This man, smartly dressed as a weapon against the chaos around him, gets quite irritated when a seriously ill man is placed in his study.

The AccountantĪt the Company’s Station, Marlow meets an accountant. And he sees natives, emaciated and chained, who have to work for Europeans or die a slow painful death without anyone caring a bit. Marlow sees broken and rusted rails, wagons, machine parts and building materials lying around everywhere. Immediately at the Company’s Station in Congo, the inefficienty and cruelty of trade stand out. He’s looking for adventure, and he’s going to get it. The adventureīy working as a captain for the Company, Marlow gets the chance to visit areas in Africa that were still a white spot on the map during his youth.

This company brought ivory from the interior of Congo (which was at the time of the story still some kind of private colony of the Belgian king) to Europe. He made this trip in the service of a Belgian firm referred to as the Company. There the narrator listens, along with three other passengers, to a story told by Charlie Marlow about his trip down the Kong River. Heart of darkness begins around 1900 on the boat Nellie in the Thames. Some changes are made by myself (probably made it worse 😉). Translated with Mircrosoft Word, Google Translate and (free version).

This is a translated article from my dutch review. And it proofs that a book doesn’t have to be fist-thick to be interesting. And that’s an excellent choice, because Heart of darkness is proof that good literature will fascinate even more than a hundred years after the first publishing date. For many students this is the reason they include it on their literature list. Heart of darkness by Joseph Conrad is a nice and thin novella. What are our companies doing there? Good business? Bad business? Nature doesn’t care.

Heart of darkness book