Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

Claire and I swoon over one of our favorites, Conrad's Heart of Darkness. We talk about how and when to approach great books, what makes Conrad a master prose stylist, how this work subverts too-easy dichotomies of light and dark, Kurtz as a distillation of Europe, why Marlowe stays loyal to him, the horror of existence, the evil in every human heart, the dark power of nihilism, and what glimmers of light, if any, this novella offers as a source of hope. 

 

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