Audiobook · read by volunteers
Heart of Darkness
Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)
Read by Kristin LeMoine · 6 chapters · 4 h 10
About the book
A ship rides at anchor on the Thames at dusk, and a man named Marlow begins to speak. He tells his companions about a journey he once made up an African river, in the service of a trading company, in search of a man called Kurtz whose reputation had reached him long before he saw him. The deeper the steamer goes, the more the world he knew seems to drop away.
Joseph Conrad’s short novel is one of the most discussed works of English fiction. It is a haunting tale of travel, power and moral darkness, told in dense, atmospheric prose, and it still provokes strong reactions. In six parts and a little over four hours, this recording invites you to follow Marlow on a voyage that is as much into the mind as along a river, and to decide for yourself what he finds at the end.
Introduction
Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) was born in the Polish lands of the Russian empire and came to English as a third language, after Polish and French. He spent years as a sailor before turning to writing, and his experience of the sea and of distant ports fills his fiction. Heart of Darkness first appeared as a magazine serial in 1899 and in book form in 1902, and it is based, in part, on a journey he made to the Congo in 1890. The edition recorded here is dated 1902.
The book is framed as a story told on a boat on the Thames. Within that frame, the narrator Marlow recounts his journey, and Conrad uses the layered telling to create a feeling of uncertainty: we hear what Marlow says, but we are never quite sure how far we should trust his interpretation. The story is set at a time when large parts of the world were still marked as blank spaces on European maps, and Conrad explores the idea of civilization and the thin line that separates it from barbarism. It is also a criticism of colonial exploitation, although its treatment of African people has been strongly debated, and the novel has been the subject of vigorous critical argument for decades.
The recording has six sections and runs for about four hours. It is read by LibriVox volunteers. Because the narrative is a spoken tale within a tale, it works especially well as audio, with a voice that draws the listener in.
If you have never read Conrad, this is a good, compact starting point. It is short but dense, and it repays more than one hearing. Be prepared for a challenging, unsettling and unforgettable experience.
Public domain
Joseph Conrad died in 1924: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text