this happen to a truly great man, the best of us, otherwise the reader would get the impression it was Kurtz that was weak and not the "abomination" of the jungle that was all powerful.

Attached: 1567604041297.jpg (1153x1287, 379.13K)

i do understand this, but it doesnt have that much effect on me. specifically, i, and i believe everybody else confused, already knows the jungle, the unknown, will fuck you up

>everyone already knows the jungle, the unknown, will fuck you up
but that isnt what it's about. Kurtz and the roman commander would have went in knowing that too. I want you, a man used to civilization and order, to stop and truly visualise yourself floating down a river; the banks lined with forest. You can't see 2 feet past the first trunk; whatever lies beyond that is wild and unknown and probably out to kill you. No maps; no idea what horrific and "abominable" things happen there, lost in the jungle. It would probably feel like you were being watched by the wilderness, being ultimately distinct from it and invading it with your steamboat.

Conrad clearly experienced this, or at least got a taster, and tries to make the reader feel it. It's a comlicated feeling; not like "love" or "hate" that everyone has witness to, and can be summarised in a word, which is why it confuses so many people. He either makes you feel it or he doesn't. Today the earth has been tamed, and doesn't have the same mystery and danger we once gave it, but this novella can try and help us imagine.

>i do understand this, but it doesnt have that much effect on me
understandable. the effect it has on you is going to mostly be subjective

>specifically, i, and i believe everybody else confused,
scrolling through goodreads and through this thread, people are either confused because they have no idea what to think; or they think it's about black people, or a critique of colonialism, or something stupid.

Attached: file.png (893x834, 233.18K)

The goodreads reviews are painfully bad. Like this gem:
>Lols, this thread is a lot of angry white folx trying to...what? Stand up for a book that’s already a known classic by a long-dead Polish dude? About how colonialism is bad (a bit of a stale take for 2021 readers imo). Yalls know that you can “get” a text and also simply just not enjoy it as much as others right?
Also, as far as HOD goes, I don’t hate it as much as the OP but I do think that it tends to treat the Congo natives as objects of violence for the colonizing characters to learn from more than, ya know, human beings, which imo is a valid critique. Also, the themes of “darkness” or the “darkness of man” is much better done through the novel’s tone and not from the repetitious and foggy plot.

>Why? This book made me feel stupid.
HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHA

Attached: file.png (613x467, 119.41K)

bump

locked and keyed

Is the second part of your post also part of the quoted review? It reads as if written by a goodreads fag

Because of how against colonialism we have become today, people can't help but read this book as being commentary on colonialism. They can't comprehend that a skilled writer could make colonialism an aspect of the setting without involving deep reflections on the matter, so now this book has known for being a critique of colonialism (which is sort of like saying moby dick is all about the whaling industry; you're sort of right in a very wrong way)

I kinda wanna read it now

Yes it is.

>so now this book has known for being a critique of colonialism
this is a mistake on the publishers. on my book its explicitly written that its a critique on colonialism and such, i was expecting colonialism is le bad, not what user explained which is a very good take and should be seen like that.

From the books of Joseph Conrad I read, I think
Heart of darkness = secret agent > nigger of the narcissus

Secret agent was great.
I want to start nostromo now, how's that book?

Dumb niggers and self hating whites who see everything as racist