Is Apocalypse Now the greatest film adaptation of a book?

[00:00:00]Is Heart of Darkness one of the best novels ever written? And maybe more importantly, is Apocalypse Now the best film adaptation of all time of a book?

[00:00:09]That's what we're going to be talking about today on the Life on Books podcast. Welcome back. My name is Tony.

[00:00:12]With me as always is Andy, aka Man of Fictional Meathead. Andy, how are you?

[00:00:15]>> I'm doing great, Tony. I'll tell you, I just love the smell of napalm in the morning.

[00:00:19]>> Hell yeah.

[00:00:21]So, uh before we get into today's topic, uh Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now, uh let's talk about your weekly reading update. What have you been reading lately?

[00:00:30]>> So, uh still chipping away at the three I mentioned last week.

[00:00:36]Terra Nostra by Fuentes.

[00:00:39]Now I Surrender by Álvaro Enrigue.

[00:00:41]>> Mhm.

[00:00:42]>> And Catch-22 by um Joseph Heller.

[00:00:46]>> Yep.

[00:00:47]>> Uh but mostly this week, I So, I did reread Heart of Darkness >> Yep.

[00:00:52]>> in preparation for this episode.

[00:00:53]>> Good idea.

[00:00:54]>> Uh and I also got this copy of Ubik by Philip K. Dick in the mail.

[00:01:01]Um >> There it is in all its glory.

[00:01:03]>> And I think I that came in on Wednesday.

[00:01:06]>> Yep.

[00:01:06]>> And I kind of just binge read it.

[00:01:09]>> Nice.

[00:01:09]>> Like I was just a real It's a really fun read. Really great novel.

[00:01:13]Um and kind of uh sidetracked me from the other three.

[00:01:17]>> Yeah.

[00:01:18]>> Um but I definitely want to get back to them.

[00:01:21]We'll get back to them. I'm not calling it on any of them. Um just kind of got my attention sidetracked this week. Um but >> Generally, what is uh the premise of Ubik?

[00:01:32]>> Um So, uh there's this this guy who runs this pretty uh a business mhm where So, it's it's set in the um the early '90s.

[00:01:48]But there's uh this kind of weird dystopian future-ish.

[00:01:53]Um but there's also uh, like people with psychic abilities.

[00:02:01]>> Mhm.

[00:02:01]>> And, um, they kind of use them. It's implied that they're all nefarious and they all use them for nefarious means.

[00:02:10]>> Okay.

[00:02:11]>> Um, and there's this guy that runs an agency. There's a number of of these agencies that exist. Um, but there's this one particular one that's the focus that employs like agents that corporations can hire to nullify these psychic spies >> Okay.

[00:02:29]>> from like, you know, doing their nefarious things.

[00:02:32]>> Mhm.

[00:02:32]>> Um, >> Sounds cool.

[00:02:34]>> So it's it's this the story of this agency like going on one of their kind of missions, if you will, for that kind of purpose.

[00:02:43]>> Yeah.

[00:02:43]>> Um, and the, um, everything that goes awry and kind of complications that come up and, um, really like very engaging. Like I I was definitely it definitely more of a like narrative-driven >> Mhm.

[00:03:00]>> than I mean the writing was good, but like sentence by sentence level it's not it's very different from Heart of Darkness >> of Darkness.

[00:03:07]>> or um, like a Gaddis or um, Bolaño gas type thing where just like the the writing itself is is a main driver of what's going on. Not to say it was like poorly written or um, you know, schlock, but >> Yeah.

[00:03:25]>> But it was really fun. Um, I've gotten a bunch of other PKD in the recent week or so.

[00:03:31]Um, you know, >> Yeah, you're big on the dick lately.

[00:03:35]>> He's an author like Bolaño really liked his stuff, his work. I I know other authors, um, I'm sure a plenty of other authors enjoyed his work.

[00:03:44]>> Yeah.

[00:03:44]>> Um, and where I definitely am into the more of kind of pretentious, heady stuff. Um It It's It's nice to have something that's a little bit more fun and engaging than a super uh mega brain teaser.

[00:04:06]>> Yeah.

[00:04:06]>> Um certainly not like falling back to, you know, some weird like equestrian romance story or like, you know, just kind of like gross grocery store schlock, but um nice to have some kind of fun and engaging reads.

[00:04:24]>> Yeah.

[00:04:24]>> Just kind of a break. So, I've gotten a bunch of like sci-fi recently.

[00:04:27]>> Cool.

[00:04:28]>> But uh we'll see if I can make the time for that, but >> Nice.

[00:04:32]>> You know, it's a it's a it's a well-thought-out plan. We'll see if I can actually enact it.

[00:04:36]>> Yeah.

[00:04:36]>> So.

[00:04:37]>> Um speaking of heady heady reads and pretentious reads, uh so I've been reading Idiocy >> Yes.

[00:04:44]>> by Pierre Guyotat, uh French author.

[00:04:49]This is technically a memoir or um autobiography and uh but you it might as well be fiction the way it's written. It reads kind of like fiction.

[00:05:03]And it does because I think typically with a memoir, it's like "When I was 18 years old, I sat down with my father and had this conversation." It's not like that at all.

[00:05:15]The way he writes is he just starts talking about this thing that he experienced. There's no dates, there's no context.

[00:05:24]>> Mhm.

[00:05:24]>> It's very poetic. The writing is extremely poetic. Uh but it's also kind of got that like classic French grit to it.

[00:05:36]>> Mhm.

[00:05:36]>> So, he talks about women's breasts all the time.

[00:05:42]>> Classic.

[00:05:43]>> [ __ ] piss, like >> Awesome.

[00:05:46]>> everything. And so, for example, there's one They're They're more like essays than chapters.

[00:05:52]>> Mhm.

[00:05:52]>> Uh I think they are in chronological order, but they're not super strongly linked from one chapter to the next necessarily.

[00:05:59]And there's a chapter where he is kind of living on the streets because he's a little bit estranged from his family, and he's like run away from school, basically. Uh I think he's in college at the time.

[00:06:13]>> Mhm.

[00:06:14]>> Or maybe he's like final year of high school. And he's living on the streets, got no money, and he's just kind of like bumming around with odd jobs, and he's a courier. And he goes to deliver something, and then he goes walks past this um this like public house where people can rent rooms for short or long-term. And uh he looks through a window and sees two people having sex. And he just sits there and watch watches them have sex.

[00:06:42]And he describes it in pretty poetic detail. But, the nature of the the hostel or whatever is such that the uh restrooms are very like shared and and kind of open, and not necessarily with a lot of privacy.

[00:06:59]And where these people are in the room where they're having sex is like right next to the bathroom area, and he's like talking about how you can like smell the excrement as they're like doing it. And so, it's it's a trip, man.

[00:07:14]>> All right. So, I'm out here reading genre fiction, and you're reading uh scat smut.

[00:07:20]>> What now?

[00:07:21]>> Yeah, well, it's The reason I picked it up um NYRB sent it to me because they they pretty much just send me all their new releases at this point. They just automatically show up.

[00:07:32]>> Yeah.

[00:07:32]>> Cuz they know I might read it and talk about it and people go out and buy >> We get it. You're cool. You're influential.

[00:07:38]>> don't I don't go out of my way to get the books. They just >> it. Yeah, yeah, Uh and when I read the description, I was like, "Eh, whatever. And maybe I'll come back and take a closer look later."

[00:07:49]I just threw it on the shelf.

[00:07:50]And after I read War by Celine, I was like, "Man, I really kind of want more of that."

[00:07:55]>> Yeah.

[00:07:56]>> And so I uh went through I just Google searched like what other authors are like this.

[00:08:05]>> Yeah.

[00:08:05]>> And he was mentioned uh I would say he's not as vulgar as Celine, and he's not as like there's not as much degradation in the themes of his writing.

[00:08:15]>> Yeah.

[00:08:16]>> Uh but it definitely has some overlap.

[00:08:19]>> Yeah, no, from from what I know about him, um definitely seems like he'd be like in the vibe of what you were just looking for or looking for more of after you read War.

[00:08:30]>> Yeah.

[00:08:30]>> Um with the the Malaparte you just got in.

[00:08:33]>> Yep.

[00:08:34]>> Um I know I can't think of the titles, but there were two Céline novels that I remember like a year or so ago uh Seth was talking about like crazy.

[00:08:45]>> Yeah, so >> were kind of like bootleg publications.

[00:08:48]>> Yes, because I I was a little bit on the fence about reading a non-fiction uh >> Yeah.

[00:08:54]>> I was I wanted to read something fiction.

[00:08:57]And uh I looked up the only There's only maybe two other of his books that have been translated into English, and one of them is called like One in 500 Deaths or something like that.

[00:09:09]>> Mhm.

[00:09:10]>> And I looked it up, and it's out of print, and used copies are like $2,000 on Amazon. That type of situation, where they've been algorithmically priced to like some absurd number. So I think they're hard to get, which makes sense why Seth would be reading a bootleg copy.

[00:09:26]>> Yeah.

[00:09:27]>> Uh the other one's like Eden Eden Eden or something like that.

[00:09:29]>> Yeah, I think that's right. Uh but what's weird about this one is this he wrote this super late in his life. So, the original publication of this was 2018.

