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DWill 
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 Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 8:09 am Post subject:
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I like Robert Tulip's thesis that our being introduced to Kurtz as a wasted bag of bones, his head smooth & shiny like ivory, is symbolic of the moral emtpiness or perhaps viciousness behind imperialism. The only problem I have with it continues to be the report of Marlow, who does not see Kurtz as this kind of fraud, but still as extraordinary in some way. Marlow, to me, has established considerable credibility as an observer. He does clearly see that the effect of the European presence in the Congo is merely rapacity, and all the talk about improving the natives malarkey.
So I take Marlow's appraisal of Kurtz seriously and want to know what's behind it. I guess on the surface, what Kurtz accomplised, as perverted as it may have been, was amazing--a single foreigner building an empire in the interior of the Congo. Anyone would have to have some unusual charisma to do that (which is implied at the end when some acquaintance of Kurtz's says he could have been a politician who could ignite the masses).
But in dying, what Marlow admires about K. seems to be that he doesn't die as ordinary people would, making it all about his own loss, his physical pain, etc. This "remarkable man...pronounced a judgment upon the adventures of his soul on this earth", meaning, I suppose, that Kurtz was fully illuminated about the true nature of all his actions. Marlow believes this to be a remarkable achievement because of his own near-death. M. "found with humiliation that probably I would have nothing to say." He fears his own summing-up would be "a word of careless contempt," but K.'s was "an affirmation , a moral victory paid for by innumerable defeats, by abominable terrors, by abominable satisfactions."
M.'s reaction seems to explain his loyalty to K., or at least it allows him to accept that to be K.'s champion is the bizarre fate that life has assigned him. Because he survived his illness, he remains to "dream the nightmare out to the end, and to show my loyalty to Kurtz once more."
Not saying I understand or accept Marlow's thinking here, but there is certainly a depth to it that makes it difficult to dismiss. |
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Ophelia
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| Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 8:37 am Post subject:
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DWill wrote:
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| Marlow, to me, has established considerable credibility as an observer. He does clearly see that the effect of the European presence in the Congo is merely rapacity, and all the talk about improving the natives malarkey. |
Thanks Will for one more very interesting posting.
I also think that Marlow is a credible observer.
I have noticed what seems to me to be a contradiction: One the one hand he does not find that the people who praise Kurtz, like the motley-clothed Russian, are reliable witnesses, and on the other hand, in spite of all the strange witnesses, he becomes more and more eager to meet Mr Kurtz, and this seems to be more than mere curiosity. |
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Penelope
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| Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 2:16 pm Post subject:
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At the risk of sounding 'trite'....there is an old song....which says...'Love is touching Souls'....
I was once told that, 'Souls come in clusters.....' meaning, I think, that some people are on the same wavelength.....tuned in to the same channel so the communications are coherent. This, from experience, seems to be true.
The trick I think is tuning ourselves in and attempting to communicate with those who are on a slightly different wavelength....and before you all poo poo what I say......I would point out that everything in our senses is in wavelengths...colour, sound......light.....
We are made up of vibrations......this is physics....not religion or spirituality......maybe if we get the vibrations syncronised....we can begin to understand the God phenomena and the human situation.
Right.....now you can all nod in agreement that I am a complete basket case.......tell me.....what do you think.
Anyway....this is why I think Marlow (Conrad) couldn't communicate with the zany Russian..but he did communicate with the horrible Kurtz. |
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DWill
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| Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 6:49 pm Post subject:
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| Robert Tulip wrote: |
| The trouble with Kurtz is that the ‘redeeming idea’ is so flagrantly at odds with the sordid reality that a rather gross deflation is inevitable on the slightest examination. I think the horror is what Kurtz has done to other human beings to get ivory. |
I like this idea, that the wasted and rather pathetic man we meet instead of the Great Kurtz is symbolic of the hollowness at the core of the Europeans' professed ideals. The main problem I have with it in the context of the novella, though, is that Marlow continues to find something extraordinary about Kurtz. I dismissed M's view at first, but I think it deserves more attention in light of the trust M. establishes as an observer. He is wise, I think. He knows, for example, that the Eurpoeans are a rapacious bunch and that their talk of improving the Africans is bunk.
Marlow has a sense that he is identified with Kurtz; he comes recommended by the same people that recommended Kurtz, and he finds that the traders think he might have an "in" with Kurtz. So he has this sense of relation to Kurtz that he doesn't welcome, but it's there. (Conrad developed this idea of shared identity fully in his story "The Secret Sharer.")
