00:07 Frank: Hello, and welcome to Novel Conversations, a podcast about the world's greatest stories. I'm your host, Frank Lavallo. And for each episode of Novel Conversations, I talk to two readers about one book. And together, we summarize this story for you. We introduce you to the characters, we tell you what happens to them, and we read from the book along the way. So if you love hearing a good story, you're in the right place. This episode's conversation is about the novel, Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad. And I'm joined by our Novel Conversations readers, Anthony Mahramus and Megan Canty. Anthony, Megan, welcome.

00:41 Megan: Hi. Thanks, Frank.

00:42 Frank: Glad to have you both here for this conversation. Before we get started, let me give a quick introduction to Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Originally issued in 1899 as a three-part serial story in Blackwood's magazine to celebrate the 1,000th edition of their magazine, Heart of Darkness is a novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad in which sailor Charles Marlowe tells his listeners the story of his assignment as steamer captain for a Belgian company in the African interior. The novel is widely regarded as a critique of European colonial rule in Africa, while also examining the themes of power dynamics and morality. Although Conrad does not name the river on which most of the narrative takes place, at the time of the writing, the Congo Free State, the location of the large and economically important Congo River, was a private colony of Belgium's King Leopold II. Central to Conrad's work is the idea that there is little difference between the quote civilized people and the quote savages. Heart of Darkness implicitly comments on imperialism and racism. The novella setting provides the frame for Marlowe's story of his fascination for the prolific ivory trader known as Kurtz. Conrad draws parallels between London, the greatest town on earth, and Africa as both being places of darkness. So, Anthony, our story begins on a boat, a pleasure ship.

02:06 Anthony: Yes, yes. It's sundown, and a pleasure ship called the Nelly, anchored at the mouth of the Thames, is waiting for the tide to go out, and there's five men on board. There's the director of companies, who's also the captain and the host. There's the lawyer, the accountant, Marlo. and the unnamed narrator. The five men are old friends held together by, quote, the bond of the sea.

02:26 Frank: And Anthony, as you mentioned, the narrator who begins Heart of Darkness is unnamed throughout the entire novel, as are the other three listeners who are identified, as you said, by their professional occupations. Moreover, the narrator usually speaks in the first-person plural, describing what all four of Marlow's listeners think and feel. The unanimity and anonymity of Marlow's listeners combine to create the impression that they represent conventional perspectives and values of the British establishment.

02:55 Megan: As they sit together, the men recall the great men and great ships that have set forth from the Thames on voyages of trade and of exploration, which frequently never returned. For the narrator and his fellow travelers, the Thames conjures up images of famous British explorers who have set out from that river on glorious voyages.

03:15 Frank: Right, the narrator recounts the achievements of these explorers in a celebratory tone, calling them knight-errants of the sea, implying that such voyages served a sacred, higher purpose. The narrator's attitude is that these men promoted the glory of Great Britain, expanded knowledge of the globe, and contributed to the civilization and enlightenment of the rest of the planet.

03:37 Anthony: Suddenly, Marlow remarks that this very spot was once one of the dark places of the earth. He notes that when the Romans first came to England, it was a great, savage wilderness to them. He imagines what it must have been like for a young Roman captain or soldier to come to a place so far from home and lacking in comforts.

03:54 Megan: And this train of thought reminds Marlowe of another of Earth's dark places and his experience as a freshwater sailor when as a young man, he capped into steamship going up the Congo River. Marlowe's story of the voyage that he took as a young man is the main narrative of Heart of Darkness. Marlowe's narrative is framed by another narrative in which one of the listeners to Marlowe's story explains the circumstances in which Marlowe tells it.

04:19 Frank: Readers, I guess before we continue our narrative of the story, I think we should perhaps spend a few moments setting this novel in its historical context. At the time Heart of Darkness was written, the British Empire was at its peak, and Britain controlled colonies and dependencies all over the planet. The popular saying that the sun never sets on the British Empire was literally true. The main topic of Heart of Darkness is imperialism, a nation's policy of exerting influence over other areas through military, political, and economic coercion. The narrator expresses the mainstream belief that imperialism is a glorious and worthy enterprise. Indeed, in Conrad's time, empire was one of the central values of British subjects, the fundamental term through which Britain defined its identity and sense of purpose.

05:07 Anthony: Yeah, from the moment Marlow opens his mouth, he sets himself apart from his fellow passengers by conjuring up a past in which Britain was not the heart of civilization, but the savage end of the world. a darkness, if you will. Likewise, the Thames was not the source of glorious journeys outward, but the ominous beginning of a journey inward, into the heart of the wilderness.

05:28 Megan: From the way Marlow tells his story, it's clear that he is extremely critical of imperialism. But his reasons apparently have less to do with what imperialism does to colonized peoples than with what it does to Europeans. Marlow suggests in the first place that participation in imperial enterprises degrades Europeans by removing them from the civilizing context of European society, while simultaneously tempting them into violent behavior because of the hostility and lawlessness of the environment.

05:59 Anthony: Moreover, Marlow suggests that the mission of civilizing and enlightening Native peoples is misguided, not because he believes that they have a viable civilization and culture already, but because they are so savage that the project is overwhelming and hopeless.

06:13 Megan: Marlow expresses horror when he witnesses the violent maltreatment of the natives, and he argues that a kinship exists between black Africans and Europeans. But in the same breath, he states that this kinship is ugly and horrifying, and that the kinship is extremely distant. Nevertheless, it's not a simple matter to evaluate whether Marlow's attitudes are conservative or progressive, racist or enlightened.

06:38 Anthony: The anonymous narrator states that Marlowe is unconventional in his ideas. His criticisms of colonialism, both implicit and explicit, are pitched to an audience that is far more sympathetic toward the colonial enterprise than any 21st century reader could be.

06:53 Frank: There are a lot of derisive grunts and murmurs from his audience, right? So readers, back to our novel and Marlowe's story of how he came to make his first voyage to the Congo.

