True, but a hint of the author's intention would have been nice .

Hmm I guess I like reading about war whether it's fictional or historical(does anyone here know about the "Ultra" secret?).LOTS of fiction and I really don't have a favorite. A good one that I like is A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park.

Esq, conrad writes for grown-ups, he doesn't have to spell it out. By making the understanding difficult he gives you an isight into the human condition of uncertainty and doubt. HoD is incredibly bleak and there isn't really a single sympathetic character (as you haven't finished it yet I won't go into too much detail on this) but Conrad deliberatley gibves yo no-one who is an eponymous hero, Marlowe himself is just a vehicle for the author's descriptive powers, you'll ee this in the other novels.

HoD has been called the first modern novel and this is because Conrad makes such a break with the past 19th C style of "adventure novel" This is an observation of humanity being lost in its own self-made confusion, of power without direction -"I don't see any method at all" and that evil arises from the emptiness that exists within us all. If you like it's a corollary of Neitszche's "will to power" in that even though Kurtz is a man of destiny, a man whose strength of will alone propels him to lofty ambitions and great achievemnets, when he reaches his goal he finds there's nothing there and nothing left, and in following his will he lost an essential ingredient of his humanity, and is dying from despair.

Well at least my vocab is expanding now, I've always wanted to write in a similar way as Conrad does, but my english vocab is not nearly big enough and searching for synonyms on word doesnt always help. Thast whats always good bout reading, your spelling and vocab improves very much, my english mark got about 20% higher since I started reading enflish
But Conrad takes a story that could be told in ten pages and tells it in 30, like The idiots, thats what makes his work nice i think

hey sycho, if you go to www.hovercarracer.com you can download matthew reilly's free release book - a book called, unusually, "Hover Car Racer" it's free for download.

Jagged, ever read CS Forrester? His Horatio Hornblower series along with his stand alones such as the Captain from Conneticut and the General are good.

On a whole I suggest Louis L'amor. His Westerns are short but great and he has a great Westernish-Cold War novel called Last of the Breed .

jedierrant

Saving damsels in distress,
Defending the defenseless,
Fighting for the underdog,
Don Quixote in an X-wing.

To err is human,
To errant is my guiding light.

Taw - You know that first email I sent you? It had a PS that said that I finished HoD two days go!

sorry I can't remember anything at the moment.

..how about getting me off these antibiotics..

Really? In that case... Hi! My real name is Sheila, and I live in Cornwall .

No problem old chum, just try to take it easy. Otherwise, I'll send my brother down from London to "discipline" you .

Edited by - esquilax on 6/1/2004 3:22:51 PM

Thankx cookie I'll look into it

I read HoD the other day, amazing book. One thing that bothers me a bit, Marlowe is supposed to be a sailor, but he doesnt speak like a sailor, cept if he had a very educated backround I'll prolly have to read it again. But I dont think Marlowe should have lied bout Kurtz's last words, it could have given the story an interesting twist, but I guess Conrad knew what he was doing


cookie I read hovercar the other day, it is awesome, cant wait for the next one, thats all I dont like bout this, I hate reading a story aver a long time, if it takes longer than 2 or 3 days i tend to eiter loose interest or te story

Marlowe is a sailor but he's "officer class" not a swabbie. He's a 19th C gentleman-adventurer who Conrad uses as narrator for q a few of his novels, in a semi-autobiographical way, sometimes M takes an active part in the story, as in HoD, sometimes he's just Conrad's vehicle, an observer and narrator, like in Lord Jim, which actually give s you more of an insight into Marlowe's Weltanschaung.

ah, the ending of HoD. of course he should have told her the truth, the point is that he didn't; that's the irony and the betrayal. Only someone who had experienced what Kurtz and by extension Marlowe had, and gained that insight into the corruptibilty of even the most noble aspirations, could have understood what had happened and the import of those last whispered words. Marlowe can't inflict such a dark revelation onto this woman, full of lofty and romantic ideals, the epitome of European civilisation's vision of it's own puropse. But Conrad has revealed to us the rotten heart of European civilisation, that it corrupts and is further corruptible. You get an insight into this q early on when he visits the Company offices in an unspecified European city (presumably Bruxelles) and the grandiose buildings are described as whited sepulchres - the city is made of bleached bones and is a monument to death and contains the dead, it sucks the life out of its colonies abroad and leaves them dead too, just like the piles of bleached ivory lying around that are the white men's primary motivation, the dead seeking death and the remains of death. You'll note the white men drop like flies, and the natives who work for the whites become tainted with the same corruption and weaknesses. The only figure full of life and vitality in the entire book is the fleeting vision of the African princess? the one Marlowe sees glaring at him from the tree-trunk across the river? contrast her, presumably a native woman who has taken up with Kurtz, possibly intimately, with Kurtz's intended, back home in Europe.

the ending also indicates both the truth and the lie of the title - M can't tell Kurtz's intended the truth because he fears it would destroy her, he lies to protect her, yet he hates lies and is disgusted by the deceit and covetousness that he sees around him through the novel's progression, and in lying to the fiancee he sullies the memory of Kurtz that he is striving to bring back. Its meant to be paradoxical.

Edited by - Tawakalna on 6/20/2004 2:11:49 AM

hmm seems like i need to read it again, not used to concentrating while i read and with this you need to, should also try tro read it at one time and not in bits and pieces.
But thanks for the explanation

well its just how I see it, who says I'm necessarily right?

Conrad makes a lot of things unclear and ambiguous, just as life itself is uncertain and disparate. thats the real beauty of that last scene, I love the way he does a Vermeer almost and freezes that instant when Marlowe is hestitating, a moment so laden with portent that it might presage the end of the world. and his control over his writing is such that he can snatch it back too, deflate it, put life back on its course after nearly tearing it apart. but along with Marlowe you the reader know the secret, and although the woman has your sympathy and pity, you also have an initiate's contempt for her.

it is the deepest, darkest, and by far the best novel I have ever read.