Heart of Darkness and The Secret Sharer

Conrad was born on 12/3/1857, in a part of Russia that had once belonged to Poland. His parents were members of the landed gentry, but as ardent Polish patriots they suffered considerably for their political views. Orphaned at 11, Conrad attended school in Cracow but concluded that there was no future for him in occupied Poland, and at 16 he left forever. The sea was Conrad's love and career for the next 20 years; in the British merchant navy, he rose finally to captain, sailing to Australia and Borneo and surviving at least one shipwreck. In 1890 he became captain of a Congo River steamer, but this led only to disillusionment and ill health and this would become the basis for Conrad's masterpiece, Heart of Darkness. Reluctantly leaving the merchant service, he settled in England and completed his first novel, Almayer's Folly, already begun at sea.

出版者:Bantam Classics

作者:Joseph Conrad

页数:204

出版时间:1920-1-1

价格:GBP 4.44

装帧:Paperback

isbn号码:9780553212143

图书标签:JosephConrad英国英文原版现代主义英文文学和小说英文原版书小说Bantam

Heart of Darkness is a novella by Joseph Conrad. Before publication, it appeared in a three-part series in Blackwood's Magazine (1899). This highly symbolic story is actually a story within a story, or frame tale, following a man named Charlie Marlow, as he recounts his adventure to a group of men, onboard a ship anchored in the Thames Estuary, at dusk and continuing into the evening. It details an incident earlier in Marlow's life when he, an Englishman, takes a foreign assignment as a ferry boat captain on what readers can assume is the Congo River in the Belgian owned Congo Free State; the name of the country is never specified in the text. Though his job is to transport ivory downriver, Marlow quickly develops an intense interest in investigating Kurtz, an ivory procurement agent in the employment of the government. Kurtz's reputation extends throughout the region.

Publisher Comments:

Heart Of Darkness. The story of the civilized, enlightened Mr. Kurtz who embarks on a harrowing "night journey" into the savage heart of Africa, only to find his dark and evil soul. The Secret Sharer. The saga of a young, inexperienced skipper forced to decide the fate of a fugitive sailor who killed a man in self-defense. As he faces his first moral test the skipper discovers a terrifying truth — and comes face to face with the secret itself. Heart Of Darkness and The Secret Sharer draw on actual events and people that Conrad met or heard about during his many far-flung travels. In portraying men whose incredible journeys on land and at sea are also symbolic voyages into their own mysterious depths, these two masterful works give credence to Conrad's acclaim as a major psychological writer.

读后感

在大多数英雄故事中，主角需要勇气和坚韧去赢得胜利，但主要是针对外部环境对他们造成的挑战做出回应。西方古典文学遵循这一传统，行为主宰情节，在时间递进中，一步步丰满三一律所需，完善因果链条上的动机与结局，试图让一切清楚无误。现代小说与古典小说的分野，令时间之线...  

用户评价

a rare and weird beauty

就是马克一下= =

郁郁葱葱的腹地，遮蔽天地的原始森林，危险的河流，黑暗之心。

对不起读不懂qwq，secret sharer好读多了

Truly weird... 康拉德果真不是英国人，波兰血统诚不我欺。读Heart of Darkness的时候很轻易地就被康拉德的文字带入刚果的黑暗腹地，并被卷入一片深邃的未知，这可能也就是Kurtz的恐惧来源，相比之下第二篇Secret Sharer就要好读得多。读过这两篇后才真切理解Sunless Sea里晦涩文本的启发来自康拉德而非爱手艺，初玩无光之海的时候，谁还不是Secret Sharer里孤立无援的年轻船长呢。Heart of Darkness真乃神品中篇，待精读重刷。另，开头的序言写得很好，比网上那些杂七杂八的书评分析得透彻多了。