Mommy Brain

I have to say, I enjoyed the “Selected Short Fiction” parts of this book much more than the Heart of Darkness portion. I knew going in that it would be a dark read (the title gave me a big hint), but aside from the darkness, I found it difficult to read. Conrad uses the “story within a story” method in this and two of the short stories included in this collection, and while it worked in the short fiction, I found it distracting in the longer piece.

Heart of Darkness is the story of Marlow, an Englishman given the captaincy of a riverboat that is to go into the heart of the Congo and retrieve a station manager. The setting is the late 19th century, during which European countries were carving up Africa to use for its natural resources. The ivory trade is the central issue in Heart of Darkness, and when Marlow finds the station manager Kurtz, he finds that he has become a kind of god to the Congolese natives, and that he has treated them barbarously. The story was designed to expose the horrific treatment of the Africans by the colonizing countries, and also to explore the tension in the human heart between good and evil, humanity and barbarism.

While Conrad is an expert writer of setting, and his descriptions are deliciously detailed, I found the narrative of this story confusing and hard to follow. It might become clearer on a second reading, but I didn’t like it enough to want to read it again.

I did enjoy the short stories “Youth,” “Amy Foster,” and “The Secret Sharer” - with the third being my favorite. Interestingly, it is the only one that doesn’t use the plot device of a character telling the story to another character, and I think that made it easier to “connect” with. I am planning to add “Youth” and “The Secret Sharer” to a list of required reading for my boys when they reach hgh school. I definitely recommend reading some of Conrad’s short fiction, if only for the sheer beauty of his decriptions.

3 out of 5 stars