[00:09:40]>> Oh, wow.

[00:09:41]>> Yeah.

[00:09:42]Uh and then it was translated last year.

[00:09:44]>> Wow.

[00:09:45]>> Um so, it's very new. He's He's passed on now, but he was I think late 70s when he wrote this.

[00:09:53]>> Oh, okay.

[00:09:53]>> Uh which not to be uh ageist, but you just don't know if somebody's like fully with it when they're approaching 80 years old.

[00:10:05]>> Right.

[00:10:05]>> Uh and but I'm the writing is exceptionally good, so >> Right on.

[00:10:09]>> happy to report that. Uh like you, also reading Catch-22 for the book club for our July read. Also reading King Leopold's Ghost for our non-fiction uh book club July read.

[00:10:23]A little bit of news, uh much to Andy's dismay.

[00:10:28]Out by Natsuo Kirino is our August book club read. Uh this particular edition translated by Steven Snyder.

[00:10:40]Uh who actually is a professor at Middlebury College in Vermont, and he teaches translation theory.

[00:10:50]So >> Hell yeah.

[00:10:52]>> after August, we'll we'll see if you like it enough to finish it.

[00:10:56]>> I hope I do.

[00:10:56]>> Uh I hope you do, too. Uh but maybe we can go out to Vermont and interview him.

[00:11:00]>> That'd be cool. That'd be really cool.

[00:11:02]Um yeah, yeah.

[00:11:05]I think it's just a little bit too much sugar in that it won, not because I have any issues with the book.

[00:11:11]>> Right, you just don't own a copy of it.

[00:11:13]>> don't own a copy. And um so, I was was hoping for um the two that I nominated, mostly cuz they fit. I already own them.

[00:11:24]>> Mhm.

[00:11:25]>> Um I kind of I bought them with the intention of reading them for Well, I bought one of them cuz it sounded good.

[00:11:34]And then I bought the other the Enríquez cuz I was like, oh, you like should kind of try to put some energy into the whole women in translation month thing, books written by women.

[00:11:44]Um and then I was like, well, they they fit with the Latin American thing I've had going this year.

[00:11:50]>> Right.

[00:11:50]>> I was like, I'll nominate them.

[00:11:51]>> Right.

[00:11:52]>> And I think you and I were both kind of surprised that Our Share of Night didn't win.

[00:11:57]>> Yeah, so for those that don't know, the way the book club works is typically Andy and I will each pick two books to nominate for a vote. And then the book club votes on them and we use a ranked choice voting cuz we're very cool.

[00:12:10]And obviously whichever book wins, we read. Uh we try our best to select books to nominate that we both own, which is hard to do sometimes, particularly because we do try to follow some sort of theme month by month. And in the literary world, August typically celebrates women in translation, so books written by women or translated by women.

[00:12:37]Uh and the funny thing about me picking out as one of my nominations is it was a very last minute I'll just pick this to have a pick >> Right.

[00:12:49]>> because when I was looking through books to nominate, all of the books that were kind of a good fit, I had nominated through various months before and they didn't win and I'm like, I don't want to just like keep throwing books out here that people have already said no to basically.

[00:13:07]There's a lot of great books that I would love to read that were just too short to do a monthly read of. They were 200 pages, 170 pages.

[00:13:16]Uh >> I know, I have a couple books that like the same thing, there's one that I want to read um in August, um The Adventures of China Miéville.

[00:13:25]>> Hm.

[00:13:27]>> Um >> Who's that by?

[00:13:28]>> Um I can't remember her name off the top of my head, but she's the same author that wrote We Are Green and Trembling.

[00:13:35]Uh which was recently published.

[00:13:37]>> Okay, that sounds familiar.

[00:13:38]>> From New Directions, I believe.

[00:13:39]>> Okay, cool.

[00:13:40]>> Um but um it's like a um like queer feminist retelling of the Martin Fierro um legend out of Argentina.

[00:13:54]>> And I was like, "Oh, that'd be like a really cool >> Yeah, that sounds awesome.

[00:13:57]>> to discuss like with a group or at least do like an episode on.

[00:14:01]>> Yeah.

[00:14:02]>> But it's barely 200 pages.

[00:14:03]>> Yeah.

[00:14:04]And a lot of >> So I would like to read that for sure, but it it wouldn't have fit with the the book club.

[00:14:10]>> Yeah.

[00:14:11]So I was really struggling. So you had picked Cathedrals by uh Claudia Piñeiro.

[00:14:18]>> Yeah.

[00:14:18]>> And Our Share of Night by Mariana Enríquez, which we both had copies of that book.

[00:14:23]>> Mhm.

[00:14:23]>> Also, which was nice.

[00:14:26]Uh and then I had picked The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende.

[00:14:32]And I was like stumped >> Yeah.

[00:14:34]>> on my my second pick. And I'm like, "I need to get the poll up so we can get the ball rolling so people have time to acquire the book before the month blah blah blah."

[00:14:45]And I'm like going back and forth, going through my whole collection. I have a whole bunch of like unsorted books in my office right now, like stuff I had picked up recently that I haven't like just figured out where I'm putting it on my shelf yet. I'm like going through those piles.

[00:14:59]And then randomly I was like, "Oh, I have this book by Natsuo Kirino that I've actually heard is very good that's been sitting on my shelf for years." I'm like, "I think it's like the perfect length. It's not too long, it's not too short."

[00:15:12]So I ran down, grabbed it. I'm like, "This thing's going to come dead last, but at least it's >> 400 pages even.

[00:15:18]>> Yeah, at least it's an option for people. And I thought to myself the other three books are translated from Spanish. This one's Japanese, so it won't look like we're just like Latin American shells, you know But I'm like this is going to come dead last. I thought it was going to be between Our Share of Night and The House of Spirits. And it was like the complete opposite. So Out won by a huge margin.

[00:15:40]>> Yeah.

[00:15:41]>> House of Spirits was second to last.

[00:15:43]And uh Yeah, so this is what we're going to be reading.

[00:15:47]>> Yeah. I mean I'm I'm excited.

[00:15:49]>> Yeah. Um Uh one of our long-time uh listeners, uh Jack Walter, often comments on the episodes. I actually had remembered um months and months ago I'd mentioned this book and he commented and said that it's very good. And I think he has really good taste based on some of the stuff he's we've talked about on the in the comment section. So, which is like kind of a funny thing, but it's like a cool thing about social media is like I kind of have a sense of what some of the listeners' taste is.

[00:16:20]>> Right.

[00:16:21]>> Um so also a member of the book club, but I don't think he really uh I don't think he's on the Discord server. I think he mostly just does it to cuz he's nice and wants to support us, so.

[00:16:31]>> Cool.

[00:16:31]>> You can do the same. Click the link below. Uh but finally, let's talk about Heart of Darkness.

[00:16:36]>> Let's do it.

[00:16:37]>> Let's talk about the book first and then we'll talk about Apocalypse Now. Uh I read this recently, absolutely loved it.

[00:16:44]Um you read it recently.

[00:16:46]Probably didn't feel as strongly about it.

[00:16:48]>> So let Why don't we start with telling telling everyone just your general thoughts of the book?

[00:16:52]>> I mean I liked it a lot. Like I wouldn't say like I was like I I was I was more than neutral. I I liked it. I wasn't like blown away.

[00:17:02]>> Yeah.

[00:17:03]>> Um >> The writing style is not at all close to any of the other books that you really love.

[00:17:11]>> No, it's not. And it's funny cuz like I have talked about this before. I read it in high school or at the very least I was assigned it in high school.

[00:17:18]>> Yeah, might have Cliff Notes'd it.

[00:17:19]>> I probably Cliff Notes'd it.

[00:17:22]Um I if to the best of my recollection, it was one of those the books that I was assigned to read after I had already been accepted and decided on what what college I was going to and kind of did the classic senior throwing in the towel.

[00:17:37]>> Definitely, yeah.

[00:17:38]>> Um and I've talked about this before how uh I read pretty much everything that was assigned to me when I was in school from middle school through graduating.

[00:17:54]Um and not It wasn't It wasn't like begrudging most of it. It was you know, for the most part like I think I I tried to engage with what I was reading, but um I got to this, like I said, I already kind of I already kind of checked out.

[00:18:09]It's not an easy book.

[00:18:11]>> No, it's not.

[00:18:12]>> It's not It wasn't an easy book now at 30 having read been been an active reader for the last 4 or 5 years.

[00:18:19]>> Mhm.

[00:18:20]>> So, it was even more of a struggle when I was a punk 18-year-old who didn't want to read it.

[00:18:27]>> Mhm.

[00:18:28]>> Um and I just remember like not really caring.

[00:18:31]Um so, I tried to give it an honest shot. It definitely was one of those books like I I've I've I've talked a lot in the past about Poisonwood Bible and how I didn't look like reading that.

[00:18:41]There's no part of me that wants to revisit that.

[00:18:45]>> See if my opinions have changed. Yeah.

[00:18:47]>> But, Heart of Darkness was one that it wasn't at the top of my list, but it was one of those things where I was like like I'd like to revisit that with a a more astute reader's um skill set and you know, at least enjoying the act of reading.

[00:19:03]>> Mhm.

