Heart of the Darkness

Heart of the Darkness

Joseph Conrad

The reading of this book can have many different approaches, mine was double: i) historical which shows what was the real human tragedy and outrageous european colonialism in Africa; ii) and metaphorically I believe that all of us felt somehow in the heart of darkness rather emotionally or physically at a certain point in our life.

I made a choice to highlight what I empirically experienced when dealing with what is usually a “manager” of such a savage and merciless scenario as posed by Joseph Conrad words:

“My first interview with the manager was curious. He did not ask me to sit down after my twenty-mile walk that morning. He was commonplace in complexion, in features, in manners, and in voice. He was of middle size and of ordinary build. His eyes, of the usual blue, were perhaps remarkably cold, and he certainly could make his glance fall on one as trenchant and heavy as an axe. But even at these times the rest of his person seemed to disclaim the intention. Otherwise there was only an indefinable, faint expression of his lips, something stealthy—a smile—not a smile. I remember it, but I can't explain it. It was unconscious, this smile was, though just after he had said something it got intensified for an instant. It came at the end of his speeches like a seal applied on the words to make the meaning of the commonest phrase appear absolutely inscrutable. He was a common trader, from his youth up employed in these parts—nothing more. He was obeyed, yet he inspired neither love nor fear, nor even respect. He inspired uneasiness. Uneasiness. Not a definite mistrust—just uneasiness—nothing more”.

All those explorers sent to extract gold, diamonds, raw material and other valuable natural resources were involved by greed and were committing crimes with the moral excuse that they were "man enough to face the darkness". When you don't share these values you see the metaphor of Joseph Conrad being transposed clearly:

"There was a touch of insanity in the proceeding, a sense of lugubrious drollery in the sight and it was not dissipated by somebody on board assuring me earnestly there was a camp of natives - he called them enemies - hidden out somewhere".

This book was published more than 100 years ago and still touched my heart and my mind in a deep sense, because besides two world wars, all scientific evolution and reaching to the second decade of the century XXI with AI pushing fiction science boundaries the human being has the same universal weakness that Joseph Conrad identified when travelling to Congo to see the horrors of Belgian domination, as he puts: “It is funny what some people will do for a few francs a month".

I deeply recommend this 100 page book. 

João Pedro Paro - October 2024