Heart of Darkness

Penelope · Thu Feb 07, 2008 6:30 pm

Ophelia - I grew up on those moors. Not the Yorkshire Moors (although I have visited Haworth).

I grew up on the Lancashire Moors - in a small cottage - built in 1805 - (it said that in stone above the door!!). The Lancashire Moors and the Moors around Haworth are very similar.

It is very wild and beautiful - but the important thing, I think, is that those of us who grew up there in various isolated cottages - grew up with a wild and independent way of thinking. We relied on our neighbours - we learned to trust one another. Do you know what I mean when I tell you, when it snows up there - it snows sideways.

I am working on my laptop now and haven't got access to all my pictures, but tomorrow, when I am on the main pc., I will send you some pictures of Pickup Bank - an area on the moors between Blackburn/Darwen/Haslingden if you want to look on Google Earth.

Then you will see me there - because we went to visit there last year - and it hasn't changed a bit, since I was a little girl and lived there from the age of six until I was seventeen.

Ooooh but I think Wuthering Heights is a love story.....

WildCityWoman · Sat Feb 09, 2008 4:06 pm

Even the married ones - you'd be amazed what we know about romance.

Audrey · Sat Feb 09, 2008 9:37 pm

As much as you guys rave on about this book, maybe I will give it another shot soon :]

WildCityWoman · Sat Feb 09, 2008 10:41 pm


	Penelope wrote: Carly - A lot of people in UK voted Wuthering Heights their favourite novel of all time. I think it is a silly book. BUT - I do wonder how a very small spinster lady who died at a tragically young age - knew about all that passion!! Kathy and Heathcliffe - I wanted it to be true love, once.....but now I am glad that I know it is just the wonderful imagination of a very gifted young woman. Seductive idea, but dangerous.

Hi Penelope . . . I see you're a couple years younger than me.

I'm just curious which post of mine you were responding to here.

I liked Wuthering Heights - liked the movie too - a good old fashioned romance.

Did I say I didn't like it? If so, I must have had it mixed up with something else.

Well, at our age, we've got a lot of books under our belts.

This one here? I don't remember doing it in school - not even in the adult education credits I took in the 90's.

I think I mentioned that we had to do Lord of the Flies when I did a lit/comp course at Burnhamthorpe Collegiate - grade 10/11 credits.

I had my high school credits, but got most of it by going to a business college for 9 months.

Enjoyed school a lot more, as an adult, than I did as a teen.

----------------

I don't really care for this book so far - very wordy - unnecessarily wordy, IMO, but a lot of old books are like that.

Doesn't matter what the teachers tell us is good literature, if I don't like a book, I don't want to read it.

I'm going to read this one to the last chapter and if I'm still not interested, I'm closing it.

I find it kinda' depressing - maybe it's because I get particularly ticked off at the way our white ancestors just moved on into places and 'colonized'.

I won't enlarge upon that thought, for fear I'll be on my soapbox, boring everybody with my political/social views.

Ha ha!

Penelope · Mon Feb 11, 2008 11:53 am

Well, fellow 60's swinger - It sounds as if you have a similar sort of education as myself. Mostly self induced I'd say.

Yes I have read a lot of books - but I know from going to Evening literature classes - that I haven't always - got their message.

I was amazed at Virginia Wolf - no story - about relationships!!!

Lord of the Flies - not meant to be entertaining - meant to be disturbing.

A Clockwork Orange disturbed me most of all - but I loved it.

Some books you read....and you're never quite the same again....don't you think? HD is one of those.

Audrey · Mon Feb 11, 2008 4:03 pm

I've realized something through this forum... I must enjoy dark and disturbing works. I liked both Heart of Darkness and Lord of the Flies

WildCityWoman · Thu Feb 14, 2008 6:49 pm

I didn't think I was going to like it, but once I got rolling into it, I found it intriguing.

(I did NOT like Lord of the Flies)

Mr. Pessimistic · Thu Feb 21, 2008 11:38 am

Just to let you all know...I just cannot get into the book . Conrad's prose is waaay to annoying for me to make it more than 20 pages. It is kinda tedious...at least right now.

I might still read this in the future...but I just cannot right now...especially while trying to plow through Pinker.

Ophelia · Thu Feb 21, 2008 11:51 am

Hello Mr P,

I do sympathize, I really had a hard time reading Heart of Darkness. :lol:

Not to worry though, help is at hand: Carly mentioned that she had listened"" to a recording of the book on the Gutenberg project site.
I tried, and I really liked it and wished I had known earlier.

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/9343

Mr. Pessimistic · Thu Feb 21, 2008 2:17 pm


	Ophelia wrote: Hello Mr P, I do sympathize, I really had a hard time reading Heart of Darkness. Not to worry though, help is at hand: Carly mentioned that she had listened"" to a recording of the book on the Gutenberg project site. I tried, and I really liked it and wished I had known earlier. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/9343

Thanks for the link. I will give it a go...but I am an avid avoider of audio books. Just do not like them.

geoffhenley · Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:13 pm

Though it has been more than a decade since I read Conrad's classic, it still resonates.

I will never forget having to argue with one of my high school teachers in 1988 that Apocalypse Now! was based on the work. Besides the timeless portrayal about imperialism, what always struck me the most was the murky issue of the credibility of not just all of the characters, but even of the narrator and protagonist, Marlow.

Though he spends a lot of time questioning the motives of others, you soon begin wondering just how reliable Marlow is. Martin Sheen did an excellent job in his role throughout Apocalypse Now, like when he has his boozy, hallucinatory breakdown in a sweaty Vietnamese hotel.

In most works, we take it for granted that narrators are giving us truthful, reliable accounts of the events they describes. Conrad brilliantly suggested that even his own protagonists cannot be trusted.

DWill · Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:19 pm


	Ophelia wrote: I do sympathize, I really had a hard time reading Heart of Darkness.

I never suspected, Ophelia. You maintained your teacherly neutrality very well!
DWill

Ophelia · Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:22 pm

Hello Geoffhenley, and welcome to booktalk! :smile:

Would you like to tell us a little about yourself by writing an introduction in the Introduction threads?

DWill · Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:23 pm


	geoffhenley wrote: In most works, we take it for granted that narrators are giving us truthful, reliable accounts of the events they describes. Conrad brilliantly suggested that even his own protagonists cannot be trusted.

I wish you'd been around when we read the book, Geoff. I can see now that we were circling around this issue, but never really brought it out.
DWill

Ophelia · Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:32 pm

Geoff and Will,

I have very fond memories of our Heart of Darkness discussion. I disliked reading the book as a college student, but I was thrilled by the discussion at Booktalk.
Geoff, I'm glad you mentioned Apocalypse Now in connection with the book. I tried and tried to get other readers to discuss the film with me at the time, but to no avail! :smile:


	Quote: geoffhenley wrote: In most works, we take it for granted that narrators are giving us truthful, reliable accounts of the events they describes. Conrad brilliantly suggested that even his own protagonists cannot be trusted.

Yes, this is interesting. Geoff, would you have quotations from HD?

The question of the reliability of the narrator is something we'll be paying attention to in the discussion of Nabokov's Lolita.

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