[00:19:04]>> Um and so, you were you obviously you recently read it, loved it. I was out at a bookstore, I saw a copy of it and I was like, "Yeah, I'll grab it."

[00:19:13]>> Mhm.

[00:19:13]>> So, I read it.

[00:19:15]Uh I feel like it was a couple months ago.

[00:19:19]Maybe no, more than that. Less than that. But, like you can see I I flagged the hell out of it. Like, there's definitely spots where I I liked the right the writing was great. Um certainly um a lot of powerful themes and things like that.

[00:19:36]>> Yeah.

[00:19:37]>> Um but I definitely I definitely appreciated it a lot when I read it the first time. And then I wanted to reread it again before we did this episode.

[00:19:46]And I think it's it maybe it was because or was influenced by how much I just wanted to be reading Ubec.

[00:19:54]>> Mhm.

[00:19:55]>> Or Uvec, whatever, however you pronounce it. Um but, I remember reading it, I was like, "Who cares?" I was just not into it the second time.

[00:20:03]>> Yeah.

[00:20:03]>> So, but uh yeah, I mean, it's it's like I again, like I I sticky the hell out of it. It's a It's a fantastically written novel.

[00:20:14]>> Yeah.

[00:20:15]>> Um and it's certainly compelling, but it just didn't have the same effect on me as it has clearly had on you, which is fine. So.

[00:20:25]>> I think uh as far as the themes go, can be a little bit tricky because there's not a lot that you or I as 30, 40-year-old Americans can necessarily relate to because obviously it's a book that is about the horrible, horrible uh conditions of what was happening under totally >> Belgian colonialism in the late 1800s.

[00:20:54]>> Yeah.

[00:20:55]>> So, even though the book obviously has um themes that are applicable to ethics and politics and philosophy of life, uh uh, when you really dive into the nitty-gritty of it, it's not like you're going to be on a steamboat going up a river anytime soon.

[00:21:15]So, >> Yeah.

[00:21:17]>> Um, >> Excuse me.

[00:21:18]>> but, uh, yeah, I think one of the reasons why I loved Heart of Darkness so much was because, uh, uh, it I I the writing is just really really well done.

[00:21:34]And I just find like the whole novel to be so brooding in a way that I really enjoy.

[00:21:42]>> Yeah. No, there is that sense of foreboding >> Mhm.

[00:21:46]>> that, um, it is definitely it is very impactful.

[00:21:52]Yeah.

[00:21:53]I think the book sets out what it or or excuse me, achieves what it set out to do. You know, it definitely is that or is that darkness, there's that sense of like sense sense of foreboding. Um, there there is a a strong feeling of narrative tension kind of throughout.

[00:22:11]Um, that that it that is kind of moving forward. One of the things that I I definitely experienced both times I read it this year to a lesser extent um, the second time around, but my interest in the the novel growing with each section.

[00:22:31]>> Mhm.

[00:22:32]>> Like as as um, Marlow gets closer to meeting Kurtz.

[00:22:38]>> Yeah.

[00:22:38]>> The novel definitely ramps up. And and like you you feel that like that Kurtz is is definitely, you know, described as this, um, mythical figure with with this strong, um, magnetic aura.

[00:22:56]And certainly at least I felt this while I was reading it like as as me the reader got closer and closer to actually meeting Kurtz, I felt like the novel got stronger and more compelling.

[00:23:12]>> Yeah.

[00:23:13]I He does such a great job of building Kurtz up in the reader's mind because you hear all these characters talking about him and oh, he's a genius. He's this and that and you're like, what what the [ __ ] is with this guy?

[00:23:29]>> Like when he first meets the I don't remember. Is is the the guy Russian or >> Uh the Russian guy is is when he uh la- actually like lands in the area that Kurtz is kind of in.

[00:23:42]>> right but Kurtz's caretaker if you will.

[00:23:44]Like I don't remember that guy. Is he Russian?

[00:23:46]>> Yes.

[00:23:47]>> Okay.

[00:23:48]I couldn't remember if he had been like English and then worked on Russian ships or what it whatever it was but when like Marlow's talking to him he's like, oh yeah, like I can't wait to talk to Kurtz and he's like, you don't talk to him, you listen.

[00:24:00]>> Yeah.

[00:24:00]>> There's such a great like you're like, oh, this guy's something.

[00:24:06]Like he he instantly in that line he elevates from just like highly successful um trader, captive, whatever you want to uh kind of look at him from the sense of like he's there collecting ivory.

[00:24:22]>> Mhm.

[00:24:23]>> He's very good at it. He's very successful at at at collecting ivory for the company.

[00:24:28]Like he instantly goes from this like highly successful and profitable employee that can drive their capital to this mythical prophet type figure.

[00:24:39]And uh so so Yeah, the the way that Kurtz elevates throughout the novel is is awesome.

[00:24:47]>> Yeah. The The funny thing is is that there's uh a lot of shade thrown at the whole thing at the whole idea of it uh by Conrad through the whole thing. So, initially uh when he's first on the river, he's talking about seeing a ship just like shooting its cannons into the mountains.

[00:25:09]Like, and they're just like, "What are you even doing?"

[00:25:11]>> Right.

[00:25:11]>> He's like, "blowing it up for no reason >> Yes.

[00:25:14]>> cuz you have no idea what you're doing."

[00:25:16]Uh when he goes to see the doctor before he embarks on the journey, uh that guy >> He's like measuring his head >> Oh, yeah.

[00:25:27]>> this stuff. And you get the sense that Marlowe's just like, "This guy is a bit of a quack, huh?"

[00:25:33]>> Mhm.

[00:25:33]>> Um and then when he gets to the that first main uh station and he meets the station manager, the only reason that guy even has a job is because he's the only one that like doesn't get sick in the jungle.

[00:25:48]>> Right.

[00:25:49]>> has like no actual skill set. It's just happenstance that he's got basically a strong immune system.

[00:25:54]>> Right.

[00:25:54]>> Um and then of course Kurtz is built up to be this genius. And then you get there and you're like, "No, this guy is a a psycho. And he's just like digging up ivory that the locals had buried for ceremonial purposes. It's not even like good fresh ivory >> Right.

[00:26:11]>> from an animal. It's not like he's out there >> Right.

[00:26:13]>> skillfully hunting and and whatever."

[00:26:16]So, um yeah, it's it's kind of uh it's kind of funny in that way. And a lot of that stuff I actually missed my first read through cuz I was just so uh enthralled by the writing and the narrative. What I will say about the writing is as good as it is, uh I can only kind of take it in shorter doses. So, I read this and then I read The Shadow Line, which narratively is not nearly as interesting as Heart of Darkness, but the writing is is quite good.

[00:26:43]>> Mhm.

[00:26:44]>> But that's only a hundred or so pages.

[00:26:47]And then I read Lord Jim.

[00:26:49]And that's over 300 pages. And Lord Jim, I was like, okay. Like this is getting a little this is getting a little long here.

[00:26:59]And so as good as he is, I think I still prefer his shorter work.

[00:27:05]>> Yeah, no, I definitely felt like that when I was reading it the second time around.

[00:27:12]I think the first time I read it I ended up I had read it in a day.

[00:27:17]>> Yeah.

[00:27:17]>> Which is is certainly possible. I don't know if it's the most advisable way to approach it.

[00:27:24]>> Right. I mean it is a short book, but it's also dense.

[00:27:26]>> It is dense.

[00:27:28]Um but the second time around I was like, oh, I'll read it um I was like, I will read it um one section a day.

[00:27:42]>> Yeah.

[00:27:43]>> And I don't know, again, I think a lot of it had to do with I just wanted to be reading other things.

[00:27:48]>> Yeah, if your mind's somewhere else.

[00:27:49]>> Um like the the first time I read it, I wanted to read it. And I I think I kind of wanted to it'd been a few months couple months like I said, month or so.

[00:28:00]And it's not the longest book. There's a lot packed into it. And I was like, okay, I'll I'll reread it before we talk about it. And I just like I said I was reading a section a day or that was my goal. And I just felt so much slower >> Mhm.

[00:28:13]>> this time.

[00:28:14]>> Yeah.

[00:28:14]>> And and denser and I could only um could only do like 10, 15 pages and I'd have to I need a break. Like this is just moving so slow.

[00:28:28]>> Well, it's funny cuz you rewatched Apocalypse Now last night and you you messaged me and you're like, Jesus Christ, this movie's long. Have you you had seen it before, right?

[00:28:37]>> I think I had.

[00:28:38]>> Okay.

[00:28:38]>> Um I was thinking about this as I was watching it.

[00:28:42]>> Yeah.

[00:28:43]>> I feel like it was one that um it have thrown on when I was hanging out with my idiot friends in college and we were like, "Oh, it's a war Vietnam war movie. Love the smell of napalm in the morning."

[00:28:56]>> Yeah, the famous line. Yeah.

[00:28:57]>> Let's throw this on.

[00:28:59]>> Yeah.

[00:28:59]>> And then it ended up just being a slow drag and we either didn't finish it, just didn't really pay attention through the whole thing. I might have had it might have been that same kind of viewing experience, but I might have just like watched it on my own one time. I don't really remember.

[00:29:16]>> Yeah.