What's there to admire about Kurtz, though? His achievement, although perverted, is impressive. He single-handedly forges an empire of sorts in the Congo, which would take considerable charisma. (Later, an aquaintance tells M. that K could have been a politician who could ignite the masses).
M. admires him, in death, for a different reason. When K. says his last words ("The horror, the horror"), M. says, "I went no more near the remarkable man who had pronounced a judgment upon the adventures of his soul on this earth." He seems to think that K.'s last words show that he has a moment of illumination at the end, realization that he had let himself be captured by many "powers of darkness," as M. says earlier. Or maybe "the horror" is not just about Kurtz, but applies in a wider way to the humans, who all have this darkness at heart.
Most of us wouldn't be capable of such a "summing up," Marlow says. He himself would have probably spoken only a word of "careless contempt" because, at the end of life, we don't have thought of much besides the pity of our own demise. K.s cry at the end was "an affirmation, a moral victory paid for by innumerable defeats, by abominable terrors, by abominable satisfactions. But it was a victory!"
M. doesn't die of his own illness, but remained "to dream the nightmare out to the end, and to show my loyalty to Kurtz once more. Destiny. My Destiny!"
Not saying I understand this entirely or accept it, but it has a depth that makes it hard to dismiss. And it seems, to me, to be the "heart" of the novella. |
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DWill
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| Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 6:49 pm Post subject:
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| Robert Tulip wrote: |
| The trouble with Kurtz is that the ‘redeeming idea’ is so flagrantly at odds with the sordid reality that a rather gross deflation is inevitable on the slightest examination. I think the horror is what Kurtz has done to other human beings to get ivory. |
I like this idea, that the wasted and rather pathetic man we meet instead of the Great Kurtz is symbolic of the hollowness at the core of the Europeans' professed ideals. The main problem I have with it in the context of the novella, though, is that Marlow continues to find something extraordinary about Kurtz. I dismissed M's view at first, but I think it deserves more attention in light of the trust M. establishes as an observer. He is wise, I think. He knows, for example, that the Eurpoeans are a rapacious bunch and that their talk of improving the Africans is bunk.
Marlow has a sense that he is identified with Kurtz; he comes recommended by the same people that recommended Kurtz, and he finds that the traders think he might have an "in" with Kurtz. So he has this sense of relation to Kurtz that he doesn't welcome, but it's there. (Conrad developed this idea of shared identity fully in his story "The Secret Sharer.")
What's there to admire about Kurtz, though? His achievement, although perverted, is impressive. He single-handedly forges an empire of sorts in the Congo, which would take considerable charisma. (Later, an aquaintance tells M. that K could have been a politician who could ignite the masses).
M. admires him, in death, for a different reason. When K. says his last words ("The horror, the horror"), M. says, "I went no more near the remarkable man who had pronounced a judgment upon the adventures of his soul on this earth." He seems to think that K.'s last words show that he has a moment of illumination at the end, realization that he had let himself be captured by many "powers of darkness," as M. says earlier. Or maybe "the horror" is not just about Kurtz, but applies in a wider way to the humans, who all have this darkness at heart.
Most of us wouldn't be capable of such a "summing up," Marlow says. He himself would have probably spoken only a word of "careless contempt" because, at the end of life, we don't have thought of much besides the pity of our own demise. K.s cry at the end was "an affirmation, a moral victory paid for by innumerable defeats, by abominable terrors, by abominable satisfactions. But it was a victory!"
M. doesn't die of his own illness, but remained "to dream the nightmare out to the end, and to show my loyalty to Kurtz once more. Destiny. My Destiny!"
Not saying I understand this entirely or accept it, but it has a depth that makes it hard to dismiss. And it seems, to me, to be the "heart" of the novella. |
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DWill
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| Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 6:50 pm Post subject:
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| Robert Tulip wrote: |
| The trouble with Kurtz is that the ‘redeeming idea’ is so flagrantly at odds with the sordid reality that a rather gross deflation is inevitable on the slightest examination. I think the horror is what Kurtz has done to other human beings to get ivory. |
I like this idea, that the wasted and rather pathetic man we meet instead of the Great Kurtz is symbolic of the hollowness at the core of the Europeans' professed ideals. The main problem I have with it in the context of the novella, though, is that Marlow continues to find something extraordinary about Kurtz. I dismissed M's view at first, but I think it deserves more attention in light of the trust M. establishes as an observer. He is wise, I think. He knows, for example, that the Eurpoeans are a rapacious bunch and that their talk of improving the Africans is bunk.
