The Secret Sharer
4 stars
Content warning A hard read but ...
I was so relieved it had a happy ending.
Paperback, 154 pages
Published Aug. 30, 2017 by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
Heart of Darkness
3 stars
(11 reviews)
Heart of Darkness (1899) is a novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad, about a voyage up the Congo River into the Congo Free State, in the heart of Africa, by the story's narrator Charles Marlow. Marlow tells his story to friends aboard a boat anchored on the River Thames. Joseph Conrad is one of the greatest English writers, and Heart of Darkness is considered his best. His readers are brought to face our psychological selves to answer, ‘Who is the true savage?’. Originally published in 1902, Heart of Darkness remains one of this century’s most enduring works of fiction. Written several years after Joseph Conrad’s grueling sojourn in the Belgian Congo, the novel is a complex meditation on colonialism, evil, and the thin line between civilization and barbarity.
Review of 'Heart of Darkness' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
Conflicting feelings about this book.
There's a lot that I did like about it. I liked the story and the meandering structure of it.
I liked the darkness of it.
I liked how dammit it was of colonialism.
But I did not enjoy the writing style very much. I felt overwhelmingly like I didn't know who was saying what, who they were saying it to, what they were referring to.
This feeling grew more and more as the book went on and I suppose that's more or less the point isn't it - that we're feeling the descent into the madness of the narrator. But it was just a challenging read for me, and without enough reward to pay off the effort.
I really wanted to like this book. It's a classic isn't it? You're supposed to like it. Everyone talks about how great it is. But I just couldn't …
Conflicting feelings about this book.
There's a lot that I did like about it. I liked the story and the meandering structure of it.
I liked the darkness of it.
I liked how dammit it was of colonialism.
But I did not enjoy the writing style very much. I felt overwhelmingly like I didn't know who was saying what, who they were saying it to, what they were referring to.
This feeling grew more and more as the book went on and I suppose that's more or less the point isn't it - that we're feeling the descent into the madness of the narrator. But it was just a challenging read for me, and without enough reward to pay off the effort.
I really wanted to like this book. It's a classic isn't it? You're supposed to like it. Everyone talks about how great it is. But I just couldn't quite gel with it; honestly if it weren't so short I probably wouldn't have even finished it.
