GRGR Re: Achebe on Conrad

[David Morris]

I almost hate to bring this up, since the subject devolved so in its last 
round, but doesn't Pynchon use stereotypes, characters who are never 
"fleshed out," for his own specific purposes?  Homo's & Women come most 
prominently to mind.  That's why I earlier said an author's intent is so 
important.  I don't think HoD was ever intended to be a protrayal of a real 
physical journey, much less an encounter with a real culture.  I'd say it is 
all about MARLOW, his journey into HIMSELF.

"The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning of which 
lies within the shell of a cracked nut. But Marlow was not typical (if his 
propensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to him the meaning of an episode 
was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought 
it out only as a glow brings out a haze . . ."

The above discription from the beginnong of HoD is a part of the problem 
that gets cofronted in Marlow's journey, and it has to do with being 
literal-minded, not seing beyond the surface.  Marlow's is a journey into 
the interior.  If we want it to be another novel, that's OUR problem.

David Morris

>From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
>
>I agree with both Otto and Kevin on this. Conrad's scathing critique of
colonial imperialism in *HoD*, while written from *within* the colonial 
mindset, was still an important stepping stone along the way to 
post-colonialism in literature (and attitudes). *HoD* certainly marks an 
advance on, say, Kiplingesque writing, and without it writers such as Achebe 
himself, Soyinka, Tutuola, Nadine Gordimer, Anita Desai or even Naipaul 
probably wouldn't have found a voice at all. Conrad's novel was a product of 
its time certainly (neither Cary's *Mr Johnson* nor Naipaul's later work can 
be excused on this ground, however), but contemporary criticism of *HoD* is 
still valid imo. In it the African natives are neither humanised nor 
individuated, as Achebe complains, and this is a flaw in the vision, a 
residue of the same colonialist mentality which Conrad derides with his 
depiction of Kurtz; and, *very* unlike Pynchon's comparable portrayals of 
Enzian, Ombindi & co in *GR*.

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