it is hard for me to describe how much i actually hate this book. the racism was the only thing that i could consistently understand was happening throughout the whole book, it was so convoluted for no reason. the only reason it got an extra .25 stars is because the writing is pretty good on occasion (when i can understand what's happening) during some of the imagery of the landscape. otherwise this is one of my least favorite books of all time.

if you are going to read this book, i would recommend also picking up Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe) because it is set during the same time as Heart of Darkness and is in a sort of close part of Africa. the difference between a novel written by an European man and an African during that time is insane, it gives perspective to both of the novels. another interesting thing about this is that Heart of Darkness is told from the perspective of the white man doing the colonizing and Things Fall Apart is from the perspective of an African person whose village is being colonized.

(i had to read these for school so i can talk about them forever)