Sitting on a cruising yawl (a sailing boat
to you and I), in the Thames estuary, waiting for a flood to subside and the
tide to turn, Marlow - a seaman of some repute - recants the epic journey he
once took into the heart of the African rain forests; to the heart of darkness.
Just getting a commission was hard enough,
until a wealthy benefactor stepped in, and his passage from England to Europe
and then on to the African continent, took weeks, all before he had to battle
his way through the dense jungle of the Congo to discover 'his' steamer a
wreck.
A month or two pass whilst he repairs his
charge, making her seaworthy again, and then finally, he is able to press on,
up the Congo River in search of the legendary explorer and ivory thief, Mr
Kurtz.
With every mile travelled, the forest
encroaches, the air thickens and the natives get bolder. As a reader you feel the
tension build, the exhaustion and the sweat running down their backs, you hear the call of the birds, feel the humidity, as if you are right there in
the jungle, and you get nervous when you see, through dense undergrowth, eyes staring
back at you.
Heart of Darkness is a short book but the
writing is as fierce as the mosquito filled heat soaked African rain forest,
and as every meander in the river is traversed, the intensity rises and the
tension builds, leaving you somewhat exhausted by the end but wanting more.
Three and a half stars for this one then,
as it is good, builds tension well and has you on edge for a fair chunk of the
book, but I did feel a bit lost sometimes, which might be me, but there you go.
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