The first meeting of the book club took place on Tuesday evening in Middelburg.
The book chosen was Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.
This classic novella was written at the beginning of the 20th century and recounts Marlow’s journey through the Belgian Congo, in search of the charismatic and successful manager, Kurtz. When he eventually finds Kurtz, surrounded and defended by local Africans, he has descended into madness.
The book explores the effects of colonialism and the manner in which unrestrained power corrupts. Although (as we all agreed) it is not an easy book to read, the anticipation of the meeting of the two men compels you to read on to its conclusion.
Conrad’s writing is masterful, it is an evocative and powerful book, and his command of English, his use of imagery and sentence construction, makes for a very satisfying second reading.
We started the meeting by mentioning how we had been able to acquire the book.
As this is a well known classic the library had plenty of copies, so for those of us who didn’t want to buy, the library was an obvious choice.
Bol.com offers a very good next day service (free delivery until April 5!) and discounts all books.
An alternative is Amazon.co.uk , which not only discounts, but also offers a secondhand market where it is possible to buy books for as little as 1p. Post and packing, especially to outside the U.K, varies according to weight and seller.
Books can be ordered from any bookseller here in the Zeeland, although the cost will be much higher and you may have to wait longer for delivery.
The reason for the choice of this particular book is that it crops up so often in contemporary literature and is often mentioned, especially of course in relation to Africa.
For a slim volume published a hundred years ago it’s still getting a lot of attention.
We discussed the following points:
Is this a racist book?
How do you feel about the way in which women are portrayed?
Why do you think that Marlow lied to Kurtz’s fiancée?
What does the “Darkness “in the title refer to?
What is “The horror “?
We were broadly in agreement on all points and after our initial difficulty, had all enjoyed reading it .
To finish the first meeting we gave the book points out of 5. Heart of Darkness scored a unanimous 4/5.
If you have read the book and would like to express your opinions on any of the above points, or any other aspect of the book, please post your comments below.
We’d love to hear from you.
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