[00:29:17]>> Um I I could have sworn I had seen it, but there was definitely stuff that was like, "I don't remember that at all." But >> Yeah.

[00:29:26]>> It also it would have it probably has been a decade since I watched it if I am right and have seen it before.

[00:29:32]>> Yeah, so I rewatched it two or three months ago and uh I we had studied it in school when I was in film school.

[00:29:43]>> Oh, that's cool.

[00:29:43]>> And uh so I don't I actually don't know if I had ever just sat down and watched the whole thing in full.

[00:29:49]Uh but we analyzed it to hell in college and then um but it's so funny cuz you messaged me you were like, "Damn, this movie's long." And the length of it feels even longer than it is because it's also a very slow-paced movie.

[00:30:03]>> movie and I'm guilty of this when I'm watching a movie at home um where if I'm if it's especially something like that where like it's slow, like if I have to use the bathroom and I pause it, I'm pretty guilty of like, "Oh, let's see what's you know, any texts?" And then 10 minutes go by and I'm on my phone or when I started like right before I started it, I had ordered dinner. So, delivery gets there, pause it, there's 5 10 minutes of getting everything ready so I can eat and but I I >> It extends the experience.

[00:30:39]>> Right. So, I feel like every time I paused it, whether I had to go to the bathroom or I was kind of just a little zoned out, needed to kind of like kind of reset.

[00:30:53]I was like, I've been watching this movie for It feels like I've been watching the movie for 3 hours. There's still an hour left.

[00:30:58]>> Yeah.

[00:30:58]>> And then I felt like I'd been watching for half an hour and I'd have to go to the bathroom or was pausing to throw away all my food uh or the the container or whatever.

[00:31:10]Pause it. Hour left. I'm like, how is there still an hour left in this movie?

[00:31:14]Um >> Yeah. And I would say in the film, the last part is kind of like almost the slowest part.

[00:31:20]>> And I yeah, for sure. But I also remember like I I had messaged you cuz I was looking up where to watch it.

[00:31:28]And it like shows up when you Google it, it shows you like the run time and everything.

[00:31:34]And it's like uh 2 and 1/2 hours.

[00:31:37]I was like, oh, that's not bad.

[00:31:39]And then I why I I messaged you cuz I saw a place a streaming service that like offers it for free, but there's definitely ads.

[00:31:46]>> Yeah.

[00:31:46]>> And their run time was 3 hours and 15 minutes. And I was like, I'm not watching this with 45 minutes of ads. So, I rented it on Amazon and it pulls up and it's 3 hours long.

[00:31:59]So, I think the 2 and 1/2 hours was the original edition that was, you know, in in theaters in theaters and then the um 3 hour one is available on streaming now is the you know, final director's cut, extended, whatever.

[00:32:16]>> Yeah.

[00:32:18]>> It was good movie.

[00:32:20]I liked it for the most part.

[00:32:21]>> Yeah.

[00:32:22]>> But yeah, it's slow and it drags.

[00:32:26]>> Yeah.

[00:32:27]For as famous as the quote yeah, the I love the smell of napalm in the morning is, if you only know that, you would think it's a much more action-packed film than it really is.

[00:32:38]>> Right.

[00:32:39]>> and there are for sure scenes of action.

[00:32:42]>> Yeah.

[00:32:44]>> Um I would say that is definitely the most action-packed section of the scene of the movie. That that whole kind of Excuse me, bit of the narrative where they're with um Kilgore.

[00:32:59]>> Yeah.

[00:33:00]>> Which That part was hilarious.

[00:33:05]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:33:06]>> Like it is a It it's it's uh maybe a little bit jarring to say this about um a movie about the Vietnam War that the the main theme of it is the horrors of the Vietnam War and the effect those horrors have um or had, excuse me, on the psyche of the people that were involved in the war.

[00:33:34]>> Yeah.

[00:33:34]>> It's a funny movie.

[00:33:36]>> It definitely has humorous elements to it, for sure.

[00:33:39]>> Maybe it's wrong Yeah, maybe it's wrong to say it's a funny movie, but there are funny parts throughout the movie.

[00:33:43]>> Yes. Yeah.

[00:33:45]So Yeah, I guess we can we can jump right into to talking about the film adaptation. And uh perhaps we should have done this at the start of the >> we we'll we'll jump back and forth, I'm sure.

[00:33:56]>> the episode, but So Heart of Darkness, it's about the uh Belgian colonialism, the Belgian ivory trade, the the brutalization of African peoples >> Mhm.

[00:34:10]>> for quite a long time, uh which is also the theme of King Leopold's Ghost, which is a non-fiction account of that.

[00:34:17]And this guy, Marlow, is telling a story to his shipmates as they embark on some some job in in England. They're on the the River Thames.

[00:34:34]And uh he's telling the story about when he was on this steamboat in the African Congo going up the the Congo River to extract this guy Kurtz, who's this genius ivory trader, but he's kind of gone off the rails and >> Right.

[00:34:48]>> he works for basically cannot keep tabs on him anymore. So, they they are getting a little stressed about it.

[00:34:54]>> Yeah.

[00:34:55]>> And they're hearing a lot of crazy rumors coming out of >> Yeah.

[00:35:00]>> the whole thing.

[00:35:02]Apocalypse Now, Vietnam War film.

[00:35:05]And they more or less just took the entire premise and structure of the story and transposed it to the Vietnam War.

[00:35:15]>> Yeah.

[00:35:16]>> Which is kind of cool.

[00:35:17]>> Yes.

[00:35:18]>> And I think it works really well because of what we were talking about the beginning of the episode where, okay, you don't have any personal connection to the Congo ivory >> trade.

[00:35:30]>> Right.

[00:35:31]>> And it's not an issue of your time. And when Apocalypse Now came out, it was fresh off the heels of the Vietnam War.

[00:35:38]>> Right.

[00:35:38]>> And so, for a lot of Americans, it probably hit super hard.

[00:35:42]>> Yeah.

[00:35:42]>> Uh and I think when you kind of strip away the subject matter of either and you look at the deeper meaning of it, it's really about uh violence, hipo- I would say hypocrisy is a big one.

[00:36:00]>> Mhm.

[00:36:00]>> Uh what people do when they have you there's that saying, it's like, what defines a good person is like how you behave when no one's watching. That's like very much applicable to both stories. Where with Kurtz, he's out in this this trading post by himself.

[00:36:18]>> Right.

[00:36:19]>> He's got all the guns, all the grenades, all the bombs, and he can just subjugate the locals, and there's no sense of authority above him, and he goes wild.

[00:36:28]>> Right. And it's the same thing with Apocalypse Now where the the commander also named Kurtz, they they stuck with the same name obviously.

[00:36:37]>> Yeah.

[00:36:38]>> He's led a small battalion and they're way out in the jungle. There's nobody overseeing them and it's completely out of control.

[00:36:47]>> Yeah.

[00:36:47]>> And we were actually talking about this on uh the first week's book club call for Catch-22 uh about just how differently the Second World War was perceived by the public compared to the Vietnam War and uh logistically how different those two wars were.

[00:37:08]And like in the Vietnam War, like fragging became a thing where people would kill their commanding officers because they'd be out in the middle of the jungle. They're like, this guy's we very clearly should have gone back at some point. We're like out of supplies.

[00:37:23]We have no idea where we are. We have no idea where the enemy is. We like our mission is so stupid and this guy is just pushing us pushing us pushing us to go deeper into the jungle because he wants to get some glory or medal or whatever. They're like, there's no one out here. If we throw a grenade in our commanding officer's tent in the middle of the night, like nobody's going to know it was us. We can just say he was shot by the Viet Cong. And we can beat feet out of here.

[00:37:46]And so it like it was a totally different thing than so many wars and conflicts previously and I feel like um I feel like the the narrative structure of Heart of Darkness like fit perfectly with Vietnam.

[00:38:04]>> Absolutely.

[00:38:06]>> Um >> And I think you got a sense with with Heart of Darkness, there is that that kind of lens or or excuse me um idea of how like traveling deeper into the Congo and and kind of perpetuating these horrible things >> Mhm.

[00:38:27]>> has negatively impacted all all of these these um the the company men and the pilgrims and obviously it shows the way that they've you know mistreated natives.

[00:38:41]But there is this sense of like oh we did all these horrible things to people and look at how much it messed us up.

[00:38:51]And but at the the beginning of that like they were all there voluntarily.

[00:38:57]>> Mhm.

[00:38:59]>> You have the same kind of idea in Apocalypse Now of like this this is a horrible place. It is negatively affecting everyone that's here.

[00:39:11]Some of it is the the American soldiers are like perpetuating it but you have someone like that that Mr. Clean some 17-year-old kid. He probably got his car card probably got pulled.

[00:39:26]>> Right.

[00:39:27]>> You have Chef who was like I just wanted to learn how to cook.

[00:39:31]>> Right.

[00:39:31]>> And now he's going down some river >> on basically a suicide mission.

[00:39:37]>> Right. Right.

[00:39:39]>> Yeah, that was uh also a big point of our discussion on the Catch-22 book club call was World War II still very much had the I'm going to sign up and fight for my country >> Right.

[00:39:52]>> Right.