07:04 Megan: Marlowe recounts how he obtained a job with the Belgian company that trades on the Congo River. The Congo was, at this time, a Belgian territory. He obtained this job through the influence of an aunt who had friends in the company's administration. The company was eager to send Marlowe to Africa because one of the company's steamer captains had recently been killed in a scuffle with the natives.

07:26 Anthony: After he hears that he has gotten the job, Marlow travels across the English Channel to a city that reminds him of a whited sepulcher, probably Brussels, to sign his employment contract at the company's office. First, however, he digresses to tell the story of his predecessor with the company, a man named Fressleben. Much later, after the events Marlowe is about to recount, Marlowe was sent to recover Fresslevin's bones, which he found lying in the center of a deserted African village.

07:54 Frank: Despite his mild mannered reputation, Fresslevin was killed in a scuffle over some hens, if you can believe it. After striking the village chief, he was stabbed by the chief's son. He was left there to die, and the superstitious natives immediately abandoned the village. Marlowe notes that he never did find out what became of the hens.

08:14 Megan: Arriving at the company's offices, Marlowe finds these two rather sinister women there, knitting black wool, and one of whom admits him to a waiting room where he looks at a map of Africa that's color-coded by colonial powers. The map that Marlowe sees in the company offices shows the continent overlaid with blotches of color, each color standing for a different imperial power. While the map represents a relatively neutral way of describing imperial presences in Africa, Marlowe's comments about the map reveal that imperial powers were not all the same.

08:48 Anthony: In fact, the yellow patch, dead in the center, he says, covers the site of some of the most disturbing atrocities committed in the name of empire. The Belgian king, Leopold, treated the Congo as his private treasury, and the Belgians had the reputation of being far and away the most cruel and rapacious of the colonial powers.

09:06 Megan: With all formalities completed, Marlow stops off to say goodbye to his aunt, who expresses her hope that he will aid in the civilization of savages during his service to the company, as the book says, weaning those ignorant millions from their horrid ways. This section of the book also introduces another set of concerns, this time regarding women. Heart of Darkness has been attacked by critics as misogynistic, and there is some justification for this point of view.

09:33 Frank: Marlowe's aunt does express a naively idealistic view of the company's mission, and Marlowe is thus right to falter for being, quote, out of touch with truth. However, he phrases his criticism so as to make it applicable to all women, suggesting that women do not even live in the same world as men and that they must be protected from reality. Moreover, the female characters in Marlowe's story are extremely flat and stylized. In part, this may be because Harlowe uses women symbolically as representative of

10:03 Anthony: Yeah, Marlowe associates home with ideas gotten from books and religion, rather than from experience. Home is the seat of naivete, prejudice, confinement, and oppression. It is the place of people who have not gone out into the world and had experiences, and who therefore cannot understand the world.

10:19 Megan: Nonetheless, the women in Marlowe's story exert a great deal of power. The influence of Marlowe's aunt does not stop at getting him the job, but continues to echo through the company's correspondence in Africa.

10:31 Anthony: Well aware that the company operates for profit and not for the good of humanity, and bothered by his aunt's naivete, Marlowe takes his leave of her. Before boarding the French steamer that is to take him to Africa, Marlowe has a brief but strange feeling about his journey, the feeling that he is setting off for the center of the earth.

10:49 Megan: And that French steamer takes Marlowe along the coast of Africa, stopping periodically to land soldiers and customs house officers. Marlowe finds his idleness vexing, and the trip seems vaguely nightmarish to him.

11:01 Anthony: Marlow finally disembarks at the company's outer station, which is in a terrible state of disrepair. He sees piles of decaying machinery and a cliff being blasted for no apparent purpose. He also sees a group of black prisoners walking along in chains under the guard of another black man who wears a shoddy uniform and carries a rifle.

11:19 Megan: Eventually, Marlowe comes to a grove of trees, and to his horror, finds a group of dying native laborers. He also meets a Natalie-dressed white man, the company's chief accountant, not to be confused with Marlowe's friend, the accountant from the opening of the book.

11:34 Anthony: Marlow spends 10 days here waiting for a caravan to the next station, could you imagine? One day, the chief accountant tells him that in the interior he will undoubtedly meet Mr. Kurtz, our first mention, a first-class agent who sends in as much ivory as all the others put together and is destined for advancement. He tells Marlow to let Kurtz know that everything is satisfactory at the outer station when he meets him. The chief accountant is afraid to send a written message for fear it will be intercepted by undesirable elements at the central station.

12:02 Megan: And at this point, Marlowe finally learns the reason for the journey he is to take up the Congo, although he doesn't yet realize the importance this reason will take on later. The chief accountant is the first to use the name of the mysterious Mr. Kurtz, speaking of him in reverent tones and alluding to a conspiracy within the company, the particulars of which Marlowe never deciphers.

12:24 Frank: Readers, before we talk a little bit more about Kurtz, let's take a quick break here and we'll be right back. Welcome back, readers. We mentioned the name Kurtz, and the name Kurtz provides a surface that conceals a hidden and potentially threatening situation. It is appropriate, therefore, that the chief accountant is Marlow's informant. In his Dress Whites, the man epitomizes success in the colonial world. His accomplishment lies in keeping up appearances, in looking like he would at home. Like everything else Marlowe encounters, the chief accountant's surface may conceal a dark secret. In this case, perhaps the native woman who he has, quote, taught, perhaps violently and despite her distaste for the work, to care for his linens.

13:14 Anthony: Marlow travels overland for 200 miles with a caravan of 60 men. He has one white companion who falls ill and must be carried by the native bearers, who start to desert because of the added burden. After 15 days, they arrive at the dilapidated Central Station. Marlow finds that the steamer he was to command has sunk.

13:32 Megan: The general manager of the central station had taken the boat out two days before under the charge of a volunteer skipper, and they had torn the bottom out on some rocks. Marlow comes to suspect the damage to the steamer may have been intentional to keep him from reaching Kurtz.

