Heart of Darkness

The most unsettling line in English literature may be the simplest: "The horror! The horror!" In this short, devastating novel, Joseph Conrad takes us on a journey up the Congo River into the dark heart of colonial Africa, and deeper still into the dark heart of human nature itself. Marlow, the narrator, tells of his assignment to find Kurtz, a brilliant officer gone rogue in the jungle, revered as a god by the local people and feared by the Company that sent him. What Marlow discovers there, and what he brings back, will unmake every comfortable assumption about civilization and savagery, about the darkness "out there" and the darkness within. This is a book that has haunted readers and writers for over a century. Its ambiguous, deeply unsettling portrait of colonialism, complicity, and the capacity for evil in every human soul refuses easy interpretation. If you want a novel that will make you uncomfortable in the best possible way, this is it.