[00:39:52]>> defeat the Nazis and save the world. And Vietnam I think from a pretty from pretty early on. I mean there were still people that were feeling very patriotic about it. But from very early on there was a much stronger sentiment of What? What are we doing?

[00:40:07]>> Right.

[00:40:07]>> You want me to fly to some tiny little country on the other side of the world that I couldn't even pick out on a map and fight peasants and farmers? Like what are you talking about?

[00:40:18]>> Right. Right.

[00:40:19]>> Um and uh that I think was a big driver of why the the whole uh experience and history of Vietnam War is so much different than other conflicts.

[00:40:32]But >> Totally. I think you get a lot of that in the in the movie and what I was referring to earlier about how there are um there's humor throughout of it throughout the movie.

[00:40:44]>> Um I think that the the kind of absurdity of those moments is a good reflection of that sense of like what are we doing here that you are just talking about.

[00:40:56]Yeah.

[00:40:58]You know, you you were just talking about earlier how um you'd have soldiers killing their commanding officer because the commanding officer was just pushing them deeper and deeper into the jungle on more or less suicide missions just so he could get pat on the back and maybe get some medals and >> Mhm.

[00:41:17]Or maybe just just a obsession with the idea of duty. We Who knows?

[00:41:20]>> Or victory. Whatever.

[00:41:22]>> Yeah.

[00:41:22]>> But the these misguided attempts at at glory and victory >> Yeah.

[00:41:27]>> and then you have Kilgore napalming the jungle so that he can surf.

[00:41:30]>> Right. Right.

[00:41:33]>> Which probably also happened. Maybe not >> to the degree portrayed in the film.

[00:41:38]The other really uh different thing about um the Vietnam War specifically compared to other major conflicts is there was a a pretty much a lack of a front line.

[00:41:51]>> Right.

[00:41:51]>> So, World War I, World War II, it was very clear like the Germans had seized this area, we're going to go fight them there. They've pushed back the French here, we're going to go fight them there. And everything behind those lines is still French occupied and everything beyond the lines German occupied. And so there was a front line. That wasn't a thing in Vietnam. It was like that was when the helicopter warfare became a thing and they would just fly to some random place where they thought the enemy was. They'd drop all the soldiers off and Ken Burns has an excellent documentary about the Vietnam War. It's 10 episodes long. They're an hour each. So, it's a it's a commitment to watch it, but it's so brilliantly done. And there's guys that served talking about like yeah, we'd get dropped off at hill number 342. It didn't even have like a name.

[00:42:43]>> Right.

[00:42:43]>> We'd spend three days fighting for this hill. Tons of our guys would take casualties and we'd get to the top and claim it and the and the enemy would disperse out into somewhere else. And then they'd be like, "Okay." And they'd pick us up and we'd leave and it's not like we stayed there and they're like, "This is our territory now." And they're just like, "Well, what were we why were we even doing this?"

[00:43:05]>> Right.

[00:43:05]>> Um and so it really became instead of about like okay, uh uh the Germans are attacking Stalingrad and we have to defend it and we defeated them and Stalingrad remains in our hands. Because it didn't have that like tactile land occupation, it was like, "Well, how do we define winning?" Body count.

[00:43:30]>> Right.

[00:43:30]>> And so it'd be like, "Oh, we killed X amount of uh North Vietnamese." And then you have no real way of knowing cuz you're not out there like actually counting bodies.

[00:43:42]You're like, "Hey, uh hey Cooper, how many guys did you shoot?" "Oh, I shot 20, boss." "Okay."

[00:43:48]"Tally up 20 for Cooper." And "Oh, I dropped a grenade over there and I think there was six guys." And so the numbers were like completely made up. The whole thing was just like insane.

[00:43:58]Uh I mean, war is insane anyway, but it was >> Right.

[00:44:00]>> I think even more so.

[00:44:02]>> Well, you had that scene when they get to very far up the river, right? When they're about to, you know, cross into the Cambodian territory.

[00:44:11]And they're at the um that bridge.

[00:44:16]And I forget who exactly said it or what, but it's like, all we're doing is fighting so we have enough time to rebuild this bridge so that they can say the road is open before it gets blown up again.

[00:44:27]>> Right.

[00:44:28]>> And we're just doing that >> Right.

[00:44:30]>> back and forth over and over and over.

[00:44:32]>> Yeah, just insanity.

[00:44:33]>> Not really accomplishing anything.

[00:44:35]>> Yeah. So One of the big things that is uh talked about in the themes or or or argued about in the themes of Heart of Darkness is Conrad's actual position on British Imperialism.

[00:44:51]>> Mhm.

[00:44:52]>> So he was initially Polish.

[00:44:54]Uh he eventually became I don't know if he ever got uh British citizenship, but he lived in in in the UK.

[00:45:05]>> Uh-huh.

[00:45:06]>> And when he wrote Heart of Darkness, it was considered a critique of what was happening in the Congo.

[00:45:16]And uh there was a mounting a growing amount of people who were waking up to and and learning about what was happening there and going like, holy [ __ ] this is not okay.

[00:45:30]>> Right.

[00:45:30]>> Like we need to do something about this cuz this is [ __ ] brutal.

[00:45:35]And um Heart of Darkness was actually like commercially kind of a flop. So it wasn't like a a widely read book, but there was a guy, I'm totally blanking on his name right now, that was friends with Conrad, who was heavily involved in getting some reform done in the Congo.

[00:45:54]>> Mhm.

[00:45:55]>> And he read Heart of Darkness and he was like like, you've been there, you clearly saw all this bad happening. I need your help to come petition with me and and speak out against this. And Conrad basically wrote him that correspondence via letters and basically was like "Hey man, like keep doing your thing.

[00:46:18]I'm staying out of it." And there's a lot of debate about why that was. And a lot of people think that perhaps Conrad thought that like there was good colonialism and there was bad colonialism and the British did kind.

[00:46:31]When they went to India and Pakistan and all these play I mean it was one of the biggest empires in the world at that time.

[00:46:37]>> Right.

[00:46:38]>> They were spreading democracy and building infrastructure and and the Belgians were just there to to pillage and profit.

[00:46:46]>> Right.

[00:46:47]>> Um but there's other scholars that think that Conrad was hesitant to speak out against it because he was worried about his own like getting deported from the >> UK or or facing some sort of backlash.

[00:47:02]>> Yeah.

[00:47:02]>> I don't think at that time he was like super financially secure either.

[00:47:06]>> Mhm.

[00:47:06]>> So, it's hard to know where the the truth lies.

[00:47:11]But one thing that really stood out to me from the book to Apocalypse Now is kind of the same idea of like Kilgore is considered he he's on with in good graces with the military.

[00:47:28]>> Right.

[00:47:28]>> Right?

[00:47:29]>> Right.

[00:47:29]>> Kilgore's not the problem.

[00:47:30]>> Right.

[00:47:31]>> Kurtz is the problem.

[00:47:32]>> Kurtz is the problem, right.

[00:47:33]>> But when you kind of look at it like what Kilgore is doing is just as bad as what Kurtz is doing.

[00:47:39]>> Totally.

[00:47:39]>> So, Kilgore is running his own company or whatever completely uh not unsupervised. And like you said, he's like napalming beaches so he can go surfing. And he's like built and like everyone kind of treats him like a god almost.

[00:47:56]>> Right, right.

[00:47:56]>> And his his guys just do whatever he says and they're just completely [ __ ] around in the jungle and not really again not really like accomplishing anything even from a strategic standpoint. Right.

[00:48:09]But like he's a good guy. And the military is like go stop and see Kilgore. He'll kind of like feel you up and and supply you before you get all the way to Kurtz.

[00:48:18]And then you get to Kurtz and like yeah, Kurtz isn't doing great things. He's like running some sort of cult and he's decapitating people and whatever.

[00:48:27]But decapitated or napalmed to death I ultimately what difference does it make?

[00:48:31]And so I thought that was kind of an interesting thing cuz it does a little bit play on that idea of there's a little bit of a sentiment in the book that the British colonialism is the good kind and the Belgian colonialism is the bad kind but I don't think Conrad actually believes that. I think I think he's kind of saying like people do feel that way.

[00:48:55]>> Yeah.

[00:48:55]>> But that's a that's a farce.

[00:48:56]>> Yeah.

[00:48:57]>> It's all bad.

[00:48:58]>> Yeah.

[00:48:58]>> people Kurtz versus Kilgore in the film is much clearer a very clear example of yeah, these guys are treated very differently by the US military but effectively they're the same.

[00:49:12]>> same. Yeah.

[00:49:14]No, they like I said there's there's to me I I was thinking about this. There are I think elements of Heart of Darkness and I agree with you that it's kind of it's not super clear where um where Conrad lies is like was all of the colonialism bad? Was is it just the Belgian but the Belgians were doing it was bad but the the British was doing was good. Is it you know um but I think there were kind of elements of Heart of Darkness that sort of reminded me of like um recent like US military movies like like American Sniper or um Lone Survivor, sorry. I can't remember the one with with Mark Wahlberg. Where it's like oh, look at how traumatic it was for us to go over there and kill kill people, yeah. Kill people. Like it was so it's really hard for me. Like I um >> Which no doubt is. Like I don't think human beings are meant to kill each other.