13:47 Anthony: Marlowe soon meets with the general manager, who strikes him as an altogether average man who leads by inspiring an odd uneasiness in those around him, and whose authority derives merely from his resistance to tropical disease. He's the survivor. You're alive, so you're in charge. Right. You got it. The manager tells Marlowe that he took the boat out in a hurry to relieve the interstations, especially the one belonging to Kurtz, who was rumored to be ill. He praises Kurtz as an exceptional agent and notes that Kurtz is talked about on the coast.

14:17 Megan: Marlow sets to work dredging his ship out of the river and repairing it, which ends up taking three months. One day during this time, a grass-shed housing some trade goods burns down, and the native laborers dance delightedly as it burns. One of the natives is accused of causing the fire and is beaten severely. He disappears into the forest after he recovers.

14:38 Anthony: Marlow overhears the manager talking with the brickmaker about Kurtz at the site of the burned hut. He enters into conversation with the brickmaker after the manager leaves and ends up accompanying the man back to his quarters, which are noticeably more luxurious than those of the other agents.

14:54 Megan: Marlowe realizes after a while that the brickmaker is pumping him for information about the intentions of the company's board of directors in Europe, about which, of course, Marlowe knows nothing. Marlowe notices an unusual painting on the wall of a blindfolded woman with a lighted torch. When he asks about it, the brickmaker reveals that it's Kurtz's work.

15:14 Anthony: The brickmaker tells Marlowe that Kurtz is a prodigy, sent as a special emissary of Western ideals by the company's director and bound for quick advancement. He also reveals that he has seen confidential correspondence dealing with Marlowe's appointment, from which he has construed that Marlowe is also a favorite of the administration.

15:32 Megan: They go outside and the brickmaker tries to get himself into Marlowe's good graces and Kurtz's by proxy, since he believes Marlowe is allied with Kurtz. Seeing an opportunity to use the brickmaker's influence to his own ends, Marlowe lets the man believe he really does have influence in Europe and tells him that he wants a quantity of rivets from the coast to repair his ship. The brickmaker leaves him with a veiled threat on his life, but Marlowe enjoys his obvious distress and confusion.

16:00 Anthony: The goings-on here are ridiculous. For example, Marlowe watches a man try to extinguish a fire using a bucket with a hole in it. The manager and the brickmaker, the men in charge, are repeatedly described as hollow, quote, papier-mâché figures.

16:14 Megan: Marlowe finds his foreman sitting on the deck of the ship and tells him that they will have rivets in three weeks, and they both dance around exuberantly.

16:21 Frank: A lot of exuberant dancing.

16:24 Megan: Well, a lot of horror and then, you know, juxtaposed with a lot of exuberance. However, the rivets do not come. Instead, the El Dorado Exploring Expedition, a group of white men intent on, quote, tearing treasure out of the bowels of the land, unquote, arrives, led by the manager's uncle, who spends his entire time at the station talking conspiratorially with his nephew.

16:47 Frank: And so Marlow gives up on ever receiving the rivets he needs to repair his ship and turns to wondering disinterestedly about Kurtz and his ideals. On a more concrete level, the events of this section move Marlow ever closer to the mysterious Kurtz. Kurtz increasingly appeals to Marlow as an alternative, no matter how dire, to the repellent men around him.

17:08 Anthony: One evening, as Marlow lies on the deck of his wrecked steamer, the manager and his uncle appear within earshot and discuss Kurtz. The manager complains that Kurtz has come to the Congo with plans to turn the stations into beacons of civilization and moral improvement, and that Kurtz wants to take over the manager's position.

17:25 Megan: He recalls that about a year earlier, Kurtz sent out a huge load of ivory of the highest quality by canoe with his clerk, but that Kurtz himself had turned back to his station after coming 300 miles down the river. The clerk, after turning over the ivory and a letter from Kurtz instructing the manager to stop sending him incompetent men, informs the manager that Kurtz has been very ill and has not completely recovered.

17:50 Frank: In the novel, the word ivory, as it echoes through the air of the camp, sounds to Marlow like something unreal rather than a physical substance. Marlow suggests that the word echoes because the station is only a tiny, cleared speck surrounded by an outside that always threatens to close in, erasing the men and their pathetic ambitions.

18:10 Anthony: Continuing to converse with his uncle, the manager mentions another man whom he finds troublesome, a wandering trader. The manager's uncle tells him to go ahead and have the trader hanged. Sure, why not? Yeah, just go right ahead. Because no one will challenge his authority here. The manager's uncle also suggests that the climate may take care of all of his difficulties for him, implying that Kurtz simply may die of tropical disease.

18:33 Megan: Marlow is alarmed by the apparent conspiracy between the two men and leaps to his feet, revealing himself to them. They're visibly startled, but move off without acknowledging his presence. Not long after this incident, the El Dorado expedition, led by the manager's uncle, disappears into the wilderness. Much later, the cryptic message arrives that all the expedition's donkeys have died.

18:56 Anthony: And by that time, the repairs on Marlowe's steamer are nearly complete, and Marlowe is preparing to leave on a two-month trip up the river to Kurtz, along with the manager and several pilgrims. The river is treacherous, and the trip is difficult. The ship proceeds only with the help of a crew of natives the Europeans call cannibals, who actually prove to be quite reasonable people.

19:15 Megan: The men aboard the ship hear drums at night along the riverbanks and occasionally catch glimpses of native settlements during the day, but they can only guess at what lies further inland. Marlow feels a sense of kinship between himself and the savages along the riverbanks, but his work in keeping the ship afloat and steaming keeps him safely occupied and prevents him from brooding too much.

19:38 Anthony: Marlowe's work ethic and professional skills are contrasted throughout this section with the incompetence and laziness of the company's employees. Working to repair his ship and then piling it up the river provides a much-needed distraction for Marlowe, preventing him from dwelling upon the folly of his fellow Europeans and the savagery of the natives.

19:55 Frank: To Marlowe's mind, work represents the fulfillment of a contract between two independent human beings. Repairing and piloting the steamer, he convinces himself has little to do with the exploitation and horror he sees all around him.

