Heart of Darkness (1899) is a novella by Polish-British novelist Joseph Conrad about a narrated voyage up the Congo River into the Congo Free State in the Heart of Africa. Charles Marlow, the narrator, tells his story to friends aboard a boat anchored on the River Thames. This setting provides the frame for Marlow's story of his obsession with the successful ivory trader Kurtz. Conrad offers parallels between London ("the greatest town on earth") and Africa as places of darkness.
Heart of Darkness is well written. The idea of a storyteller within the story isn't unique, but it works very well. We could think about the word darkness for quite some time. The best way to think about it is with Cliff's Notes. I wanted him to get on with it. I guess I was a little impatient for the action and the ending. If it hadn't been for Cliff Notes, I would have missed half of what he was implying.
A merchant company is missing an agent named Kurtz, and Marlowe must find him. Traveling through tougher environments than he expected, he might have discovered what he was looking for. Like many epic stories, the physical distance or direction isn't as important as the change it causes in a person’s soul.
I somehow missed this book in school. The reason I started reading it before I got fully into it was to see how much it resembled the movie. No, not the movie you're thinking of—"Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death" (1988). The film was mainly shot in the avocado groves maintained by the University of California at Riverside (UCR), which the university uses for horticultural experiments. Adrienne Barbeau plays Dr. Kurtz.
The horror... the horror...
So, you will want to see the movie “Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death” (1989) with Adrienne Barbeau as Dr. Kurtz. Or another adaptation, “Apocalypse Now” (1979).
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