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Heart of Darkness
- Narrated by: Toby Stephens
- Length: 4 hrs and 28 mins
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Heart of Darkness
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Summary
Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is an exploration of the nature of evil and how far a man can go towards it when released from the constraints of what can be called civilisation.
Before beginning his life as a writer at the age of 36, Conrad spent 16 years as a merchant seaman. In 1889 he became captain of a steamboat in the Congo Free State, and the atrocities he witnessed there, perpetrated by the representatives of the Belgian colonial powers, led him to write what he called his Congo Diary.
The repulsion Conrad felt for his time in the Congo was compounded by his infection whilst there with malaria, which left him with a malarial gout in the wrist of his writing hand, the pain of which would stay with him for the rest of his life.
When Heart of Darkness was published in 1899, it echoed much of Conrad's horrific experience. The journey up the infested Congo River taken by his character Marlow is much like Conrad's own, but the ultimate antihero, Kurtz, with his compulsively magnetic madness, tinkering with the edges of pure evil, is a phenomenal literary creation, one which has excited imitations ever since, most famously in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 film Apocalypse Now.
It is a terrifying and exhilarating journey, with Conrad taking you to the very depths of human nature and, in Marlow’s case, leaving him there.
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What listeners say about Heart of Darkness
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anomalous Monist
- 14-06-21
Hopelessly hammed up. Go for Kenneth Branagh.
I do think this is a marvellous novella, when you are up to it. It is an extended, very bad dream. I know Conrad's writing takes some getting used to, but it's worth it, and you do get there. Extraordinary writing, if it goes on just a bit too long, conjuring up an extended vision of madness - Kurtz's, and the narrator's too.
The Toby Stephens reading is awful, though. He is trying to respond to the darkness of the story (my best guess), but reading every word in a tone dripping with self-contempt and bitterness is not the answer. It's also monotonous. Marlow cannot sound as Stephens reads him: it just doesn't work. Marlow needs to sound normal, an amiable-sounding guy telling a story. The shadows emerge for themselves from the story: they don't need to be put in. Really hammy.
I think Kenneth Branagh is much better. I'll try to change my purchase for that one.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Daniel Rees
- 05-02-24
Totally gripping
I enjoyed this start to finish. I found it had some kind of mesmerising rhythm to it.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 13-07-18
Tough, but worthwhile.
It is a classic and everyone shoul make an attempt at reading/listening to it. Terrible and fascinating at the same time. The language can be tough to understand. However, the verbal illustrations Conrad paints are incredibly vivid.
Definitely worth a look.
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7 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- MiriTheGreat
- 01-11-21
Fab 👍
I borrowed my mums account to listen to this audiobook for my A-levels because the book in itself is incredibly wordy and I struggle to understand what is happening however the audio book allows me to understand the format and way in is written and worded, clarifying what is happening throughout. The voice acting was amazing and I am now confident I can achieve my English A-levels. Thank you 😊
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7 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Pen Name
- 01-09-21
Toby Stephens soars!
Toby Stephens doesn't read - he performs! For any Black Sail fans, this is a trip!
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- ginger
- 30-04-22
Excellent performance
How do you give stars for this ghastly story that is so well written, a classic, but so awful in its depravity and vile in its portrayal of dark, so called savages, so Other, so expendable. Here is Toby Stephens, a very underrated and superb actor giving it his all, bringing out the brutishness of this novel. And yet I say to myself, shame on you for listening to it, yet again. Shame that it still lives on. I suppose if proof were needed of why the Black Lives Matter campaign exists, this is it, its still with us.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Stephen J
- 23-07-21
Miserable story- made worse by insensitive Audible
I chose this book on recommendation of ‘another’ and found it depressing. But in the closing speech of the narrator suddenly without warning comes “Audible hopes you have enjoyed this book”. I did not enjoy it, but was glad to added its story to my experience. However I do not have the written text in my hand and did not know the book had ended.
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2 people found this helpful