| Heart of Darkness (MP3 CD) | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 385 reviews)
Sales Rank: 1542493
Category: Book
Author: Joseph Conrad
Publisher: Tantor Media
Studio: Tantor Media
Manufacturer: Tantor Media
Label: Tantor Media
Format: Audiobook, Cd, Mp3 Audio, Unabridged
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: MP3 CD
Edition: MP3 CD
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.6
ISBN: 1400150612
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9781400150618
ASIN: 1400150612
Publication Date: September 1, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Unabridged Audiobook. 1 MP3 CD - 4 hours, 43 minutes. Narrated by Scott Brick. Horror awaits Marlow, a seaman assigned by an ivory company to retrieve a cargo boat and one of its employees, Mr. Kurtz, stranded deep in the heart of the African Belgian Congo. His journey up the treacherous dark river soon becomes a struggle to maintain his own sanity as he witnesses the brutalization of the natives by white traders and discovers the enigmatic Mr. Kurtz. Kurtz, once a genius and the company?s most successful representative, has transformed into an atrocious savage. His compound is decorated by a row of human heads mounted on spears. The demonic mastermind, liberated from the conventions of European culture, has traded his soul to become ruler of his own horrific sovereignty. Acclaimed to be one of the great, albeit disturbing, visionary works of western civilization, Conrad?s haunting tale dramatizes the ugly realities of British Colonial Imperialism. The Heart of Darkness reflects the physical and psychological tragedies that Conrad had experienced while working in the Belgian Congo in 1890 and is the basis of Francis Ford Coppola?s Apocalypse Now film. This audiobook is on one CD, encoded in MP3 format and will only play on computers and CD players that have the ability to play this unique format.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 380 more reviews...
 Colonialism/Antin-colonialism November 19, 2008
Joseph Conrad is an amazing writer; he uses the English language of the late 19th and early 20th centuries beautifully, he describes the colonial world at its apogee, he tells engrossing stories but even his seemingly potboiler plots (such as The Secret Sharer) raise disturbingly serious moral issues. All of these qualities are epitomized in The Heart of Darkness. Can anyone read the Heart of Darkness without thinking of Apocalypse Now? I believe the movie is one of the best adaptations of literature to film but the impact of Conrad's story is as vivid as the movie.
powerful book September 23, 2008
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
One of the first masterpieces of the 20th century and one of the key modernist text. This is a story that everyone should read, and Kindle edition provides the best format for the reading experience.
humidity drips off the end of each line like a light mist in a heavy fog August 23, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Probably the dampest book I've ever read--humidity drips off the end of each line like a light mist in a heavy fog. More is left unsaid than is written on the page, and this is truly a classic even though there is too much left unsaid for me to rate it at the very top.
Favorite line: As Marlow cautiously pilots the steamboat up the river toward the inland station and its mysterious keeper Kurtz, his manager says "I authorize you to take all the risks." Marlow curtly snaps back "I refuse to take any."
An excellent piece of epistemology! August 20, 2008
On page 3, the narrator (not Marlow) tells us that "Marlow was not typical (if his propensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to him the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of these misty halos that sometimes are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine."
This story is not typical. Its meaning isn't inside the text; rather, the text requires its meaning to be explicated outside in the world of symbols and signs. I recently used this text in a expository writing class focused mainly on teaching what, and not how to write (what to write when confronted with your own lack of desire to write). Conrad's text needs to be fitted into 19th century philosophy and especially epistemology. For a great essay see: Decentering "Heart of Darkness" by Perry Meisel. If you're not reading this text for a class (with a teacher versed in 19th century philosophy) or with the intent to look into the historical "narrative" that brings out the meaning of the text like a "glow brings out a haze", then don't bother.
I read this book quicky in about six hours, then spent the next 7 days going through 10 pages a day. That method seemed to work but those 10 pages took nearly 2 hours to read carefully. The result is a story so filled with symbolism that even reading it as a denounciation of colonialism or mperialism seems shallow! Highly recommended for disciplined reading!
 Very, Very Short and Unremarkable July 28, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Like most people, I was familiar with Heart of Darkness, both as an acclaimed work of literature and as the inspiration for the remarkable movie Apocolypse Now. For some reason, I recently decided to make an attempt at reading it, despite my concern that it was written at a level beyond my capacity to understand.
Upon receipt of the volume from Amazon, I was initially under the impression that I had mistakenly ordered the Cliff's Notes version of the work. I had no idea that the book was essentially a short story, easily readable in 2-3 hours.
Even more surprising, was the ease with which I was able to follow and understand the story, though admittedly written in a slightly dense prose. Perhaps this was due to having seen Apocolypse Now and being familiar with the broad outline of the story and having read other works of history on the Belgian Congo.
In any event, it was a decent story, filled with some beautifully descriptive language and imagery. I must say, however, that I was not bowled over. Steamship Captain pilots a ragged boat up the Congo, accompanied by colonial agents and support staff (cannibals and other natives) in an attempt to relieve a long stranded station agent (Kurtz) who has "gone native" and become the insane source of worship for the local natives. If you've seen Apocolypse Now, you know the story, just replace the Mekong with the Congo.
I go back to my first paragraph in which I related a concern over my ability to understand what is considered a classic work of literature. I fully understood it, but was perhaps not qualified to fully appreciate it.
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