My Life, My Love and My Lady is the Sea

[this blog post title doesn't really have anything to do with the bulk of this blog entry, though it makes some kind of sense when you get closer to the end]

I'm re-attempting to read Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (from my incomprehensibles list). I'm near the end (of the book, not of my tether:). This time I read the introduction, which helped with my heart-of-darkness comprehending, and which is about a fifth the length of the book* (my point being that the book actually isn't that long (110 pages), it just seems long). I was pleased to discover that "the horror, the horror" is in the book, but it's near the end (I didn't get anywhere near the end of the book on my previous attempt). But, sadly, there is no "smell of napalm in the morning" or "terminate with extreme prejudice". Nevertheless, there are some impressive passages contained within the narrative of this rollicking novel (and here I'm using the lesser known definition of "rollicking": slow and difficult); interspersed within the torpor and convolution is some imaginative, vivid prose (and possibly a little racism). Below are some quotes I quite like from the novel (or, actually, novella - it's too short to be a real novel and it's too long to be called a novelette, which just sounds adorable):

"...for there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it be the sea itself, which is the mistress of his existence and as inscrutable as Destiny." (page 6)

Destiny, you inscrutable minx!

This next quote features more inscrutable goodness:

"And this stillness of life did not in the least resemble a peace. It was the stillness of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention." (page 47)

And, finally, a quote regarding the enigmatic Mr Kurtz (who I've steadfastly tried NOT to visualize as Marlon Brando):

"But the wilderness had found him out early...I think it had
whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till he took counsel with this great solitude..." (page 82)

I don't necessarily understand these (inscrutable) quotes but they seem to speak to me (maybe they are actually speaking to my subconscious, which thrives on heart darkness). If I were writing an essay about this novel, I would now be discussing, at length, the meaning of these, and other, quotes. But since I prefer to avoid in-depth writing I have, instead, embedded a blurry video (below) of the classic (and tragic) sea-is-my-destiny song Brandy by Looking Glass (from that classic era, the 70's), which I'm sure would have been one of Joseph Conrad's favourite songs (being that he was a sea-faring kinda guy) had he been alive during the 70's. Here is a heart dark quote from the song:

At night when the bars close down
Brandy walks though a silent town
And loves a man who's not around
She still can hear him say

She hears him say "Brandy you're a fine girl
What a good wife you would be
But my life. my love and my lady is the sea"

Also, if you watch the video closely, you'll see a heart of darkness beating inside the lead singer's chest, which, due to his sartorial immodesty, is on display.



*Clearly it's been awhile since I did fractions - introduction: 12 pages, novel: 110 pages - 12 divided by 110 = 0.11 ...well it felt like a fifth.