Marlow has a sense that he is identified with Kurtz; he comes recommended by the same people that recommended Kurtz, and he finds that the traders think he might have an "in" with Kurtz. So he has this sense of relation to Kurtz that he doesn't welcome, but it's there. (Conrad developed this idea of shared identity fully in his story "The Secret Sharer.")
What's there to admire about Kurtz, though? His achievement, although perverted, is impressive. He single-handedly forges an empire of sorts in the Congo, which would take considerable charisma. (Later, an aquaintance tells M. that K could have been a politician who could ignite the masses).
M. admires him, in death, for a different reason. When K. says his last words ("The horror, the horror"), M. says, "I went no more near the remarkable man who had pronounced a judgment upon the adventures of his soul on this earth." He seems to think that K.'s last words show that he has a moment of illumination at the end, realization that he had let himself be captured by many "powers of darkness," as M. says earlier. Or maybe "the horror" is not just about Kurtz, but applies in a wider way to the humans, who all have this darkness at heart.
Most of us wouldn't be capable of such a "summing up," Marlow says. He himself would have probably spoken only a word of "careless contempt" because, at the end of life, we don't have thought of much besides the pity of our own demise. K.s cry at the end was "an affirmation, a moral victory paid for by innumerable defeats, by abominable terrors, by abominable satisfactions. But it was a victory!"
M. doesn't die of his own illness, but remained "to dream the nightmare out to the end, and to show my loyalty to Kurtz once more. Destiny. My Destiny!"
Not saying I understand this entirely or accept it, but it has a depth that makes it hard to dismiss. And it seems, to me, to be the "heart" of the novella. |
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Penelope
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| Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 7:08 pm Post subject:
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DWill - you posted this three times......We are having gale force winds here......and the Internet keeps going off.......
Are you having the same problems?.......
a good point is worth making three times.....You and Robert Tulip are so erudite that I need to read you three times anyway.
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ginof
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| Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 1:25 am Post subject: really liking this thread....
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no, not that DWill's post was done 3x
but what's discussed here is really the heart of the matter. I can remember the discussion from high school about 30 years ago now (wow, i'm old!) about this exact point. What is being said here by Conrad.
While M has established himself as a credible observer, there is always the possibility that he is still blinded by his longstanding reverence for K. This can be a reason why he still supports him in the end. while I'm not completely convinced by this argument myself, I don't think it can be completely discounted.
And K's last words: What exactly is the horror? Is it K's own actions? What K saw? What K did? Is it that K couldn't believe that he wasn't 'successful': i.e. made it out of there with his fortune? Is it really a final moment of self reflection that he couldn't believe what he had become or was it that he had not learned anything: the 'horror' of dying among the 'savages'?
I think it's the fact that we can sit here and have an interesting discussion about these issues that make this book a revered work of literature. It's long enough that the characters are developed enough that you know enough to ask these questions about them. However, it's short enough that you are not completely sure of the answers. There is just the right amount of ambiguity that people can come to different answers in good conscience.
Personally, I don't think Kurtz learned a thing. I think his dying words are his own disappointment at the way things turned out for him. He would do anything for money and felt it was his due. He was the consummate imperialist. Marlow however, is the conscience of the book. The one Kurtz doesn't seem to have. He struggles with many things, and he (perhaps) doesn't always come up with the right answer. Just like every conscience. However, it's his process of the struggle that makes good reading. It also taps into something personal in each of us as we recognize the struggle, although perhaps not this one exactly. |
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Ophelia
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| Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 5:24 am Post subject:
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Ginof wrote:
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| It's long enough that the characters are developed enough that you know enough to ask these questions about them. However, it's short enough that you are not completely sure of the answers. There is just the right amount of ambiguity that people can come to different answers in good conscience. |
Thanks Ginof, for me this goes right to the heart (!) of the matter. |
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Penelope
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| Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 7:06 am Post subject:
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I echo Ophelia here....this is an excellent post and right on topic!!!!
Ginof said:-
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| However, it's his process of the struggle that makes good reading. It also taps into something personal in each of us as we recognize the struggle, although perhaps not this one exactly. |
This would answer the question as to why Kurtz is such a vague character when he is meant to be so charismatic and powerful. If Conrad had given us a fuller description, we might have begun to sympathise - and even like Kurtz.....but he gives us just an outline sketch.
