The Art of Darkness
“—the very end of the world, a sea the color of lead, a sky the color of smoke”
“I always went my own road and on my own legs where I had a mind to go.”
“I left in a French steamer, and she called in every blamed port they have out there, for, as far as I could see, the sole purpose of landing soldiers and custom-house officers.”
“Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings.”
“We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness. It was very quiet there. At night sometimes the roll of drums behind the curtain of trees would run up the river and remain sustained faintly, as if hovering in the air high over our heads, till the first break of day. Whether it meant war, peace, or prayer we could not tell”
“The thing was to know what he belonged to, how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own.”
“Destiny. My destiny! Droll thing life is—that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose.”
Excerpt From: Conrad, Joseph. “Heart of Darkness.” iBooks.
I carried a paperback version of this novella around and around for a dozen years or more. Finally read the eBook, iBook version. I’m guessing 40K words.
Used paperback, I’ve toted around for close to three decades now. Finally read it, as a whole, as an eBook.
Morally ambiguous — that’s what it was all about?
Being a woman is a terribly difficult trade, since it consists principally of dealing with men.
Joesph Conrad