20:09 Megan: Nevertheless, Marlow is continually forced to interpret the surrounding world. The description of his journey upriver is strange and disturbing. Marlow describes the trip as a journey back in time to a prehistoric Earth. This remark reflects the European inclination to view colonized peoples as primitive, further back on the evolutionary scale than Europeans, and it recalls Marlow's comment at the beginning of his narrative about England's own past.

20:35 Frank: What disturbs Marlow most about the native peoples he sees along the river, in his words, is this suspicion of their not being inhuman. For Marlow, in some deep way, these savages are like Europeans, perhaps just like the English were when Britain was colonized by Rome. Marlow's self-imposed isolation from the manager and the rest of the Pilgrims forces him to consider the African members of his crew, and he's confused about what he sees. He wonders, for example, how his native fireman, the crewman who keeps the boiler going, is any different from a poorly educated, ignorant European doing the same job.

21:10 Anthony: Mysterious figure of Kurtz is at the heart of Marlow's confusion, though. Marlow has a difficult time analyzing what he has overheard about Kurtz. If the manager's story contains any truth, then Kurtz must be a monomaniacal, if not psychotic, individual. Next to the petty ambitions and sycophantic maneuvering of the manager, however, Kurtz's grandiose gestures and morally ambiguous successes are appealing.

21:33 Frank: Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this section, though, is how little actually happens. The journey up the river is full of threatened disasters, but none of them come to pass thanks to Marlow's skill. In this way, his piloting a steamboat along a treacherous river comes to symbolize his finding a way through the world of conspiracies, mysteries, and inaccessible black faces. Now that both Africa and Europe have become impenetrable to Marlow, only the larger-than-life Kurtz seems real. Readers, let's take a quick break here, and then we'll finish the last 50 miles to Kurtz's inner station. All right, readers, let's continue our journey.

22:13 Megan: So just 50 miles away from Kurtz's interstation, the steamer sights a hut with a stack of firewood and a note that says, would for you, hurry up, approach cautiously. The signature is illegible, but it's clearly not Kurtz's. Inside the hut, Marlo finds a battered old book on seamanship with notes in the margin that looks like code.

22:34 Anthony: The manager concludes that the wood must have been left by the Russian trader, the man about whom Marlow has overheard the manager complaining. After taking aboard the firewood that serves as the ship's fuel, the party continues up the river, the steamer struggling and threatening at every moment to give out completely.

22:50 Megan: By the evening of the second day after finding the hut, they arrive at a point eight miles from Kurtz's station. Marlow ponders Kurtz constantly as they crawl along toward him. Marlow wants to press on, but the manager tells him to wait for daylight, as the waters are dangerous here. The night is strangely still and silent, and dawn brings on an oppressive fog. The fog lifts suddenly and then falls again just as abruptly. The men on the steamer hear a loud, desolate cry, followed by a clamor of savage voices, and then silence again.

23:22 Anthony: So they prepare for an attack. The whites are badly shaken, but the African crewmen respond with quiet alertness. The leader of the cannibals tells Marlowe matter-of-factly that his people want to eat the owners of the voices in the fog. Marlow realizes that the cannibals must be terribly hungry, as they have not been allowed to go ashore to trade for supplies, and their only food, a supply of rotting hippo meat, was long since thrown overboard by the pilgrims.

23:46 Megan: The manager authorizes Marlowe to take every risk in continuing on in the fog, but Marlowe refuses to do so as they will surely ground the steamer if they proceed blindly. Marlowe says he does not think the natives will attack, particularly since their cries have sounded more sorrowful than warlike. After the fog lifts at a spot a mile and a half from the station, the natives attempt to repulse the invaders.

24:08 Anthony: The steamer is in a narrow channel, moving along slowly next to a high bank overgrown with bushes, when suddenly the air fills with arrows. Marlow rushes inside the pilot house. When he leans out to close the shutter of the window, he sees that the brush is swarming with natives. Suddenly, he notices a snag in the river a short way ahead of the steamer.

24:26 Megan: The Pilgrims open fire with rifles from below him, and a cloud of smoke they produce obscures his sight. Marlow's African helmsman leaves the wheel to open the shutter and shoot out with a one-shot rifle, and then stands at the open window yelling at the unseen assailants on the shore. Marlow grabs the wheel and crowds the steamer close to the bank to avoid the snag. As he does so, the helmsman takes a spear in his side and falls on Marlow's feet. Marlow frightens the attackers away by sounding the steam whistle repeatedly and may give off a prolonged cry of fear and despair.

24:59 Anthony: One of the pilgrims enters the pilot house and is shocked to see the wounded helmsman. The two white men stand over him as he dies quietly. Marlow makes the repulsed and indignant pilgrim steer while he changes his shoes and socks, which are covered in the dead man's blood. Marlow expects that Kurtz is now dead as well, and he feels a terrible disappointment at the thought.

25:19 Frank: At this point, one of Marlow's listeners on the Nelly breaks into his narrative to comment upon the absurdity of Marlow's behavior. Marla laughs at the man whose comfortable bourgeois existence has never brought him into contact with anything the likes of Africa. He admits that his own behavior may have been ridiculous. He did, after all, throw a pair of brand new shoes overboard in response to the Hellman's death. But he notes that there is something legitimate about his disappointment in thinking he will never be able to meet the man behind the legend of Kurtz.

25:49 Megan: The Pilgrims are rough and violent men. The Cannibals, on the other hand, conduct themselves with quiet dignity. Although they are malnourished, they perform their jobs without complaint. Indeed, they even show flashes of humor, as when their leader teases Marlow by saying they would like to eat the owners of the voices they hear coming from the shore.

26:08 Frank: This combination of humane cannibals and bloodthirsty pilgrims, all overseen by a manager who manages clandestinely rather than openly, creates an atmosphere of the surreal and the absurd.

26:20 Anthony: Primitive weapons used by both sides in the attack reinforce Marlowe's notion that the trip up the river is a trip back in time. Marlowe's response to the helmsman death reflects the general atmosphere of contradiction and absurdity. Rather than immediately mourning his right-hand man, Marlowe changes his socks and shoes.

