Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

The Hobbit and Heart of Darkness.  They are next to each other on the bookshelf, and they are both 'there and back again' stories; but, oh, what a difference.

The story begins on a ship moored in the Thames estuary, waiting to depart on the turn of the tide.  On board is Marlow, who recounts a tale from his past to an attentive ship's company - the tale of his journey up the Congo River and into the heart of the Dark Continent in the late 19th century. (Marlow was the storyteller in Conrad's Lord Jim) 

At the staging post marking the mid-point of his journey, Marlowe begins to hear rumours of Kurtz, 'a remarkable man'.  Kurtz is the manager of the company post much further up the river.  Marlowe comes to believe that he wants to meet Kurtz, and he does what it takes to continue his journey.  What he finds shakes him to his roots.

Heart of Darkness was written in 1899.  Conrad had visited the Belgian Congo years earlier and had witnessed some of the depredation the agents of King Leopold II were committing on the native population: starvation, killing and mutilations amongst them.  News of the atrocities and their magnitude was slow to reach to Europe.  

Despite the stories folk in the home countries might tell themselves about the civilizing force of Empire, all Imperialism is rooted in power and violence.  Conrad puts it like this:

They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force - nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others.

Although natives (Conrad used the N-bomb) play little part in the narrative apart from being bearers and messengers,  we do see something of their hardships through Marlowe's eyes:

Near the same tree two more, bundles of acute angles, sat with their legs drawn up.  One, with his chin propped on his knees, stared at nothing, in an intolerable and appalling manner: his brother phantom rested its [sic] forehead, as if overcome with great weariness; and all about others were scattered in every pose of contorted collapse, as in some picture of a massacre or pestilence.

As terrible as these things may be, the story is about white men abroad, and the effect that an untamed and alien continent has upon them. Africa unhinges Kurtz, and the extent of his warped aspirations in the upper reaches of the Congo is limited only by the magnitude of his genius.  Marlowe arrives too late to save Kurtz, and he is torn between damning or salvaging the madman's reputation.  It is something Marlowe never resolves within himself.

The questions of evil confronting Marlowe should be very familiar to modern readers.  The Holocaust is not that far removed in time, and we have witnessed the ethnic atrocities in Rwanda and Serbia.  We can wonder whether what Marlowe found in Kurtz's inner core is explanation enough for humankind's darkest deeds.