'The horror! The horror!'"
-Joseph Conrad
Heart of Darkness
I owe Joseph Conrad an apology.
I used to really hate his guts. When I was a freshman at SUU, I took ENGL 2010 from Professor Charles Cutheburtson (spelling may be slightly off). It was called "Terrorism in Pop Culture." It was quite a nifty class, actually. I was able to write my final paper on the t.v. show 24. But we read a book by Joseph Conrad that I hated. It was called The Secret Agent. It had a cool premise. A guy joins a sort of anarchist group but is too cowardly to be a suicide bomber for their cause. So he ends up strapping a bomb to his mentally retarded brother-in-law and tells him to go run into a crowd. If I remember correctly, the brother-in-law doesn't make it. He trips or something and explodes before he gets to the target. That's a pretty awesome premise if you ask me. However, I found the book to be painfully boring. I could not get into it despite my best efforts. Too much time was spent talking about the cause (which didn't make much sense. Not because I was only 18 years old but because it was a weird, convoluted cause) and not enough time was spent actually taking action. It was the first book ever assigned to me that I didn't finish. From that point on, I did not care for Joseph Conrad.
Fast-forward about five years. I am assigned to read Conrad's Heart of Darkness. It's a three chapter book but the chapters are quite long. I was about a third of the way through the first chapter and I was dying. Nothing interesting was going on and it was killing me. I just so happen to be in the newsroom when I was reading it and I lamented about having to read this book. Just then, John-Ross Boyce, a good friend of mine and the co-editor for the V, interrupted me, shouting, "Shut your fucking face!" I was a bit thrown off by this. I was used to John-Ross shouting and swearing at people and inanimate objects but not at me. He then went on explaining how Joseph Conrad is the greatest British writer to ever exist and how Heart of Darkness was the best thing to ever come off of that godforsaken island (meaning England, I suppose.) I was taken aback by his statement. John-Ross is one of four people on this planet whose taste and opinion in books I trust without question (the others being Joe Willis, Augustus Johnson, and Davey Morrison-Dillard). So I begrudgingly took his word for it and decided to keep reading.
Around 2 a.m. the following Sunday morning, I texted John-Ross and apologized for doubting him. I had spent most of the day reading and around the middle of the second chapter, things got very interesting. VERY interesting. I couldn't put the book down. I read the remainder of the book. When I was finished, I sat in awe of what I had just read. It was tragic, complex, chilling, devastating, and so beautiful. I loved how the idea of darkness was used within the novel. There is the literal darkness of the Congo, the darkness of how the Europeans view and treat the natives, and finally, and perhaps the most powerful use, the darkness that exists inside each individual, how a man can lose himself within the evil that he can become. That's why the quote I used above is so poignant. Kurtz looked inside himself, recounted the years he had spent living in the heart of the Congo. When he realized how much the darkness, the evilness had taken over him, all he could whisper was, "The horror! The horror!" It's devastatingly beautiful. I loved this book. I really, honestly loved this book.
And so, Joseph Conrad, wherever your soul may be right now, I'm sorry I wasted so many years hating your guts. I'll never doubt you again.
Love you.
Mean it.
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