26:38 Megan: In the meantime, tension continues to build as Marlow draws nearer to Kurtz. After the attack, Marlow speculates that Kurtz may be dead, but the strange message and the book full of notes left with the firewoods suggest otherwise. Marlow does not need to be told to hurry up. His eagerness to meet Kurtz draws him onward.

26:56 Anthony: Marlow breaks into the narrative here to offer a digression on Kurtz. He notes that Kurtz had a fiancée, his intended, as Kurtz called her, waiting for him in Europe. Marlow attaches no importance to Kurtz's fiancée, but what Marlow does find significant about Kurtz's intended is the air of possession Kurtz assumed when speaking about her. Indeed, Kurtz spoke of everything, ivory, the interstation, the river, as being innately his.

27:22 Frank: Marlow also mentions a report Kurtz has written at the request of the International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs. The report is eloquent and powerful, if lacking in practical suggestions. It concludes, however, with a handwritten postscript, quote, exterminate all the brutes. Marlow suggests that this coda, the exposition of Kurtz's method, is the result of Kurtz's absorption into native life. That by the time he came to write this note, he had assumed a position of power with respect to the natives and had been a participant in, quote, unspeakable rites, where sacrifices had been made in his name.

27:59 Megan: At this point, Marlow also reveals that he feels he's responsible for the care of Kurtz's memory, and that he has no choice but to remember and continue to talk about the man.

28:09 Frank: At the time Marlow is telling his story, he is still unsure whether Kurtz was worth the lives lost on his behalf. Thus, at this point, he returns to his dead helmsman and the journey up the river. Marlow blames the helmsman's death on the man's own lack of restraint. Had the helmsman not tried to fire at the men on the riverbank, he would not have been killed.

28:28 Anthony: Yeah, Marlow drags the helmsman's body out of the pilot house and throws it overboard. The pilgrims are indignant that the man will not receive a proper burial, and the cannibals seem to mourn the loss of a potential meal.

28:40 Megan: The Pilgrims have also concluded Kurtz must be dead and the interstation destroyed, but they're cheered at the crushing defeat they believe they dealt their unseen attackers. Marlow remains skeptical and sarcastically congratulates them on the amount of smoke they have managed to produce. Suddenly, the interstation comes into view, somewhat decayed but still standing.

29:00 Anthony: A white man, the Russian trader, beckons to them from the shore. He wears a gaudy patchwork suit and babbles incessantly. He's aware that they have been attacked but tells them that everything will now be okay. The manager and the pilgrims go up the hill to retrieve Kurtz while the Russian boards the ship to converse with Marlow. He tells Marlow that the natives mean no harm, although he's less than convincing on this point, and he confirms Marlow's theory that the ship's whistle is the best means of defense since it will scare the natives off.

29:27 Frank: Megan, tell us a little bit about the Russian trader.

29:30 Megan: He gives a brief account of himself. He's been a merchant seaman and was outfitted by a Dutch trading house to go into the African interior. He's boyish in appearance and temperament, and he seems to exist wholly on the glamour of youth and the audacity of adventurousness. His brightly patched clothes remind Marlow of a harlequin, and he is a devoted disciple of Kurtz's.

29:52 Anthony: Marlow gives him the book on seamanship that had been left with the firewood, and the trader is very happy to have it back. As it turns out, what Marlow had thought were encoded notes are simply notes written in Russian. The Russian trader tells Marlow that he had some trouble restraining the natives, and he suggests that the steamer was attacked because the natives do not want Kurtz to leave. The Russian also offers yet another enigmatic picture of Kurtz, According to the traitor, one does not talk to Kurtz, but listens to him. The traitor credits Kurtz for having, quote, enlarged his mind.

30:24 Frank: The interruption and digression at the beginning of this section suggest that Marlow has begun to feel the need to justify his own conduct. Marlow speaks of his fascination with Kurtz as something over which he had no control, as if Kurtz refuses to be forgotten. This is one of a number of instances in which Marlow suggests that a person's responsibility for his actions is not clear-cut.

30:47 Megan: repeatedly characterizes Kurtz as a voice, suggesting that eloquence is his defining trait. The picture that Marlow paints of Kurtz is extremely ironic. Both in Europe and in Africa, Kurtz is reputed to be a great humanitarian, whereas the other employees of the company only want to make a profit or to advance to a better position within the company. Kurtz embodies the ideals and fine sentiments with which Europeans justified imperialism. particularly the idea that Europeans brought light and civilization to savage peoples.

31:18 Anthony: But when Marlow discovers him, Kurtz has become so ruthless and rapacious that even the other managers are shocked. He refers to the ivory as his own and sets himself up as a primitive god to the natives. He has written a 17-page document on the suppression of savage customs to be disseminated in Europe But his supposed desire to, quote, civilize the natives is strikingly contradicted by his postscript, exterminate all the brutes.

31:43 Frank: Marlow is careful to tell his listeners that there was something wrong with Kurt, some flaw in his character that made him go insane in the isolation of the interstation. But the obvious implication of Marlow's story is that the humanitarian ideals and sentiment justifying imperialism are empty and are merely rationalizations for exploitation and extortion.

32:04 Megan: The Russian trader begs Marlow to take Kurtz away quickly. He recounts from Marlow his initial meeting with Kurtz, telling him that Kurtz and the trader spent a night camped in the forest together, during which Kurtz discoursed on a broad range of topics. The trader again asserts that listening to Kurtz has greatly enlarged his mind.

32:22 Anthony: His connection to Kurtz, however, has gone through periods of rise and decline. He nursed Kurtz through two illnesses, but sometimes would not see him for long periods of time, during which Kurtz was out raiding the countryside for ivory with a native tribe he had gotten to follow him. Although Kurtz had behaved erratically and once even threatened to shoot the trader over a small stash of ivory, the trader nevertheless insists that Kurtz cannot be judged as one would judge a normal man.

32:47 Megan: The Russian tells Marlow that Kurtz is extremely ill now. As he listens to the traitor, Marlow idly looks through his binoculars and sees that what he had originally taken for ornamental balls on the tops of fence posts in the station compound are actually severed heads turned to face the station house. He's repelled, but not particularly surprised.

