Heart of Darkness

Apologies for the lack of content here in the past few days - as I rather anticipated, my degree has been taking up quite a lot of my time! It's not so much that I have a huge workload, but more the fact that I don't have designated leisure time... and so no time to assign especially for this blog. But fear not, I shall continue apace!

Not a very enthused review today, however, and one I hope won't upset my tutor if she comes across it... we read Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness for the course on Empire Writing. I think a few of you expressed distaste for the book when I mentioned it a while ago - and I have to say I agree. Not distaste, actually, just a complete indifference. I sat and read the novella (if such it is) in one sitting, and just couldn't bring myself to care about any of it - certainly some is well written. The final scene, and 'the horror the horror' demonstrate an interesting dabbling in Modernisty writing, but in general... well, let's just say I finished it with only a minimal idea of what it was about, having already forgotten all the details. Which is quite shameful.

I'd be very happy for someone to offer a counter-argument... please step forward if you love Heart of Darkness, I'd love to here the case for the defence.

But, this possibility aside for now, I'm intrigued - how on earth did Conrad's book become so renowned? As far as I can tell, from my fairly early copy, it was initially only a subsidiary to the story 'Youth' (my copy is in a volume called Youth and Two Other Stories), which is in itself a rather underwhelming story. Perhaps Heart of Darkness revolutionised narrative or something, and I daresay I should appreciate it as a benchmark of literature, but... well, people my age have a little expression which goes like this: "meuh". That about sums up my feelings for this novella.

Those of you who aren't tutting in disgust - which 'classics' leave you feeling "meuh"? Not hatred, or even dislike, just indifference....?