[00:50:17]>> Right. But it's like oh, like go feel bad for me for doing these evil things or at least morally questionable. Um I don't necessarily think that was like that that Heart of Darkness was like maybe a piece of propaganda like like those movies um you can make the argument that those movies are >> Definitely. Definitely.

[00:50:39]>> They are. They are. Um I'm just I think they are. I'm just leaving it a little open-ended here.

[00:50:44]Um so I don't necessarily think that's like I don't think Conrad was setting out to like glorify what they were doing and make you feel bad for the the settlers and the traders and and you people that were colonizing um Africa.

[00:51:03]But it definitely has that sort of element where it is um maybe a little bit protective of those those uh colonizers.

[00:51:16]>> Yeah, because I mean Conrad obviously is the type of writer that wrote a lot about he he he created stories based on things he experienced.

[00:51:28]So yeah, maybe he hadn't been to India or any of these other well-known places that uh the the the crown the British crown had gone and done their thing.

[00:51:41]But you could also say, yeah, man, like Africa was bad, but like why didn't you write book about some of the stuff that the country you were living in was doing?

[00:51:52]>> Right.

[00:51:52]>> Um and there's uh one of the one of the most like debated things in the whole book is early on Marlow is talking about uh so it's in page eight in my edition.

[00:52:08]He says, "Mind, none of us would feel exactly like this. What saves us is efficiency. The the devotion to efficiency. But these chaps were not much account, really. They were colonists. Their administration was merely a squeeze and nothing more, I suspect. They were conquerors, and for that you only want brute force. Nothing to boast of when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others. They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got. It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind, as is very proper with those who tackle a darkness. The conquest the earth, which mostly means taking it from those who have a different complexion or a slightly flatter uh nose than ourselves. It's not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea of it only. So, that that uh paragraph, Marlow is talking about how the Romans came and conquered Europe. Um and then he kind of transitions to talking about what's happening in Africa.

[00:53:15]And he's criticizing the Belgians, saying they're just pillagers. It's just a squeeze. It's for profit. It's just brute force.

[00:53:22]But the thing that gets debated a lot is like um when he says, "What saves us is efficiency, the devotion to efficiency."

[00:53:29]A lot of people think that he Marlow is talking about the British Crown there.

[00:53:35]And he's saying, "We're doing the good the good uh type of colonialism." I don't know if I necessarily agree with that. And I read man, I read probably six or seven different essays from scholars ranging from like the 1940s up through like the '80s or '90s um debating that from different angles.

[00:53:54]And it's it's it's pretty it's pretty interesting because it is just like so much up to interpretation.

[00:54:00]>> Right.

[00:54:01]>> Um but yeah, I think what's cool about it is Francis Ford Coppola, the director of Apocalypse Now actually later said like, "Oh, I didn't think I made an anti-war movie."

[00:54:15]Which is crazy. Crazy, crazy, crazy, right?

[00:54:19]>> That's wild.

[00:54:20]>> Yeah, and a lot of folks say like "No, Heart of Darkness is not anti-colonialist. It's racist the way it depicts people of colors as brutal and savage. Um they don't have any dialogue in the book. They have no agency." All that is true. Like the the facts of that are true.

[00:54:40]>> Right.

[00:54:41]>> But I think the book can still be anti-colonialist.

[00:54:45]Like >> Right. Right.

[00:54:46]>> even if Conrad didn't intentionally write it that way there are certainly anti-colonialist themes in the book.

[00:54:54]>> Right. I I don't think even if it is like e- even if it does kind of go like, "Oh, the British are doing things correctly."

[00:55:07]And the the Belgians are being horrific and morally reprehensible.

[00:55:13]Like as a whole, I still I don't think it glorifies colonialism.

[00:55:19]>> Right.

[00:55:20]>> It It It maybe is not as like anti-colonialism as it could be.

[00:55:27]>> Yeah.

[00:55:27]>> But I think it does kind of present this gray area.

[00:55:33]Yeah, and it really is that like death of the author thing where I think an author's intention matters, but it's not the only thing that matters.

[00:55:45]And it's not too dissimilar from Infinite Jest, where we've talked about before with people David Foster Wallace kind of famously said people always tell me how funny Infinite Jest is. I thought I wrote a sad book.

[00:55:59]>> Right.

[00:55:59]>> And yeah, that was his intention, but that's not always what people get at it.

[00:56:05]>> Right.

[00:56:05]>> I mean, I think everyone would agree that there's elements of that book that are sad, but I think most people they lead with >> It's also a very funny book.

[00:56:11]>> I think that's what I think the bigger takeaway for a lot of people is how funny it is. So >> I do think that Conrad was was heavily critiquing what was happening in the Congo.

[00:56:24]Um whether or not he was trying to tiptoe around or was ignorant to British colonialism, I'm not sure. I don't think it necessarily matters though.

[00:56:34]>> Right.

[00:56:34]>> So >> I think I I I I think maybe an apt comparison would be something like Hard Rain Falling >> Mhm.

[00:56:43]>> in the sense that the N-word gets used throughout that novel.

[00:56:48]But if someone came up to me and was like, "Oh, Don Carpenter, Hard Rain Falling is a racist novel."

[00:56:53]>> Right.

[00:56:53]>> I wouldn't agree with that.

[00:56:54]>> Right.

[00:56:55]>> And I would I would push back on it.

[00:57:00]If someone came up to me and they were like, "Yeah, Heart of Darkness is pretty racist."

[00:57:06]I don't know if I would necessarily agree but I wouldn't emphatically disagree.

[00:57:12]I'd be like, "I I see where you >> Yeah.

[00:57:16]>> I see that. Like I you know, like you said, like he's not just the the the the N-word isn't just being thrown around in this novel because it's accurate to how the characters would speak at that time. Like African um natives are being called the N-word and they're being called savages and their intelligence is being questioned and they're like they like you said like they don't have agency, things like that. So, it it does kind of critique colonialism in a way or at least kind of show you the that it's not all um it it's not all glory.

[00:57:59]>> Right.

[00:57:59]>> There are negatives to it. These these these um Europeans aren't just like going in and claiming some land and collecting ivory or what other any other good that they can come back to your Europe and make a profit on. Like >> Mhm.

[00:58:21]>> It is kind of tearing down their morals and it is having this negative effect on on their their psyche and their morality.

[00:58:31]>> Mhm.

[00:58:32]>> But it's also I don't think there's like a direct like hey, this thing that we're doing large scale as a continent is bad.

[00:58:43]>> Right.

[00:58:44]>> But this thing that we're doing as a continent is having bad negative effects on the people that are carrying it out.

[00:58:56]>> Yeah.

[00:58:56]>> Yeah.

[00:58:57]>> So, >> The other thing about the I do I I I I I do think Joseph Conrad was probably racist.

[00:59:04]>> Probably.

[00:59:05]>> But also uh I kind of see it as a a bit of a sliding scale. Where okay, yeah, I don't I wouldn't marry a black woman or I wouldn't want my uh daughter to marry a black man or I think black folks and white folks should be separate in in society.

[00:59:32]But that doesn't But you can also he probably also would think that doesn't mean I think they should be have their hands cut off >> Right. Right.

[00:59:41]>> and be in chains and and do slave labor.

[00:59:43]>> Right. I I was just going to say or thinking that like he doesn't exactly speak kindly of the African natives.

[00:59:53]But he's not like Oh, yeah. It's totally okay what what we were doing.

[00:59:58]>> He's not justifying >> Yeah.

[01:00:00]>> the way they were being treated.

[01:00:01]>> Yeah.

[01:00:02]>> Um at least that's not the way I interpreted it.

[01:00:04]>> There's a very uh for me a pivotal quote uh in the book where Marlow is on the boat and they're going by some indigenous peoples on the bank of the river and they're they're chanting and hooting and hollering and making all kinds of noise that to him makes no sense.

[01:00:26]Uh and he talks about how like um he almost starts to call them like animals and then he stops himself and he's like, "No, no, no, no, they're they're not animals. Those are humans.

[01:00:39]>> Right.

[01:00:40]>> I'm being honest with myself, there's something in me that is responding to the way they're behaving that is like a kinship.

[01:00:48]>> Right.

[01:00:48]>> And so for me like Marlow is is a character who probably very accurately behaves like someone of his time from his social status from from Europe. And what they would have been experiencing where the initial inclination is to be extremely racist and and to write these people off as animals. But then he's like, "No, no, no, no, no.

[01:01:13]That's that's not right. These are also humans. They're just vastly different from from me." And so he's kind of grappling with that, which in the 1880s, that's probably how somebody from Europe who's going to Africa would experience that for the first time. So, what did you think of the ending of the book, and what did you think of the ending of the film?

[01:01:36]>> I mean, I think they both made sense for what the for what was within the context of each narrative.

[01:01:44]>> Yeah.

[01:01:45]>> Yeah, I think >> Martin Sheen's character kills Kurtz at the end, right?

[01:01:49]>> Yes.

[01:01:49]>> Yeah, yeah.

[01:01:50]>> Yeah. Yes.

[01:01:51]Um but I I think there's a difference in the sense that like in in the movie Kurtz sees it as very much as like this isn't sustainable.

[01:02:05]Like this thing that I'm doing >> Mhm.

[01:02:07]>> is not sustainable.