33:07 Anthony: Not that surprised. Yeah. The Russian apologetically explains that these are the heads of rebels, an explanation that makes Marlow laugh out loud. The Russian makes a point of telling Marlow that he has no medicine or supplies with which to treat Kurtz. He also asserts that Kurtz has been shamefully abandoned by the company.

33:25 Megan: At that moment, the pilgrims emerge from the station house with Kurtz on an improvised stretcher, and a group of natives rushes out of the forest with a piercing cry. Kurtz speaks to the natives, and the natives withdraw and allow the party to pass. The manager and the pilgrims lay Kurtz in one of the ship's cabins and give him his mail, which they've brought from the central station.

33:45 Anthony: Someone has written to Kurtz about Marlowe, and Kurtz tells him that he is glad to see him. The manager enters the cabin to speak with Kurtz, and Marlowe withdraws to the steamer's deck. From here, we see two natives standing near the river with impressive headdresses and spears, and a beautiful native woman draped in ornaments pacing gracefully along the shore. She stops and stares out at the steamer for a while, and then moves away into the forest.

34:09 Megan: Marlow notes that she must be wearing several elephant's tusks worth of ornaments. The Russian implies that she is Kurtz's mistress, and states that she's caused him trouble through her influence over Kurtz. He adds that he would have tried to shoot her if she had tried to come aboard. The traitor's comments are interrupted by the sound of Kurtz yelling at the manager inside the cabin. Kurtz accuses the men of coming for the ivory rather than helping him, and he threatens the manager for interfering with his plans.

34:36 Anthony: The manager comes out and takes Marlowe aside, telling him that they have done everything possible for Kurtz, but that his unsound methods have closed the district off to the company for the time being. He says he plans on reporting Kurtz's, quote, complete want of judgment to the company's directors. Thoroughly disgusted by the manager's hypocritical condemnation of Kurtz, Marlow tells the manager that he thinks Kurtz is a remarkable man.

34:59 Frank: And with this statement, Marlow permanently alienates himself from the manager and the rest of the company functionaries. Like Kurtz, Marlow is now classified among the unsound. As the manager walks off, the Russian approaches again to confide in Marlow that Kurtz ordered the attack on the steamer, hoping that the manager would assume he was dead and turn back.

35:20 Megan: After the Russian asks Marlowe to protect Kurtz's reputation, Marlowe tells the Russian that the manager has spoken of having the Russian hanged. The traitor isn't surprised, and after hitting Marlowe up for tobacco, gun cartridges, and shoes, leaves in a canoe with some native paddlers.

35:36 Anthony: The Russian is naive to the point of idiocy, yet he has much in common with Marlowe. Both have come to Africa in search of experiences, and both end up aligning themselves with Kurtz against other Europeans. The Russian, who seems to exist upon glamour and youth, is drawn to the systematic qualities of Kurtz's thought.

35:54 Megan: Although Kurtz behaves irrationally toward him, for the traitor, the man's great philosophical mind offals a bulwark against the even greater irrationality of Africa. For Marlow, on the other hand, Kurtz represents the choice of outright perversion over hypocritical justifications of cruelty.

36:11 Frank: Marlow and the Russian trader are disturbingly similar to one another. The manager's implicit condemnation of Marlow as unsound is correct, if for the wrong reasons. By choosing Kurtz, Marlow has, in fact, like the cheerfully idiotic Russian, merely chosen one kind of nightmare over another.

36:29 Anthony: Remembering the Russian trader's warning, Marlow gets up in the middle of the night and goes out to look around for any sign of trouble. From the deck of the steamer, he sees one of the pilgrims with a group of cannibals keeping guard over the ivory, and he sees the fires of the natives' camp in the forest. He hears a drum and a steady chanting, which lulls him into a brief sleep. Brief sleep.

36:51 Megan: A sudden outburst of yells wakes him, but the loud noise immediately subsides into a rhythmic chanting once again. Marlow glances into Kurtz's cabin only to find that Kurtz is gone. He's unnerved, but he doesn't raise an alarm and instead decides to leave the ship in search of Kurtz himself.

37:07 Anthony: He finds a trail in the grass and realizes that Kurtz must be crawling on all fours. Marlow runs along the trail after him. Kurtz hears him coming, rises to his feet. They are now close to the fires of the native camp, and Marlow realizes the danger of his situation, as Kurtz could easily call out to the natives and have him killed.

37:26 Megan: Kurtz tells him to go away and hide, and Marlowe looks over to see the imposing figure of a native sorcerer silhouetted against the fire. Marlowe asks Kurtz if he knows what he's doing, and Kurtz emphatically replies that he does. Despite his physical advantage over the invalid, Marlowe feels impotent and threatens to strangle Kurtz if he should call out to the natives.

37:46 Anthony: Kurtz bemoans the failure of his grand schemes, and Marlowe reassures him that he has thought a success in Europe. Sensing the other man's vulnerability, Marlow tells Kurtz he will be lost if he continues on. Kurtz's resolution falters and Marlow helps him back to the ship.

38:04 Megan: The steamer departs the next day at noon and the natives appear on the shore to watch it go. Three men painted with red earth wearing horned headdresses wear charms and shout incantations at the ship as it steams away. Marlow places Kurtz in the pilot house to get some air and Kurtz watches through the open window as his mistress rushes down the shore and calls out to him.

38:24 Anthony: The crowd responds to her cry with an uproar of its own. Marlow sounds the whistle as he sees the Pilgrims get out their rifles and the crowd scatters to the Pilgrims' dismay. Only the woman remains standing on the shore as the Pilgrims open fire and Marlow's view is obscured by smoke.

38:39 Megan: Marlow seems to stand both physically and metaphorically between Kurtz and a final plunge into madness and depravity. It occurs to Marlow that from a practical standpoint, he should strangle Kurtz. The nearness of the natives puts Marlow in danger, and Kurtz is going to die soon anyway.

