黑暗的心Heart of Darkness约瑟夫·康拉德Joseph Conrad
Heart of Darkness (1899) is a novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad about a narrated voyage up the Congo River into the Congo Free State in the Heart of Africa. Charles Marlow, the narrator, tells his story to friends aboard a boat anchored on the River Thames. This setting provides the frame for Marlow's story of his obsession with the successful ivory trader Kurtz. Conrad offers parallels between London ("the greatest town on earth") and Africa as places of darkness.
Central to Conrad's work is the idea that there is little difference between "civilised people" and those described as "savages." Heart of Darkness implicitly comments on imperialism and racism.
Originally issued as a three-part serial story in Blackwood's Magazine to celebrate the thousandth edition of the magazine, Heart of Darkness has been widely re-published and translated into many languages. It provided the inspiration for Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 film Apocalypse Now. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Heart of Darkness 67th on their list of the 100 best novels in English of the twentieth century.
《黑暗的心》（1902）是英籍波兰作家约瑟夫·康拉德的主要作品之一。被认为是英国文学史上第一部真正意义上的现代主义小说，在这部作品中作者对人类文明以及人性这一主题作了深刻的思考。
《黑暗的心》记录了船长马洛在一艘停靠于伦敦外的海船上所讲的刚果河的故事。马洛的故事除了涉及马洛自己年轻时的非洲经历之外，主要讲述了他在非洲期间所认识的一个叫库尔兹的白人殖民者的故事——一个矢志将“文明进步”带到非洲的理想主义者，后来堕落成贪婪的殖民者的经过。
约瑟夫·康拉德，1857年12月3日生于波兰，在上流社会的家庭中度过了童年生活。后他逃到了马赛，在那里他曾先后在许多只船上做工。在一艘英国船上当水手时，他只懂6个英语单词。20年后他成为世界著名的用英文写作的作家。《吉姆爷》（1900年）和《神秘参与者》（1912年）体现了典型的康拉德笔下的人物。他们是在一个多少有些疯狂的世界上，进行着单枪匹马斗争的人们。他精通英语，擅长航海。他把他全部的爱都倾注在描写海员的书中，描写在神秘的刚果河上航行的《黑暗的中心》（1902年）是他最负盛誉的小说。1924年8月3日，约瑟夫·康拉德去世，终年67岁。
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The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest. The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide.
The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offing the sea and the sky were welded together without a joint, and in the luminous space the tanned sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red clusters of canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of varnished sprits. A haze rested on the low shores that ran out to sea in vanishing flatness. The air was dark above Gravesend, and farther back still seemed condensed into a mournful gloom, brooding motionless over the biggest, and the greatest, town on earth.
The Director of Companies was our captain and our host. We four affectionately watched his back as he stood in the bows looking to seaward. On the whole river there was nothing that looked half so nautical. He resembled a pilot, which to a seaman is trustworthiness personified. It was difficult to realize his work was not out there in the luminous estuary, but behind him, within the brooding gloom.
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