I find this to be a hard book to rate. I find the themes and the story itself, along with the characters hold up much better than the actual writing.

There’s a lot of strong points and visuals. You can tell Conrad has a strong command of the language. The prose is pretty dense and the even on the page itself there’s little to know page breaks so it’s like a wall of words throughout the entire novel. Just visually it’s intimidating despite its side, and maybe that is by choice. It certainly fits the theme of the novel.

The story centers a story told by the main character/narrator Marlowe and his journey into the jungles of unsettled Africa and the horrific things he encounters along the way.

As we go further and further into the jungle a single man is mentioned more and more and it’s clear the man has become notorious for not only his brutality and his charisma.

Kurtz represents the main enigma of the novel. He was well brought up but he is unaccountable to anyone so far away from civilization and descend to becoming a monster who is revered by the very people he brutalizes at one point called for their total extermination.

Some of the most powerful parts of the novel were at the very end where Marlowe meets with Kurtz fiancé after he died and he lies to her, letting her believe he was this charismatic hero that he portrayed to those at home instead of what he become in the end.

The idea is a fascinating one. The issue I have with the book is I find the discussion on the ideas to be far more interesting and easier to dive into vs the text itself. 

That being said it’s a classic and I’m glad to have read it and can add my small part to the discussion.