There's nothing wrong with a bit of baggy. And certainly there's little or nothing 19th century without that touch of cellulite. And that's mostly where all the masterpieces live. No waste. But no bounty either. Conrad's prose is too parsimonious for anything to get very close to masterpiece status. I like him fine but he was a writer who tied his boots too tight almost on purpose. He wrote better about the sea than anything else and yet did relatively little of it. You're right (in a tiny, limited sense) in that the strangely neglected “The Secret Agent” is probably his best - full of surprises and real pleasures - does “Greenwich” like no one ever did.

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.

I did not get this one at all. Well, more or less.

The setting and atmosphere is excellently done and chilling. The whole vibe of everyone being a bit skewed from right in the head persistent and disturbing. The content on colonization, "civilizing" other cultures, and the measure of human vs savage highly quotable. Actually, for such a short thing, the amount of bits I marked and saved is staggering.

And for such a short thing, the amount of time it took me to read is staggering. It's the way the book is written I think, with the chronicler speaking with little pauses and running the happenings together, till you have no paragraph breaks to help you organize what the hell is going on, what's important, how you go from this to that. You are mentally bombarded with chaos in a way, which, OK, might actually be the deliberate genius of the author, making you feel what the character is talking about. But hell.

It was an interesting experience that I more or less enjoyed till a third in, and then I just wanted to end. I'm absolutely baffled by Kurt, or the point the character's existence was making in the story, beyond being some mcguffin reason to have our teller go in and go back, because knowing that Conrad liked writing about the fragility of morals, sanity and civilized trappings under the cover of darkness, it seems to me Kurt was pretty well touched BEFORE going to rob African's of their ivory (his cousin says he would have made an excellent party leader, any party, because he was in essence an extremist, and god, how that reminded me of parts of Invisible Man), so it's not like he would be a great example?.

This review is a mess, but this book is messing with my head because I can't quite grasp it, or even rate it. I'm thinking of raisin the stars on the fact that it's making me wreak my brains alone, since it already got the "pass" 2 on quotes and atmosphere alone.

It is an usual obligatory read? My condolences.

I ventured to hint that the Company was run for profit.
“‘You forget, dear Charlie, that the labourer is worthy of his hire,’ she said, brightly. It’s queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own, and there has never been anything like it, and never can be. It is too beautiful altogether, and if they were to set it up it would go to pieces before the first sunset. Some confounded fact we men have been living contentedly with ever since the day of creation would start up and knock the whole thing over.

Charming *grimace*

So, the doctor was not a horror-tale gatekeeper at all. Or the Swedish captain.

I’ve seen the devil of violence, and the devil of greed, and the devil of hot desire; but, by all the stars! these were strong, lusty, red-eyed devils, that swayed and drove men—men, I tell you. But as I stood on this hillside, I foresaw that in the blinding sunshine of that land I would become acquainted with a flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly. How insidious he could be, too, I was only to find out several months later and a thousand miles farther.

That's no ominous at all...

Then a description of the working settlement... welcome to sanity-ville?

Points for setting the atmosphere from page one and the starting ramble.

His appearance was certainly that of a hairdresser’s dummy; but in the great demoralization of the land he kept up his appearance. That’s backbone. His starched collars and got-up shirt-fronts were achievements of character.

Sure. Not a desperate attempt at staying civilized at all.