On Thu, 14 Jan 2010, Dennis Claxton wrote:
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2003/feb/22/classics.chinuaachebe
>
>> Chinua Achebe, father of modern African literature, has long argued
>> that Joseph Conrad was a racist. Caryl Phillips, an admirer of both
>> writers, disagrees. He meets Achebe to defend the creator of Heart of
>> Darkness but finds their discussion provokes an unexpected epiphany
It is interesting. But I think the problem with Conrad's book is actually much simpler and more profound. He wanted to get at truth, and instead he produced mystification, when the truth was right in front of his face.
Adam Hochschild's book _King Leopold's Ghost_ is 100 times more interesting than Heart of Darkness, and 10 times more enjoyable to read. After it, Conrad feels not simply liked a clotted bore, but a like a damned betrayal. It's not only that the crime of the Congo was the size of the holocaust and nobody could miss it. It's that nobody who cared did miss it. It was the occasion, at the turn of the century, for the first really large scale international movements to publicize the crimes of imperialism. They were very dogged, very detailed, and they got their stuff out everywhere. And it echoed all of the place. Mark Twain even wrote his own satiric book on it ("King Leopold's Soliloquy.") You couldn't miss it.
And now it's all forgotten, both the holocaust and the campaign that publicized it. And the only thing remaining that people have to read in school is this piece of shit of story that wonders if maybe the real problem is that colonialism might allow people to go rogue. And thinks that is getting at the "heart" of it.
His understanding couldn't be more trivial. It's not simply a betrayal of politics and history. It's a betrayal of literature. It's supposed to add something. It's supposed to be worth our fucking time. It's supposed to be better than reading the newspapers. And this isn't.
Michael