Because the book is not about fatal charisma......it is not about the mesmerising effect Kurtz has on Marlow. It is about Marlow's reaction to it and how he deals with it. How we all deal with people and circumstances that effect us on a deep subconscious level. I think that is a great and helpful observance
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| 'Marlow is the conscience of the book' |
So thank you for that Ginof.....it has helped me to begin to see the subtext. 
PS - This post might appear twice - if it does, it is not because I am trying to be emphatic. We are having gale force winds and the computer keeps having a little blimp.  |
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Ophelia
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| Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 7:16 am Post subject: Rent a copy of Apocalypse Now
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I hope you will forgive me for repeating myself:
Constance wrote: "I have not seen "Apocalypse Now" myself, but if people are interested in discussing it, I'm sure I can pick up a rental copy."
I haven't heard from HD readers about the film yet, I hope you are considering it, I really enjoyed watching it in this context. |
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Penelope
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| Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 7:51 am Post subject:
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Ophelia - if you and the others 'order' me to watch the film - I will.
Can't get motivated.....can't work up the initiative.....you will need to give me strict instructions.......  |
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Ophelia
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| Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 8:37 am Post subject:
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Hmm, this is a strange one.
I wasn't expecting people to write in answer to every single one of my postings in HD, and I was prepared to give up the postings that got no response.
Still, about "Apocalypse Now", I find it would really be a shame if people didn't have a go at it. I explain in posting XIII-1 that I din't like the film when I saw it over twenty years ago, and the second viewing was such a good surprise.
What can I say to tempt you?
The visual aspect of the film is stunning, this was the main pleasure for me.
The part about the crazy French colonizers in Cambodia is also quite something and very well made.
By the way, get the REDUX DVD version of the film (I'm told "redux" is from the Latin and means "brought back") if you have the choice, it's better.
Marlon Brando is fine, but it would be wrong to think he's the main attraction of the film.
Again, if people told me they did not like the film and had nothing to say, I would leave it at that, but in the absence of such comments, I thought I would mention the film a few times and see what happened.
I'm going to add a few questions in my HD- XIII heading in case that's what is missing. |
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Robert Tulip
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| Posted: Mon Mar 03, 2008 5:21 am Post subject:
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| ginof wrote: |
| While M has established himself as a credible observer, there is always the possibility that he is still blinded by his longstanding reverence for K. This can be a reason why he still supports him in the end. while I'm not completely convinced by this argument myself, I don't think it can be completely discounted. And K's last words: What exactly is the horror? Is it K's own actions? What K saw? What K did? Is it that K couldn't believe that he wasn't 'successful': i.e. made it out of there with his fortune? Is it really a final moment of self reflection that he couldn't believe what he had become or was it that he had not learned anything: the 'horror' of dying among the 'savages'? …There is just the right amount of ambiguity that people can come to different answers in good conscience. Personally, I don't think Kurtz learned a thing. I think his dying words are his own disappointment at the way things turned out for him. He would do anything for money and felt it was his due. He was the consummate imperialist. Marlow however, is the conscience of the book. The one Kurtz doesn't seem to have. |
Thanks very much for this Ginof, these are good comments. I agree that Marlow is blinded by reverence for Kurtz, but I interpret it a bit differently as I imagine Kurtz dying with a sense of self-knowledge. In my reading, Kurtz represents the actuality of Europe’s relations to the rest of the world. Marlow represents the liberal intelligent community who are repulsed and fascinated by the colonial enterprise in equal measure. Marlow has these powerful contradictory thoughts of repulsion and fascination, a fruit salad of Marx and Kipling. His sentiments are corrupted as well by the financial benefit the liberal classes received from the loot of empire. No doubt there is an underlying racism, a sense that European invasion of Africa was justified by technological and cultural superiority, and so a sympathy for the ‘whatever it takes’ approach of Kurtz. I imagine Kurtz as entering Africa with mixed motives, open to partnership with Africans but finding the technological chasm so immense, and his freedom to exploit so untrammeled, that he degenerated into the tragic-comic figure collecting ivory that he would never sell. Marlow, for his part, is impressed by the amazing achievement of Kurtz as we are impressed by any wildly successful entrepreneur, but in this case the impressive achievement is hollowed out by its uselessness, venality and oppression. Marlow falls short of being the conscience of the book as he is too detached. If he really was the voice of conscience he would not have lied to Kurtz’s girl about her hero’s last words. Really, ‘the horror’, as a description of the colonial enterprise overall, is the key statement of conscience in the book. |
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