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.
Should I keep pushing on or just give up on the book? Is it worth finishing it?
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 wish my teachers had told me this. It was so torturous to get through, I thought that UNICEF would have to come in and investigate the school.
It is incredibly rich textually and wonderfully well constructed and just as paradise lost was an inescapable framework for the romantics, heart of darkness was an inescapable framework for the late modernists and postmodernists ford maddox ford writes about this very evocatively. Yes it isnt a breezy read