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       # 2021-03-04 - Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
       
       Heart of Darkness was one of many books on my high school English
       class reading list for college-bound students.  This book has
       anti-colonial ideology in the form of brutal honesty, similar to the
       writing of Samuel Clemens.  Yet the protagonist expresses profoundly
       racist and sexist sentiments.  I aim to avoid those in my notes.
       
       One topic was restraint, which i perceive as a kind of strength.  It
       was shown by the cannibalistic pilgrims on Marlow's steamboat, and it
       was absent in the colonial whites throughout the book.
       
       Another topic was how out-of-touch the people in London were with the
       basic facts of reality, placing greater emphasis on material wealth
       than even the most central human relationships.  For example, Mr.
       Kurtz was betrothed to an English woman, but her family disapproved
       because she was wealthy and he was not.  Therefore he ruthlessly
       pursued the extraction of wealth from foreign lands.  In several
       parts of the book he makes possessive claims "'My intended, my ivory,
       my station, my river, my--' everything belonged to him...  The thing
       was to know what HE belonged to..."
       
       "The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away
       from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses
       than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.
       What redeems it is the idea only.  An idea at the back of it; not a
       sentimental pretence but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the
       idea--something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a
       sacrifice to..."
       
       "You can't understand.  How could you?--with solid pavement under
       your feet, surrounded by kind neighbours ready to cheer you or to
       fall on you, stepping delicately between the butcher and the
       policeman, in the holy terror of scandal and gallows and lunatic
       asylums--how can you imagine what particular region of the first ages
       a man's untrammelled feet may take him into by the way of
       solitude--utter solitude without a policeman--by the way of
       silence--utter silence, where no warning voice of a kind neighbour
       can be heard whispering of public opinion?  These little things make
       all the great difference.  When they are gone you must fall back upon
       your own innate strength, upon your own capacity for faithfulness."
       
       "I found myself back in the sepulchral city [London] resenting the
       sight of people hurrying through the streets to filch a little money
       from each other, to devour their infamous cookery, to gulp their
       unwholesome beer, to dream their insignificant and silly dreams.
       They trespassed upon my thoughts.  They were intruders whose
       knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretence, because I felt so
       sure they could not possibly know the things I knew.  Their bearing,
       which was simply the bearing of commonplace individuals going about
       their business in the assurance of perfect safety, was offensive to
       me like the outrageous flauntings of folly in the face of a danger it
       is unable to comprehend.  I had no particular desire to enlighten
       them, but I had some difficulty in restraining myself from laughing
       in their faces so full of stupid importance."
       
       author: Conrad, Joseph, 1857-1924
 (TXT) detail: gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/Heart_of_Darkness
       LOC:    PR6005.O4 H478
 (DIR) source: gopher://gopher.pglaf.org/1/2/1/219/
       tags:   ebook,fiction,race
       title:  The Heart of Darkness
       
       # Tags
       
 (DIR) ebook
 (DIR) fiction
 (DIR) race