After finishing Something Wicked This Way Comes, I turned my attentions to reading one of the other books that was nominated for June, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. I had been wanting to read it for a long time since hearing that the movie Apocalypse Now was loosely based on it.
The book was only 97 pages long and it was an excruciating 97 pages at that. The chapters were long and the story long-winded. I can see how this is a classic in that there are some unique characteristics to its form and story telling but that, like most books we are forced to read in school, does not always make for much enjoyment.
The best experience I had with this book was yesterday when I was just winding down and had only 10-12 pages to go. I had come to the conclusion that this was definitely not an enjoyable book and was just finishing it just to finish it. I was holding it on my way onto BART when a woman passing me looks at the book and said, "What a great book!" This left me more confused than anything. How could someone in this day and age find a long-winded book about a tale up the Congo River as a "great" book? So great in fact that you would go up to a complete stranger on the BART and tell them so. I immediately checked to see if my wallet was still in my pocket as this could only be an attempt to distract me from her partnering pick pocket as they make their move. Alas my wallet was still in my pocket and I was left to ponder this interaction for the next several BART stops. I eventually had to stop thinking about it or I may have gone as mad as Kurtz (the character in the book it takes 80 pages to build up to only to have him die by page 86).
Any who, don't bother with this book.
PS- Conrad is also a little too comfortable with the “N” word. He even entitled a book of his from 1897, “The N----- of the Narcissus, A Tale of the Sea”.
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