[01:02:09]And it makes sense that like I'm going to have a violent end.

[01:02:16]>> Yeah.

[01:02:17]>> Like >> He kind of resigns himself a little bit more.

[01:02:19]>> Like he almost makes himself out to be a martyr.

[01:02:22]>> Yeah.

[01:02:22]>> Like yes, if for for what I'm doing for for this this thing that I've set out to do to kind of take charge of the jungle and and lead these people and things like that, like to solidify my ideas I have to be killed.

[01:02:42]>> Mhm.

[01:02:42]>> I can't live forever. Like and I can't just trip and fall and hit my head. Like I have to be taken down by an outside force to to lift me up.

[01:02:55]>> Yeah.

[01:02:56]>> Like I said, he very much sets himself up to be a martyr.

[01:02:59]And with with Kurtz in the novel I feel like it's it's kind of this opposite. Maybe I wouldn't actually go out and and call it hubris.

[01:03:10]But there is this element of like >> Yeah, he doesn't want to stop.

[01:03:13]>> want to stop.

[01:03:13]>> He just is so ill.

[01:03:15]>> Right. And he he wants to like it's basically the sense of like my ideas are going to transcend and live and live on forever.

[01:03:27]But in order for that that to happen like I have to me personally I have to do this as long as I can. I have to transcend. I have to maybe not live forever but like I have to do this for as long as I can.

[01:03:41]>> Yeah.

[01:03:43]>> And then he quietly expires on a boat.

[01:03:45]>> Yeah.

[01:03:46]>> Like he he doesn't want to stop but he kind of is forced >> Yeah.

[01:03:52]>> To put it mildly.

[01:03:54]Um So I think in the the context of each like it makes sense.

[01:04:00]>> Yeah.

[01:04:01]>> And I think where um like you said uh Francis Ford Coppola was like I didn't set out to make an anti-war movie. It's If he was trying to make a pro-war movie he did a pretty shitty job.

[01:04:17]But >> Yeah.

[01:04:19]>> like I I I think with what we were just talking about about this like the degrading of morality that took place in Vietnam and the sense of like what are we doing here?

[01:04:29]Um it was a fitting end.

[01:04:32]>> Mhm.

[01:04:33]>> And then I think for the Heart of Darkness where it's this kind of question of like I said maybe like maybe there is a gray area of what's going on.

[01:04:43]Like I don't I don't necessarily think trade I think his whole colonialism was pretty bad. I'm willing to go out on a limb and take that controversial stance.

[01:04:52]>> stance. You're so brave.

[01:04:53]>> Yeah, right.

[01:04:55]This very controversial and brave thing to say that colonialism was bad. But like I do think Conrad was kind of trying to find a gray area.

[01:05:05]And I I think >> Well, I can also tell you after reading two of his other books that he's definitely not the type of author that just comes out and says anything.

[01:05:13]>> Right. Right. Right.

[01:05:14]>> Everything is like subtext with him. So, yeah.

[01:05:17]>> Um >> I don't know if his intention was to be morally ambiguous, but I think it just is the way his writing is.

[01:05:25]>> Right.

[01:05:25]>> Yeah, it makes it it it obfuscates the the the the point he's trying to make sometimes.

[01:05:31]>> So, I think that made sense with with how it just he's just like, yeah.

[01:05:36]He kind of just things didn't work out.

[01:05:39]>> For me, the the real stark difference between the book and the film is the ending. And particularly because in the book, Marlowe kind of flip-flops a little bit between uh he he also kind of gets swept up in the Kurtz hype a little bit, but then other times he's like, "Ah, I think this guy is actually a little bit of a dunce."

[01:06:01]>> Yes. Uh where in the film, from from the get, >> Martin Sheen's character is like, "This guy is psycho. I got to kill him before he kills me."

[01:06:11]>> Right.

[01:06:12]>> I got to get the hell out of here.

[01:06:14]>> Right.

[01:06:14]>> Um And I I do think there's a little bit of intrigue in the film between the two characters where he's kind of like, "What What is Kurtz How did Kurtz even like get to this point?

[01:06:30]>> Right. Right.

[01:06:31]>> Would I Would I have become a Kurtz?"

[01:06:33]Because in the in the film, Martin Sheen's character is kind of that classic like, "I've been at war for so long and seen so many horrible things like I don't know how to be part of the regular world anymore." He's on like a bender at the beginning of the film.

[01:06:50]>> And then he he's like furloughed or something. And then he gets assigned this mission. And they're like, "Hey, man, you're a psycho. We'll We'll send you out here to to get Kurtz." So, I do think there's a little bit of like Martin Sheen's character taking a little bit of time to just like work through his own feelings of was this going to be me if I continued down this path?

[01:07:11]>> And I think that's a that's across the board in the movie.

[01:07:15]Like you already kind of made the comparison to Kilgore and Kurtz.

[01:07:18]>> Right. Right.

[01:07:19]>> And how on some level they're basically doing the same thing.

[01:07:23]>> Yeah.

[01:07:24]>> Kind of operating independently.

[01:07:26]Um but I think there's that that element of of how like anyone that was involved in this war and had a little bit of power or was more than just some punk that got his card pulled. Like could have become a Kurtz type person.

[01:07:50]>> Yeah.

[01:07:50]>> He definitely has that kind of aura and sense of enigma about Kurtz. Has that sense of aura and enigma about him that Kurtz in the novel has.

[01:08:00]>> Mhm.

[01:08:01]>> But I think in the movie like you were just saying like um Martin Sheen's character is definitely like you present him as like he could have been he could very easily turned into a Kurtz type figure if he was left in the jungle.

[01:08:16]>> Yeah.

[01:08:17]>> Kilgore's headed down that same path.

[01:08:20]You go to like there was the USO show.

[01:08:23]>> Mhm.

[01:08:24]>> And you're like, what is happening here?

[01:08:26]Where this there's just this outpost in the middle of >> And then suddenly they flood the stage and it's like, oh it's not safe for you.

[01:08:33]Like we need to get out of here.

[01:08:34]>> Right. Right. Like it's you have that and then you have it at the the the outpost at the bridge where there's no real leadership. Right. Where like anyone kind of could have just taken command.

[01:08:47]>> Yeah.

[01:08:48]>> And been this figure.

[01:08:50]Um whereas and it's a bit self-serving as like like a someone like Kilgore like wants to have this stature, wants to have um to kind of be in control.

[01:09:03]>> Yeah.

[01:09:04]>> And that sort of exists in the the book where you have the manager of the station who's jealous of Kurtz.

[01:09:16]And he wants to succeed in the within the ranks of the company and be the one that's that's like highly regarded back home.

[01:09:25]But the difference, I think, between the book and the movie is like Kilgore doesn't really know who Kurtz is. He's probably heard the name.

[01:09:35]But he doesn't really care.

[01:09:36]>> Yeah.

[01:09:37]>> want to like, "Oh, I got to kill this Kurtz guy so that >> Right.

[01:09:42]>> I can be the the mythical figure in the jungle." Like, he's just doing it.

[01:09:47]>> Yeah.

[01:09:48]>> Like, he's just been completely blindsided by this this sense of authority that he's been given.

[01:09:56]So.

[01:09:57]>> Yeah, I think uh at the end of the day, one of the I I loved I loved the movie uh on my rewatch kind of as a more mature adult because I think it really captured the the anxiety that the book has where they're just kind of like floating up this dark sketchy river. It's murky. There's fog.

[01:10:23]>> Yeah.

[01:10:23]>> The water's not clear. You can't see to the bottom. Sometimes the river banks are very close. You don't know what's hiding behind the bushes.

[01:10:31]>> Yes.

[01:10:31]>> Is it an animal? Is it someone who's trying to kill me?

[01:10:34]>> Right.

[01:10:35]>> Um and it's just uh there's not much to do other than like let your mind wander and let your anxiety get the best of you. I think the movie just captures that so well.

[01:10:47]>> I agree and I think the movie did a great job of like taking inspiration from things in that happened in the book >> Yeah.

[01:10:58]>> and making them relevant to the Vietnam War. Like when in the book they're going down the river and they get caught in that that fog >> Yeah.

[01:11:08]>> and they're not really sure what to do.

[01:11:10]It's certainly ominous and and and um it's very there's a lot of anxiety in that scene cuz you don't know what's going on.

[01:11:21]And there's that again that sense of foreboding that is is just growing throughout the novel and as you get closer and closer to Kurtz.

[01:11:29]And then there's the scene in the movie where uh Lance the surfer is had been ripping a doobie and now he's playing with the flares.

[01:11:39]>> Yeah.

[01:11:41]>> And they can't see but they're all having a great time cuz they're just >> Yep.

[01:11:45]Just chilling.

[01:11:46]>> Just just kind of trying to make the best of a suicide mission.

[01:11:51]>> Yeah.

[01:11:51]>> Um so I thought I thought that like things like that like elements that were clearly inspired by things that happened in the movie excuse me in the book but were not one-to-one.

[01:12:05]>> So that that's my thing like uh not to get too off track here but um the film adaptation of Train Dreams.

[01:12:15]Everyone loved that. I thought it was just kind of okay and they were very faithful to the book.

[01:12:20]>> Yeah.

