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LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO DARKNESS
I struggled with this book for months. At times, I was loathe to continue with it, and would put the book aside for weeks at a time. But I persisted, if only because I had read about 30 years ago another work of Joseph Conrad whose setting was the Dutch East Indies. And for me, Joseph Conrad (a Pole by birth who didn't learn English til late in life) held a certain fascination because of his previous life as a merchant seaman.
"THE HEART OF DARKNESS", which is set in the Belgian Congo at the time it was being cruelly exploited by King Leopold, reminded me in many respects of the movie 'Apocalypse Now' with the shady, mysterious character Kurtz the ivory trader bringing to mind Colonel Kurtz who abandoned civilization and his Army career to become fully assimilated into the ways of the hinterland. The overriding themes are of desolation, horror, fear, and exploitation. I felt in reading this story that it was the land itself that brought to the surface the greedy appetites of people from outside (i.e., Europe) who came to the land to both conquer and exploit the land and its indigenous peoples. Knowing that was enough to make me want to know how the story was played out.
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