Friday, August 12, 2011

Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness II

"I call this one 'Fart of Darkness.'"


"why is this a classic? I will tell you the story in 3 sentences. Some guys are on a boat leaving London, one of them is a veteran seaman. The seaman tells of going to Africa to pilot a steamship. He hears about a crazy white man, gets attacked by natives, meets the crazy white man who subsequently dies. Oh and the whole story is being told by the seaman to his companions on a ship. Utter crap"


"one of the hardest books to read I've ever encountered."


"I don't care how good the writing, how brilliant the meaning, if it's so boring no one will ever choose to read it, what difference does it make?"


"the only thing that this book reminds me of is cod. because i spent the entire class talking about cod, and not listening to discussions about this book."


"Not a big fan of stream of conscience writing."


"I love roadtrip novels (even when the road is a river), but Heart of Darkness lacks the humor and beauty of Huckleberry Finn or the wild enthusiasm of On the Road."


"I haven't done a thorough academic dissection of the book; nor am I planning to. I think this book is one of those books that has been selected as a work of the Western canon because it's 1) boring overall ('no gripping story' signifying 'non-entertainment' and thus 'serious' literature - which distinction is complete bullshit in my humble opinion"


"torchereing high school read."


"Meh. I'm sorry, but so much 'meh' on this book."


"Often when I see modern art and am completely unimpressed (a splotch of paint? my mom's cat can do that!) I have to remind myself of how out of the box and different it was at the time it was created. It doesn't necessarily make me love it, but it does make me respect it for pushing boundaries and exposing people to something new at that time.

I think the same goes for a lot of literature. I can see how back in the day when the world didn't understand what 'colonization' really meant, this would be really intense. However because of what I know today, this book was kind of a let down. Nothing surprised me, nothing challenged me - I finished and thought, is that it? It never really engaged me or caught my interest."


"contains an excessive amount of vocabulary"


"This is one of the books I read in school I didn't really care for. I am an optimist. I like to read books where the characters go through a traumatic, trying experience and out come of it better."


"Did they not have thesaurus's in the early 1900's?"


"Also, a row of heads on stakes is actually described as a 'symbolic row of stakes.' That was a groaner-moment for me."


"I think this book was a very challenging book because of all the touh word."


"This book is ok.I liked the last part of the book, where kurtz lied to Kurtz's girlfriend.but what life did Marlow live afterwards? Did he get to marry? did he start to do the remaining of Kurts' job in Africa?"


"Has he ever written anything else? Hmm.."


"I think that you should have made the scenes in this novella less complex for your younger readers like myself."


"Most books are boring in the beginning and eventually get better. This book is not one of those."


"The whole black and white thing is cliche which degrades this book alot for me. I mean, if you are retarded and like reading about how different white people are from black people and don't already know the differences between them back in slave times then go right ahead, waste your time."


"Also i think the author wrote too much about the feeling and the envirnments, it makes me felt bored."


"I can't help but think Conrad would've really benefited from taking an anthropology class. Maybe if he'd taken a World Cultures survey or something, it would've taken the edge off a little."


"I majored in English in college and went on to get my MA. Now I'm getting my teaching certification, and I wish they would let this book die. I dread teaching it on so many levels."


"Marlow see's himself eating an actual person an that was histerical to me. Thank God that he really didnt. Would you have eaten a person even if you were starving. I know that I would!

Just kidding!"


"This book used description very well, and has made me think about the symbols of the devil.
One of the symbol was fog. It was like a devil because it hides things. It makes the morning look so dark. But fog can be good because in the story, the natives couldn't attack Marlow because of the fogs. Also, in this book, it shows how people treated African Americans back then. They treated the Africans like animals and they called them by using the names of the animals. They would use 'n' word and don't care about it. But today, in the real world, when you say that word out loud, it's considered as racist."


"Maybe I'm just not clever enough to understand what makes this book so great. On the plus side, it enabled me to catch a literary reference in an episode of Rugrats."


"This had to be one of the longest books I had to read in my academic career. I am a fan of the classics, but"

HA HA HA

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