The Book Thread

[6ry4nj]

Achebe: An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" - Achebe essentially labelling Conrad a racist.

Read Things Fall Apart by Achebe himself. One of the most widely read pieces of African literature.

Or, from a similar time as Conrad, try Aphra Benn's Royal Slave also known as Oroonoko.

Achebe has gone to a lot of trouble to find very little evidence to back his claim. His accusation is a sliver of truth under 90% chip-on-the-shoulderism and 10% invalidly applying the social values of his day to Conrad's much earlier time.

There is generally plenty of real present-day in-your-face racism going on. Achebe's literary talent - and vitriol - could have been far more effective if it had taken on something more current and tangible.

 

[P Squared]

Just finished Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Was decentish, didn't find it as good as most people make it out to be.

 

[pcfan123]

Why?

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I've just started reading the second one, A Clash of Kings

Have you seen the TV show? is the first season pretty much the entire 1st book?

 

[P Squared]

Why?

Because I found the fact that someone would actually believe in the "I'm superior to you so I can kill you" theory absurd.

 

[pcfan123]

Is that the only premise in the book?

What is the book about exactly?

 

[P Squared]

Yeah kind of. There's this uni dropout who commits a double murder because he believes in it. The whole book is just about the remorse that he feels afterwards.

 

[6ry4nj]

Because I found the fact that someone would actually believe in the "I'm superior to you so I can kill you" theory absurd.

But isn't all homicide - including terrorism, state-sponsored atrocities, and wars - due to belief in that theory? (Apart from genuine self-defence obviously)

Crime and Punishment is the only Dostoevsky I have read. I didn't think all that much of it. (For anyone familiar with 70s culture, it's like a very long dull episode of "Columbo"). I have also seen the movie of "Brothers Karamazov", judging from which I think that was probably a better book.

 

[P Squared]

But isn't all homicide - including terrorism, state-sponsored atrocities, and wars - due to belief in that theory? (Apart from genuine self-defence obviously)

Yeah but this was a guy who was well educated and all but still somehow managed to brainwash himself into believing that he had the right to kill others. That just sounds ridiculous to me.

Or maybe I just don't like psychological novels.

 

[Chewie]

Why?

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Have you seen the TV show? is the first season pretty much the entire 1st book?

Yea I've seen it, the first season is the first book plus like two chapters of the second. It follows the book pretty faithfully as well

 

[Varun]

Achebe: An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" - Achebe essentially labelling Conrad a racist.

Read Things Fall Apart by Achebe himself. One of the most widely read pieces of African literature.

Or, from a similar time as Conrad, try Aphra Benn's Royal Slave also known as Oroonoko.

Haven't read the book completely, so....

 

[6ry4nj]

Yeah but this was a guy who was well educated and all but still somehow managed to brainwash himself into believing that he had the right to kill others. That just sounds ridiculous to me.

Or maybe I just don't like psychological novels.

Believe it - there are some terribly well-educated/intelligent murderers out there - including serial-killers, war-starters, and war-fighters. Education and intelligence are precisely the kind of societal reinforcements that make it easier to convince oneself of the right to murder.

In literary terms, perhaps it was a theme that was frowned upon in the rest of nineteenth-century Europe. Russia was still much more 'feudal' at the time, the Industrial Revolution having largely passed it by. Writers on such topics in English (Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mary Shelley) were dismissed as purveyors of 'Gothic' 'romances' rather than novels. Perhaps the rest of Europe (Victorian England certainly did) wanted to believe that this sort of mindset had been stamped out by the march of civilisation. Highly amusing.

 

[Varun]

To be a serial killer, a fascination and passion to kill is enough (and perhaps a contempt of rules of society). Education doesn't matter. I've read many factual cases where the killers enjoyed murdering their victims - it gave them the pleasure we get of our usual passions. And they have existed all the time, in all the societies. Caligula was in ancient Rome, and Ted Bundy in modern America. There are many, many other instances.....I won't generalize it to all (and murderers, and war-generals, and....) though.

Slightly off topic, but still.

 

[ste_mc_efc]

Because I found the fact that someone would actually believe in the "I'm superior to you so I can kill you" theory absurd.

that's a gross oversimplification.

It's not simply so he can justify killing someone inferior.Tthe idea is that he is great, of similar character to Napoleon; he can contribute greatly. However to do so he has to do some bad, but it is justified. In many ways it's an extension of Machiavellianism.

If you can't conceive of the plausibility of that then quite frankly you are naive in your views of human nature.

Moreover the book has so much more to it than that sole idea so even if you refute that premise it is worth simply accepting it so you can truly appreciate the other parts of the book.

 

[Themer]

Green Eggs and Ham.

Worth a read.

 

[puddleduck]

Achebe has gone to a lot of trouble to find very little evidence to back his claim. His accusation is a sliver of truth under 90% chip-on-the-shoulderism and 10% invalidly applying the social values of his day to Conrad's much earlier time.

There is generally plenty of real present-day in-your-face racism going on. Achebe's literary talent - and vitriol - could have been far more effective if it had taken on something more current and tangible.

Read his "Things Fall Apart" and see the difference in producing characters, or creating characters and culture without writing in an inherently detrimental manner.

He's one of the greatest minds of the 20th century, Achebe, he did focus his efforts into writing Things Fall Apart, and it's a masterpiece...

In literary criticism, or critical theory, it is highly valid to attempt to deconstruct supposed canon texts. Especially since these texts were initially selected by the very same white upper classes that wrote them. As I said, try reading Things Fall Apart and Heart of Darkness, and notice the differences in constructing race. Conrad's is with an inherent racist dichotomy, whilst Achebe (and to a lesser extent Benn in her own time) write from a position of understanding. Even Achebe's colonialist racists in his book are given their side of the story, it is left to the reader to decide, they aren't "Racists" like Conrad's characters are "savages."