warp & woof,

[Terrance]

> 
> Let me just quote from the essay I have been referring to so we
> don't get confused.
> 
> "The point of my observations should be quite clear by now,
> namely that Joseph Conrad was a thorougoing racist."

I do not think Achebe makes the argument that Joseph Conrad
was a thoroughgoing racist or as he also says, a "a bloody
racist." 



> 
> Africa as setting and backdrop which eliminates the African
> as human factor. 

I disagree with this. 


Africa as a metaphysical battlefield devoid
> of all recognizable humanity, into which the wandering
> European enters at his peril. 

No. 

Can nobody see the
> preposterous and perverse arrogance in thus reducing Africa
> to the role of props for the break-up of one petty European
> mind? 

Of course anyone could see this if it were the case. 


But that is not even the point. The real question is
> the dehumanization of Africa and Africans which this age
> long attitude has fostered and continues to foster in the
> world. 


OK, this is a good question, but is Joseph Conrad a
thoroughgoing racist because
of this age long attitude? Because this attitude has been
fostered and continues to be fostered? Does Joseph Conrad
foster and continue to foster this attitude? Suppose we put
Africa aside for the sake of argument at look at what Conrad
does in Nostromo? 


And the question is whether a novel that celebrates
> this dehumanization, which depersonalizes a portion of the
> human race, can be called a great work of art. 

That's a good question. But has Achebe made the case that
HoD celebrates the dehumanization, the depersonalization of
a portion of the human race? Better said, does HoD
dehumanize, depersonalize the human. The portioning may be
the rub, right? 

My answer is:
> No, it cannot. I do not doubt Conrad's great talents...But
> all this has been discussed in the last fifty years. His
> obvious racism has, however, not been addressed. And it is high time it was!

Indeed, in 1975 and today, is is high time we discuss racism
in the cannon, in all the arts. But again, discussing it is
a positive step, but Achebe fails to make the argument that
Conrad is an "obvious," "bloody," "thoroughgoing racist." 




> 
> >From Norton Critical Edition, HoD, Third Edition, Edited by
> Robert Kimbrough
> 
> Chinua Achebe, "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart
> of Darkness" (An amended version (1987) of the Second
> Chancellor's Lecture at University of Massachusetts,
> Amherst, February 18, 1975.


Back to V., some links:

Mahdi and Gordon

http://www.hf-fak.uib.no/institutter/smi/sa/4Mahdi.html

http://www.mpmbooks.com/amelia/GORDON.HTM

This next one is HUGE, so if your modem thing is slow...

In the half-century of expansion before Queen Victoria
acceded to the throne,  Britain's overseas territorial
possessions had evolved into a global empire. Dependant  
colonies stretched from North America and the Caribbean to
India and Australia.   These possessions were sustained and
supported by commercial, industrial, and   maritime might
that surpassed that of other powers. In the nineteenth
century Britain   developed its "informal empire" -an
immense influence far exceeding that represented   by
territorial dominion. During Victoria's long reign the
dependencies and influence   accumulated at a rapid pace,
and by her death, the British Empire was the greatest   the
world had ever seen and the envy of other nations. Many
Britons felt themselves   to be part of a global
commonwealth united by British cultural, moral, political,
and   commercial values.  Justly described as the age of the
periodical press, the nineteenth century saw
  an extraordinary proliferation of all kinds of
periodicals. Scholars now suggest that   nineteenth-century
periodicals had a larger readership than did
nineteenth-century books, and a correspondingly greater
influence. An increasingly literate public, a growing middle
class, emerging professionalism and
specialization in the trades and  disciplines, and
technological advances in printing and methods of
illustration--these developments all contributed to the
explosion of British periodical publishing in the 1800s. The
magisterial reviews of the early years of the century were
joined and then surpassed by monthly and weekly journals
published for all manner of reasons: reform, instruction,
amusement,
enlightenment, advertisement, enrichment. The reading public
seemed
insatiable: every stratum and sub-stratum of society, every
political stripe, and every
philosophical bent were represented and served by at least
several periodicals.
There were magazines for liberals, conservatives, reformers,
reactionaries; women, men, girls, boys, families; army
officers, naval officers; artists, authors, doctors; the
fashion-conscious, the avant-garde, the antiquarian; the
upper, the middle, the lower classes; the religious, the
scientific, the zealous. Britain's overseas empire was of
course reflected in contemporary periodicals...


http://www.library.yale.edu/~mpowell/victorianper.html#athen