Books Journalists Should Read, Maybe

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad follows a similar story-line as Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now. Instead of someone going to kill Kurtz, as is the case in Apocalypse, the company has sent a steamboat to retrieve Kurtz in Heart of Darkness.

Conrad's Heart of Darkness is at the same time the jungle that surrounds the river and the person that Kurtz has become in the wilds of Africa, miles from civilization. Africa itself becomes a verifiable character in the book, closing in on the crew, killing those with a weak resistance and coming alive with sound, light, darkness and deadly natives hidden in its depths.

While Marlon Brando's hoarse mumblings of the phrase, "The horror. The horror;" make for a much quoted part from the movie Apocalypse Now, the setup or interpretation of that famous quote comes later than when the quote is uttered in the book.

Kurtz has just died, and the narrator Marlowe is commenting on life:

"Droll thing life is--that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself --that comes too late-- a crop of inextinguishable regrets. I wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine. It takes place in an impalpable grayness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around, without spectators, without clamor, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat, in a sickly atmosphere of tepid skepticism, without much belief in your own right, and still less in that of your adversary. If such is the form of ultimate wisdom, then life is a greater riddle than some of us think it to be."

Marlowe contends that he was within the last breath of life and realized that he would have nothing to say, which is why he admired Kurtz, who uttered the famous line before dying. When Marlowe visits Kurtz's intended, he lies and tells her that Kurtz's last words were her name. In this exchange, we see that Marlowe has escaped the heart of darkness, taking into account another person's feelings instead of the dark truth, providing Kurtz's intended with the humanity with which Marlowe protected Kurtz's image.

In the end, is the heart of darkness within the geographical heart of Africa, or is it within each of us? Conrad seems to say that the latter is the case,but each of us also has the capacity to spread light, much like Marlowe did in the conclusion of the book, sparing Kurtz's intended's feelings and preserving Kurtz's image.