188 pages
French language
Published Aug. 29, 2012 by Flammarion.
Au cœur des ténèbres, la nouvelle la plus célèbre de Conrad, est le récit d'une descente aux enfers. Officier de la marine marchande britannique, le jeune capitaine Marlow part à la recherche de Kurtz, un chasseur d'ivoire qui a disparu dans la brousse africaine. À mesure que Marlow remonte le fleuve Congo pour retrouver ce personnage au sujet duquel circulent d'étranges rumeurs, il s'aventure dans les ténèbres: celles d'une nature hostile où, loin de toute civilisation, résonnent les cris inquiétants des «sauvages»; celles de l'âme humaine, dont la noirceur n'a d'égal que le mystère. Au-delà de la peinture d'une triste réalité coloniale dont Conrad fut le témoin, ces pages d'une sombre magnificence, qui ont inspiré le film Apocalypse Now de Francis Ford Coppola, sondent la part obscure qui sommeille en chacun de nous, et questionnent le rapport de l'homme au mal.
This is a 110 pages book of metaphors, long metaphors, short ones, tortured ones and blistered ones.
Disappointing, I've been to Africa in the 60s and it's a beautiful but sometimes really hard world that is certainly worth much more than obscure metaphors.
For those interested in gaining a more insightful vision I highly recommend Romain Gary's Les racines du ciel.
Conflicting feelings about this book.
There's a lot that I did like about it. I liked the story and the meandering structure of it.
I liked the darkness of it.
I liked how dammit it was of colonialism.
But I did not enjoy the writing style very much. I felt overwhelmingly like I didn't know who was saying what, who they were saying it to, what they were referring to.
This feeling grew more and more as the book went on and I suppose that's more or less the point isn't it - that we're feeling the descent into the madness of the narrator. But it was just a challenging read for me, and without enough reward to pay off the effort.
I really wanted to like this book. It's a classic isn't it? You're supposed to like it. Everyone talks about how great it is. But I just couldn't …
Conflicting feelings about this book.
There's a lot that I did like about it. I liked the story and the meandering structure of it.
I liked the darkness of it.
I liked how dammit it was of colonialism.
But I did not enjoy the writing style very much. I felt overwhelmingly like I didn't know who was saying what, who they were saying it to, what they were referring to.
This feeling grew more and more as the book went on and I suppose that's more or less the point isn't it - that we're feeling the descent into the madness of the narrator. But it was just a challenging read for me, and without enough reward to pay off the effort.
I really wanted to like this book. It's a classic isn't it? You're supposed to like it. Everyone talks about how great it is. But I just couldn't quite gel with it; honestly if it weren't so short I probably wouldn't have even finished it.
