Heart of Darkness (Book Review)

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I believe that authors with maritime experience bring an unusual depth and aloofness to their writing. They have an opportunity for distant and wide-range observation. Their prose is quaint and fresh at the same time. With all the above qualities and a prophetic brilliance coupled with an unerring word choice, a gift given only to poet, Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness explores human expediency.

Casting an inward eye on human motives, the author highlights how easily we press morals into the service of our exigencies, how superiority takes on the colours of nobility, how a supposedly civilized race asserts its right to determine the fate of other races, justifying oppression in the name of bringing civilization, a theme more fully dealt in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.

Difficult to imagine somebody who picked up the language in late adulthood display such facility with words. The thickening shades of darkness, the eerie silence of the jungle,  the chorus of insects, clammy air, and murky waters leap into reader's imagination by the force of the narrative. 

But the overuse of adjectives, which come in quick succession towards the end, belabours ominous forecasts. I could not relate to the over-veneration of the elusive character of Mr. Kurtz. The novel could have ended much before its weary denouement. A 5-star for the first three-quarters of the book.

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