[01:12:20]>> And I just I I think you need to respect that it's a different medium and you need to tell the right story for moving images.

[01:12:30]>> Right.

[01:12:31]>> And like Apocalypse Now it's not a direct copy one-to-one of Heart of Darkness but they got the right things right and they chose to change certain things to serve a film. And it's just so I don't know. I think it's I think it's one of if not maybe the best film adaptation of a book.

[01:12:52]>> Yeah and I wouldn't even like you said it's it's it's not one-to-one.

[01:12:57]I'm not sure if it's even accurate to call it an adaptation. Like it's not as it's not as comparable to something like One Ball After Another where like you kind of took some ideas and inspired a different story. Like it is ostensibly the same narrative.

[01:13:17]>> Yes.

[01:13:18]>> Just with lots of different elements.

[01:13:20]>> Different time and place. Different time and place. Different events.

[01:13:22]>> Different time and place, different enough things were different that it was a different narrative.

[01:13:30]>> Yeah.

[01:13:30]>> But the roots were there.

[01:13:32]>> Yeah.

[01:13:33]So, there is a Heart of Darkness film.

[01:13:36]>> Is there?

[01:13:36]>> Yeah, it's not good. I watched like 20 minutes of it and I was like this is terrible.

[01:13:40]>> Yeah.

[01:13:41]>> So.

[01:13:42]>> I don't like I don't know, maybe it's maybe I'm a little bit um not biased, but maybe maybe my judgment has been a little bit affected by seeing Apocalypse Now.

[01:13:55]>> Mhm.

[01:13:55]>> Like I don't know if you could do Heart of Darkness as a movie. Like it it would >> I think the problem with it is that like we're talking about with Conrad's writing never just coming out and saying something.

[01:14:09]>> Right.

[01:14:10]>> It's always subtext. I think that makes it challenging.

[01:14:13]>> Correct.

[01:14:14]>> also some of the stuff in the book is is almost too brutal, I think. Uh and it's easy to miss, but like he describes like people in chains who are so emaciated that their elbow joints look like knots on a rope.

[01:14:32]>> Right.

[01:14:33]>> Uh and then there's like a brief passage of him describing somebody laying down under a tree to die cuz they're starved to death. And and stuff like that is it's almost like easy to miss because it's there's not a ton of pages dedicated to it and because it kind of is wrapped up in this whole poetic flow of his writing.

[01:14:52]>> I think if you tried to turn this book Heart of Darkness as it is into a movie then what I said earlier about how like it's loosely comparable to a American Sniper type movie where like look at how traumatized I am by the bad things I did.

[01:15:13]>> Yeah.

[01:15:13]>> But let me glorify the bad things I did so you feel bad for my trauma.

[01:15:17]>> Right.

[01:15:18]>> Like I think if you tried to make a one-to-one movie of Heart of Darkness, then it would absolutely be this like uh look at how tough being a colonizer was >> Right.

[01:15:31]>> Yeah.

[01:15:31]>> So I I don't think it would have that same lens of like not that this was like it maybe it is fair to call it like an exposé of the the horrors that were taking place with those um with with the colonization of Africa but I don't I think that stands out more in the and excuse me in the book of like um like things were not good there. Like we I think if you tried to make it a movie then it would kind of glorify.

[01:16:04]>> Yeah. You remember last week when I brought up the YouTuber Wendigoon and I said he did a a video about um Heart of Darkness. I think the title of his video is something like a book that like rocked a nation or something like a book so brutal it changed history or something like that.

[01:16:22]And uh there's another podcast called The Rest Is History, and they they did an episode that few episodes about the Belgian colonial list project in in the Congo, and um they a lot of people kind of like talked about Heart of Darkness like it was this uh watershed moment in exposing what was happening there. To To the best of my abilities, I have not really been able to find anything to back that those claims up.

[01:16:50]>> Yeah.

[01:16:50]>> Like, from what I understand, this was published in three segments in a periodical.

[01:16:56]It received lukewarm reviews and kind of like got passed over as far as like public attention is concerned. And it really didn't start to get any sort of high praise or start to be included in like high school curriculums until the about the 1940s, like long after Conrad was dead.

[01:17:19]>> Right.

[01:17:20]>> So, I I don't know. I think a lot of the this book changed history um I think that's people romanticizing its its influence.

[01:17:31]Um I There's certainly people that recognized its critique of colonialism, like that guy I was telling you about that was uh participating in activism and and stopping what was happening.

[01:17:42]>> Right.

[01:17:43]>> Had read the book and reached out to Conrad and was like, "Hey man, like do you want to join our coalition?"

[01:17:48]But he They were friends already. Like, they knew each other personally. So, he was like, "Yeah, I read my buddy Conrad's book."

[01:17:54]So, I don't know. I think uh I I just love both the the book and the film. I I I just thought they're both brilliantly done and uh yeah, unexpectedly so because my This is kind of like considered like a proto-modernist literature. I don't really love modernist literature. I certainly don't love Victorian era literature.

[01:18:18]>> Yeah.

[01:18:19]>> Um but uh I don't know. For some something about this in particular really just hit hit a sweet spot for me. And I I I I do like Conrad the other Conrad books I've read and I will continue to read more from him, but um a lot of people say Lord Jim is the better book than Heart of Darkness. I It just did not land the same way for me, so.

[01:18:38]>> Yeah.

[01:18:39]>> I I can't say that reading Heart of Darkness filled me with the same sense of like, "Oh, I have to go read everything Conrad has written." It just >> Yeah.

[01:18:46]>> You're too much of a modern contemporary lit bro.

[01:18:49]>> Yeah, a little bit.

[01:18:50]>> Yeah.

[01:18:50]>> Yeah. It's all good.

[01:18:51]>> It it it definitely like Like again, I there are plenty of spots where I I highlighted the quality of the writing.

[01:19:00]>> Mhm.

[01:19:01]>> But overall, the sense the the style is not >> Yeah.

[01:19:05]>> my Not your jam.

[01:19:06]>> Not my jam.

[01:19:07]>> I'm going to read >> But I feel like like again, it's it's the same thing I've said about um Grapes of Wrath in the past. Like I didn't enjoy it.

[01:19:18]Like who I'm not going to turn around and be like, "Ooh, Steinbeck sucks. Grapes of Wrath sucked." Like >> Just didn't move the needle for you.

[01:19:25]>> Yeah, right. Like but I certainly agree that it's a fantastically written novel. The writing is is great. I do think it's a a good novel and you had it high up on your list when we did our top 50 each. I don't remember where you ranked it, but >> 10th.

[01:19:43]>> Okay, so it was definitely it was top 10. It's kind of where I assumed.

[01:19:48]I think based on the quality of it like I probably would have put it would have put it on my list had I read it in time, but not as high up as you.

[01:19:57]>> Yeah, um I'm probably going to read The Secret Agent by Conrad. I'm definitely going to read The Secret Agent. I'm definitely going to read Nostromo.

[01:20:06]Uh The Secret Agent just the the the plot sounds awesome to me. It's literally like about a terrorist attack and it was written I think in the early 1900s, so one of the very first fictionalized accounts of something like that. Uh which is >> sounds cool.

[01:20:24]>> The concept of it sounds cool and I've heard it's quite good.

[01:20:26]>> Yeah.

[01:20:26]>> Uh and then I'm going to read Nostromo because that is kind of considered like his actual like magnum opus, um and then uh we'll see how I feel about those two and and that maybe that'll be it or maybe I'll be inspired to keep going, but uh all right, anything else you want to say about uh Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, Marlon Brando?

[01:20:51]>> Not really. Kind of tangential to the conversation we were just having, but like when when Brando is first revealed, like I I I remembered um I remembered this after the fact. I kind of forgot it while I was watching the movie, but how in in the book Kurtz is described as being bald.

[01:21:11]>> Yeah.

[01:21:13]>> But he is this very like withered figure.

[01:21:17]He's he he is described as being very tall, but he's this like lanky tall, right?

[01:21:21]>> Yeah, he's he's been ill.

[01:21:22]>> Right, and he's withering away.

[01:21:25]When they first reveal uh Kurtz as portrayed by Marlon Brando in the movie, like the the bald head, I thought that was so striking.

[01:21:36]The way he's this kind of mythical figure like shroud in darkness.

[01:21:39]>> Yeah, he's hiding in the shadows.

[01:21:41]>> But he is like he is a looming character. He's not just tall, he's big.

[01:21:46]>> a big guy.

[01:21:46]>> Big guy.

[01:21:48]The first thing I thought of was uh Judge Holden.

[01:21:51]>> Yes, absolutely. He's very very Holden-esque.

[01:21:56]>> Like he he >> the same thing.

[01:21:58]>> In the movie, very much more reminded me of the judge from Blood Meridian than Kurtz in Heart of Darkness.

[01:22:07]>> Yeah, I mean, it's too bad Brando's dead because he would be like Brando in Heart of Darkness would be a great Judge Holden for the >> Brando in Heart of Darkness was the judge.

[01:22:18]>> Yeah. So.

[01:22:20]All right. Well, um if you haven't read the book or seen the film, I don't know how you made it through this podcast, but thanks for sticking with us.

[01:22:28]And uh if you have read the book and watched the film, let us know your thoughts and join us next week when we will be talking about a book or books.