Most. Overrated. Novella. Ever.

2011 March 6

So I’m gonna tell you a story. Really, it’s one of the most amazing stories ever. You want darkness? It’s full of darkness. Moreover it’s full of important darkness, like, the darkness of far-off uncharted territories that’s really the darkness in our own hearts, you know? So here it is then. Don’t say I didn’t warn you:

So there I was on a boat with these other guys. And one of them, this guy Marlow, told the most amazing story ever. You want darkness? It’s full of darkness. Moreover it’s full of important darkness, like, the darkness of far-off uncharted territories that’s really the darkness in our own hearts, you know? So here’s what he said. Don’t say I didn’t warn you:

Marlow here. I’m gonna tell you three guys a story. Really, it’s one of the most amazing stories ever. You want darkness? It’s full of darkness. Moreover it’s full of important darkness, like, the darkness of far-off uncharted territories that really the darkness in our own hearts, you know? So here it is then. Don’t say I didn’t warn you:

So there I was, there I was, there I was…in the Congo. Boy, was it dark. I was a steamship captain going up river to work at a trading station that deals in ivory. Not a whole lot happened, other than the darkness. Did I say that it was dark? Got waylaid for about a month. Met a few dubious individuals. They all talked about my future boss, Kurtz. Saw a lot of suffering. Still pretty dark. Heard that Kurtz was going nuts. Heard he took charge of a tribe. They attacked us with arrows. We found him. He was nuts, all right. And sick, muttering, “The horror! The horror!” right before he died. It was too bad, and still pretty dark over there. Didn’t have the heart to break his last words to his fiancé. So I told her he died calling her name.

So that’s my story. It would have been too dark to tell her the truth. Too dark.

When Marlow finally shut up, I looked out towards the horizon, and it was pretty dark.

So that’s my story. The end. Pretty dark, huh?

So I guess that if you’re still with me by now you’ve probably guessed that the most overrated novella ever must be Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. I have read this novella three times now. Or, I should say, I remember reading it three times. The story itself, not so much.

From- Literature

Heart of Darkness: What a Cover Says

2011 February 16

A friend once gave me an incredible find. It was a beat-to-heck paperback edition of Heart of Darkness and The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad published by Signet Books in 1950.

The thing looked like it had survived a flood. Its bottom right-hand corner was barely even there, the split binding was holding on to pages for dear life, and the pages themselves felt like they could crumble like autumn leaves. Clearly such a decrepit specimen would not survive another reading. So why did he give it to me?
Because the cover looked like this:

This is an amazing book cover. I realized this right away, but didn’t stumble upon why it was so amazing until days later. Why is this such an amazing cover? Wait. Let me ask more closely, because anyone familiar with Western lit should realize the answer just as I did. Why is it an amazing cover for a canonized work of classic English language literature?

From- Literature

R.C. Speck

Confessions of a Recovering Critic

Most. Overrated. Novella. Ever.

Heart of Darkness: What a Cover Says

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