Once, I remember, we came upon a man-of-war anchored off the coast. There wasn’t even a shed there, and she was shelling the bush . . . In the empty immensity of earth, sky, and water, there she was, incomprehensible, firing into a continent. Pop, would go one of the six-inch guns; a small flame would dart and vanish, a little white smoke would disappear, a tiny projectile would give a feeble screech — and nothing happened. Nothing could happen. There was a touch of insanity in the proceeding, a sense of lugubrious drollery in the sight; and it was not dissipated by somebody on board assuring me earnestly there was a camp of natives — he called them enemies! — hidden out of sight somewhere.
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, 1902
2 replies on “heart of darkness”
i read this and i thought of Iraq. i read it some more, and i forwarded it to some similarly minded people. i read it some more again and i thought of Big Jon on his german gun boat, shelling with mortar after mortar a small camp of travellers in a forest somewhere near the south coast, all the while chewing on tobacco and laughing with manic pleasure. i should drink less coffee. maybe i could construct sentences better then too.
Thanks will. So sweet. Despite your character assasination I should be delighted if you were to pop round sometime for sauerkraut and schnitzel. Maybe light the touchpaper on a few shells to be lobbed in the direction of Hounslow… That sort of thing.