>Much of this criticism falls into a familiar category -- people
>reproaching an author for not writing the book they would have
>written, if they could write books.
Which wouldn't apply to Achebe of course. Much of the criticism of him falls into a kind of don't upset my apple cart category. Here's something he was told by a prof in Massachusetts after a lecture:
"How dare you upset everything we have taught, everything we teach? Heart of Darkness is the most widely taught text in the university in this country. So how dare you say it’s different?"
>Would Conrad even have said that "colonialism" was what he was
>writing about? Much less that he meant to tell us what the
>"real problem" of colonialism is?
What he would or wouldn't have said is not the most relevant factor to consider.
> From my distant memories of the book,
>I would have said he was writing about what can happen
>to human character under certain circumstances.
So the setting could have been a shopping mall at xmas time?
Achebe himself says:
>Conrad was a seductive writer. He could pull his
>reader into the fray. And if it were not for
>what he said about me and my people, I would
>probably be thinking only of that
>seduction,...Those who want to go on enjoying
>the presentation of some people in this way
>they are welcome to go ahead. The book is there.
>... I simply said, 'Read it this way,' and that's all I have done.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113835207