I’ve started to read heart of darkness recently, and frankly, it has been quite a struggle.
At first, I thought this book will be my cup of tea, I love history and also reading the classics, so a book criticizing colonialism in Congo sounded intriguing to say the least. But I already read the first 60 pages of the book, and it has been so difficult to follow.
The book is filled with archaic words, and there are so many metaphors. It’s like the author tried writing the book as complex as possible. I sometimes have to reread entire paragraphs just to understand what is happening and it’s quite frustrating.
I’ll admit that I’m not a native speaker, but I consider my level of English to be quite good and I didn’t expect it to be so difficult to read this book. I read war and peace and the count of monto cristo in English and they were much more interesting and easier to follow.
I saw some negative reviews about the book but I assumed they were mostly about the patronising and racist nature of the book, I didn’t think the writing would be so senseless.
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Should I keep pushing on or just give up on the book? Is it worth finishing it?
by nikita698
11 Comments
My first inclination is that if you’ve given the novel a fair shake and it’s not working for you, then move on.
But isn’t Heart of Darkness on average like…75-ish pages? If you’ve already read 60 then I feel like you’re almost done, and in this case, might as well just finish it and decide for yourself.
Never go past a word that you don’t know because when you do the meaning of the sentence/paragraph/chapter/book is lost. I enjoyed “Heart of Darkness” but until we discussed it in class I hadn’t realized the subtleties that I’d missed. We were all in the same boat on that. Read a Cliff’s Notes or an analysis on Goodreads or wherever at some point.
It’s over a hundred years old, so the language, conventions, and formatting are over a hundred years old. Not only are some words archaic, but some word *usages* are archaic — sentence 2 of the whole book says “The flood had *made*,” where *made* means to “rise.” I had to look that up as a native English speaker, because my first thought was, “The flood made what, exactly?” No one uses “make” as “rise” anymore.
If you’re not enjoying it, I would skip it, or dedicate yourself to making notes in the margins about more complicated word use. The point it’s making was revolutionary and fair for its day (not many people sympathized with Africa and hated colonialism in 1899), but better and more concise works on the same subject have come up in the time since. You’ll have to make that decision on your own.
It definitely was for me
Yes it is. Conrad himself admitted to making it challenging to read so it feels like the reader is fighting through the jungle along with Marlow. It was challenging even by the standards of the time it was written in.
Also please don’t listen to people telling you to put a book down if it doesn’t click with you right away. That’s fine advice for a newer book that you’re only reading for pure entertainment, but part of the benefit of reading classics or more literary works is to sharpen your mind and attention span.
I found that listening to the audiobook really helped a ton. You could really hear the emotions behind the words, which helped you keep following even if you don’t understand all of them
Well, English wasn’t Conrad’s first language either but he managed to write it so you might be able to read it. He is a *very* intense author and Heart of Darkness is one of his more intense works so it is liable to be a struggle for most readers. Perhaps you should try some of his other stories like Youth, Under Western Eyes and/or The Secret Agent before coming back to Heart of Darkness.
I had to read it on 3 different occasions for school because I have an English Lit degree. The analysis was interesting, but it still wasn’t for me and I didn’t enjoy it.
I read Heart of Darkness in high school and I’ll be honest I don’t remember the language of it very well. I don’t remember it being particularly difficult (well, any more than other 18th-19th century works anyway).
What I DO remember is going from having never heard of it before, to suddenly seeing references to it *everywhere*. It was like a whole new secret code language was unlocked.
It’s pretty short. I would crack a dictionary and maybe read a literary analysis or two and struggle through it. It’s worth it.
It’s not meant to be an easy read. It was written by a Polish writer who had English as his third language (the second one was French) and who wanted to be as cryptic as he could. Also, it’s what is known as a *roman à clef* or *novel in code*, where many characters, dialogues and events are not meant to be taken verbatim, but as allusions to countries and philosophies. My take is that “Heart of Darkness” was inteligible when it was first released, but not now.
Some people might consider “Apocalypse now” hard to follow, especially the last section at Kurtz’s compound, but that’s actually much easier to understand than the novel it adapted.
But please don’t take my “criticism” of “Heart of Darkness” as a an attack towards Joseph Conrad. The man was a hell of a writer, probably on of the best ever to write in English. I just happen to find some of his other work, such as “Typhoon” or “Nostromo” much more fun.
Hot take: Joseph Conrad’s English wasn’t as good as thought it was.