Brilliant fable of empire
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An extraordinary book, which was so far ahead of its time that some contemporary reviewers (see above!) haven't caught up with it yet! It exposes the whole vile fallacy of empire - that arrogant pretension to rule over other peoples, all, of course, in the name of humanity and democracy! One of the truly great novels of our time.
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Waste of time
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We had to read this book in English and my god it is horrible. I have rarely read a more boing book and honestly I did not manage to read through it. I'm usually crazy about reading and I have read a lot of books, but this one was simply horrible. Both the way he writes and his sometimes hidden criticism of Africa. I think it is waste of time to read this book.
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One of the greats
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Some readers seem to have difficulty with this short novel. It's certainly not easy reading (Conrad never is, though I love his prose style), but is a challenging, thought-provoking and highly absorbing character study. The journey is as much into a mind breaking down as it is a physical journey down the Congo River. I found it richly rewarding (both the 1st time and when I read it again recently). It probably says more, in a short space, than any other novel about human existence, civilization and human excesses (with the possible exception of "The Fall" by Albert Camus). Powerful stuff - if you like a strong poison then try it (and then check out Conrad's great full-length novels: "Lord Jim", "Nostromo" and "Under Western Eyes").
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Overhyped
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After reading a couple of essays praising Conrad's writtings, I bought this book and tried to read it. How dissappointing the experience is! How is it that Conrad is regarded as a master of the English language? His style is emphatically european with lots of attention paid to lower order hyponyms and adjectives, similar to that of other contemporary Germanic and Russian authors. Lots of sentences are so foreign to native English speakers that I am not surprised to learn that he did not learn English until he was 21. That said, it is still admirable that he churned out so many readable books.
However, Heart of Darkness is not really an enjoyable read. Sentences are so lumpy and bumpy and I must say that Conrad wrote the most anti-climatic piece of literature in history. The journey was interestingly described, building up to the meeting with Kurtz. After that, nothing. Where is the corruption of a man's soul in the wild? Why did he die so rapidly? According to current moral viewpoints, the guy did not do anything more outrageous than accumulating lots of ivory and trying to be too friendly to the natives. The book did not offer any insight into the man's supposedly dark soul, worse it did not even show clearly that he was corrupt in the first place.
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Over-hyped, decidedly mediocre
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I wasn't quite sure what the fuss was about. I didn't find the book to be particularly readable and though there were moments which were well written and interesting, on the whole I thought it was a rather standard book. Worth, reading, if only to understand the numerous references that people draw from it. But very mediocre in my opinion.
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