38:55 Frank: Yet for Marlow, to kill Kurtz would not only be hypocritical, but impossible, as Marlow perceives that Kurtz's crime is that he has rejected all the principles and obligations that make up European society.

39:07 Anthony: In a way, the Russian trader is right to claim that Kurtz cannot be judged by normal standards. Kurtz has already judged and rejected the standards by which other people are judged, and thus it seems irrelevant to bring such standards back to bear on him.

39:22 Megan: And significantly, Kurtz's mistress demonstrates that although Kurtz has, quote, kicked himself loose from the earth, he can't help but reenact some of the social practices he's rejected. There's something sentimental about her behavior, despite her hard-edged appearance and her relationship with Kurtz seems to have some of the same characteristics of romance, manipulation, and adoration as a traditional European male-female coupling. Moreover, as was noted in the previous section, with all her finery, she's come to symbolize value and economic enterprise, much as a European woman would.

39:57 Frank: Critics have often read her as a racist and misogynist stereotype, and in many ways that's true. However, the fact that Kurtz and Marlowe both view her as a symbol rather than as a person is part of the point. We're supposed to recognize that she is actively stereotyped by Kurtz and by Marlowe.

40:16 Anthony: The current speeds the steamer's progress back towards civilization. The manager, certain that Kurtz will soon be dead, is pleased to have things in hand. He condescendingly ignores Marlowe, who is now clearly of the unsound but harmless party.

40:30 Megan: The Pilgrims are disdainful, and Marlow, for the most part, is left alone with Kurtz. As he'd done with the Russian traitor, Kurtz takes advantage of his captive audience to hold forth on a variety of subjects.

40:41 Anthony: The steamer breaks down and repairs take some time. Marlowe is slowly becoming ill and the work is hard on him. Kurtz seems troubled, probably because the delay has made him realize that he will not make it back to Europe alive. Worried that the manager will gain control of his legacy, Kurtz gives Marlowe a bundle of papers for safekeeping.

41:01 Megan: Kurtz's ramblings become more abstract and more rhetorical as his condition worsens. Marlow believes he's reciting portions of articles he's written for the newspapers. Kurtz thinks it is his duty to disseminate his ideas. Finally, one night, Kurtz admits to Marlow that he is waiting for death.

41:19 Anthony: As Marlowe approaches, Kurtz seems to be receiving some profound knowledge or vision, and the look on his face forces Marlowe to stop and stare. Kurtz cries out, the horror, the horror. That was my best Marlon Brando. And Marlowe flees, not wanting to watch the man die. He joins the manager in the dining hall, which is suddenly overrun by flies. A moment later, a servant comes in to tell them, Mr. Kurtz, he dead.

41:43 Frank: The pilgrims bury Kurtz the next day. Marlow succumbs to illness and nearly dies himself. He suffers greatly, but the worst thing about his near-death experience is his realization that in the end, he would have nothing to say. Kurtz, he realizes, was remarkable because he had something to say. He said it. Marlow remembers little about the time of his illness, and once he recovers sufficiently, he leaves Africa and returns to Brussels.

42:08 Megan: Both Kurtz and Marlow experience a brief interlude during which they float between life and death, although their final fates differ. For Kurtz, the imminence of death ironically causes him to seek to return to the world from which he had kicked himself loose.

42:23 Frank: And readers, as we know, the actual moment of Kurtz's death is narrated indirectly. First, Kurtz's words—the horror, the horror—anticipate and mark its beginning. Then flies—the symbol of slow, mundane decay and disintegration, as opposed to catastrophic or dramatic destruction—swarm throughout the ship, as if to mark the actual moment. Finally, as we said, the servant arrives to bring the moment to its close with his surly, unpoetic words, the roughness of, Mr. Kurtz, he dead.

42:55 Anthony: Unlike Kurtz, though, Marlow recovers. Having, quote, nothing to say seems to save him. He does not slip into the deadly paradox of wanting to be both free of society and an influence on it, and he will not have to sacrifice himself for his ideas. For Marlowe, guarding Kurtz's legacy is not inconsistent with isolation from society.

43:16 Frank: All right, readers, let's take a quick break here. And when we come back, we'll finish our story and find out what Marlowe does once he's back in London with the letters from Kurtz. All right, readers, when we took our break, Marlow had recovered from his illness. It's been about a year that he's been back in London, and he wants to do something with this packet of information that Kurtz left him.

43:48 Megan: Marlow barely survives that illness, but eventually he does return to the sepulchral city, Brussels. He resents the people there for their petty self-importance and smug complacency. His aunt nurses him back to health, but his disorder is more emotional than physical.

44:03 Anthony: A bespeckled representative of the company comes to retrieve the packet of papers Kurtz entrusted to Marlowe, but Marlowe give him only the pamphlet on suppression of savage customs, with the postscript, the handwritten, exterminate all the brutes, torn off. The man threatens legal action to obtain the rest of the packet's contents.

44:21 Megan: Another man, calling himself Kurtz's cousin, appears and takes some letters to the family. The cousin tells him that Kurtz had been a great musician, although he doesn't elaborate further. Marlow and the cousin ponder Kurtz's myriad talents and decide he is best described as a universal genius.

44:39 Anthony: A journalist colleague of Kurtz's appears and takes the pamphlet for publication. This man believes Kurtz's true skills were in popular or extremist politics.

44:48 Megan: Finally, Marlow is left with only a few letters and a picture of Kurtz's intended. Marlow goes to see her without really knowing why. Kurtz's memory comes flooding back to him as he stands on her doorstep. He finds the intended still in mourning, although it's been over a year since Kurtz's death. He gives her the packet and she asks if he knew Kurtz well. He replies that he knew him as well as it's possible for one man to know another.

45:12 Anthony: His presence fulfills her need for a sympathetic ear, and she continually praises Kurtz. Her sentimentality begins to anger Marlowe, but he holds back his annoyance until it gives way to pity. She says she will mourn Kurtz forever, and asks Marlowe to repeat his last words, to give her something upon which to sustain herself.

45:29 Megan: And Marlo lies and tells her that Kurtz's last word was her name. She responds that she was certain that this was the case. Marlo ends his story here, and the narrator looks off into the dark sky, which makes the waterway seem to, quote, lead into a heart of immense darkness.

45:46 Frank: Marlow's series of encounters with persons from Kurtz's former life makes him question the value he places on his memories of Kurtz. Kurtz's cousin and the journalist both offer a version of Kurtz that seems not to resemble the man that Marlow knew. Kurtz, in fact, seems to have been all things to all people, someone who has changed their lives and now serves as a kind of symbolic figure presiding over their existence.

46:11 Anthony: This makes Marlow's own experience of Kurtz less unique and thus perhaps less meaningful. The fact that he shares Kurtz with all of these overconfident, self-important people, most of whom will never leave Brussels, causes Kurtz to seem common and less profound. In reality, Marlow's stream of visitors do not raise any new issues. In their excessive praise of Kurtz and their own lack of perspective, they resemble the Russian trader who also took Kurtz as a kind of guru.

46:39 Frank: And it's essentially after Marlow meets these people in Kurtz's life that our story ends, our novel comes to its conclusion. Let's take one more quick break here, readers, and when we come back, I'd like to ask you to share a quote or a moment or perhaps read from the book, something that we haven't had a chance to get to. We'll be right back. All right, readers, as I said before our break, now's an opportunity for you to perhaps introduce a character or a moment that we haven't had a chance to get to. Megan, do you have something for us?

47:17 Megan: Yes. For me, you know, when Marlo returns to Europe after, you know, this narrative and this, you know, very formative experience, it gives us this idea of how, you know, our interpretation or our experience of a place can change as we change or as time goes by. and that their meaning can change for us. I really love the passage towards the end when he says, I found myself back in the sepulchral city, resenting the sight of people hurrying through the streets to filch a little money from each other, to devour their infamous cookery, to gulp their unwholesome beer, to dream their insignificant and silly dreams. They trespassed upon my thoughts. They were intruders whose knowledge of life was to me an irritating presence. because I felt so sure they couldn't possibly know the things I knew. Their bearing, which was simply the bearing of commonplace individuals going about their business in the assurance of perfect safety, was offensive to me. Like the outrageous flauntings of folly in the face of a danger it is unable to comprehend. I had no particular desire to enlighten them, but I had some difficulty in restraining myself from laughing in their faces, so full of stupid importance. I just, that really hits home for me with how the impact that his journey has had on him and how he's changed and how, you know, it's really, we kind of view him coming out of his illness as maybe he'll be enlightened in some way, but really life has become darker and harder for him since this experience.

48:46 Frank: Good point. Yeah, good. Good, Megan. Thank you. Anthony, you have something?

48:49 Anthony: Yeah. I love that. That's like every movie you might see with somebody returning from war, just that sort of like, but put very succinctly. I like that. Yeah. I just also in the language is something that I highlighted because it just stuck out to me. And I think while we went through the plot, this gives some of the language and the descriptions and I think the attitude of Conrad, the author. This is when they, early in the first chapter, when they were talking about the El Dorado exploring expedition, and they showed up, and his description was, their talk, however, was the talk of sordid buccaneers. It was reckless without hardihood, greedy without audacity, and cruel without courage. There was not an atom of foresight or of serious intention in the whole batch of them, and they did not seem aware these things are wanted for the work of the world. To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire, with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe.

49:45 Frank: Good quote. That's very good. Thank you, Anthony. I'd like to focus on Kurtz. From the beginning of the novel, we have this idea of Kurtz. Who is Kurtz? Why is he causing these problems for the company? What is he doing out there in the stations? The reality of Kurtz is somewhat brief at the end of the novel. You know, we meet him, he talks a bit to Marlo, and then he dies. But the idea of Kurtz really does permeate throughout this entire novel and sort of wets our anticipation. What is he going to be like? We can't wait to meet him. Why is everyone so enamored or afraid or beholden to this Kurtz? Is it the man? Is it his words? Is it the idea of Kurtz? And that's what I kind of found fascinating. I just kept waiting for Give me a little bit more Kurtz. Give me a little bit more Kurtz. And it's really more ephemeral. It's the idea of Kurtz than the reality of Kurtz, is what I took from this novel.

50:45 Megan: Yeah, everyone seems to kind of assign their own value or meaning to him, and he's something different to everyone who encounters him. And it's more, it shows you more about the individuals than about Kurtz himself. You know, who he is isn't really as important as who they make him out to be.

51:03 Frank: Great point. I think we mentioned that during our reading of the narrative, that Kurtz was something different or sort of an everyman to every other man. No one had a complete picture. We got facets. We got this side. He was an artist. He was a musician. He was ruthless. He went native, if you will. So yes, everyone brings their own idea of Kurtz to Kurtz.

51:27 Anthony: I just took it as, actually, this idea just came to me of this sort of, for everyone's personal, what they would do if there were no rules, what I would do if there was lawlessness. They go, oh, he did it. You can do that. It's okay. So everyone reflects, well, here's how I would carry things. So it doesn't matter. They might not revere the specific acts he did. They just revere the fact that he did what he wanted.

51:50 Frank: And he was out there doing it. Right. Exactly. Well, readers, thank you very much for coming in and having this conversation with me today. I really appreciate it. And I quite enjoyed it. I hope you enjoyed it as well.

52:00 Megan: Yeah. Thanks so much for having us, Frank.

52:01 Frank: Thanks for listening to Novel Conversations. If you're enjoying the show, please give us a five star review wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find us on Instagram at Novel Conversations. Follow us to stay up to date on upcoming episodes and in anything else we've got in the works. I want to give special thanks to our readers today, Megan Canty and Anthony Mahramus. Our sound designer and producer is Noah Foutz and Grace Sienna Longfellow is our audio engineer. Our executive producers are Brigid Coyne and Joan Andrews. I'm Frank Lavallo. Thank you for listening. I hope you soon find yourself in a novel conversation all your own.