The last time I read Heart of Darkness was in my senior AP Lit class and I don't remember anything except longing for it to be over... yikes. After the AP test in May, my class did a Film Study unit and then had the great pleasure of watching Apocalypse Now... I was not enthused. I was an avid reader and loved analyzing film, but I just was not connecting with Heart of Darkness in any way. Now that I'm older and wiser and probably even more sensitive to violence, I'm excited to return to this classic with a new focus. Venturing into this book again with a new focus and a support group of bloggers along side me is certainly going to be an adventure. In order to will myself to enjoy Heart of Darkness and truly come away from it having learned something more than "I hate when people cut off other people's heads," I am going to look to those people who DO enjoy Heart of Darkness and use their reviews as a springboard from which I will launch into literary bliss! Turns out, connecting through social media is helping people to connect to literature on more levels and making more people into avid readers.
Step 1: Find people who enjoy Heart of Darkness. First, I turned to Goodreads, because it seems like the people who post there have to feel passionate enough to take the initiative to join, keep their profile up, rate and review. It's definitely a very trustworthy source. I skipped over the one star ratings, because I already understand those people; instead, I focused on those reviews that rated the book with four or five stars. One high review that I found helpful was written by an engineer who used Cliff Notes to help him understand the layers of symbolism. Once he read Cliff Notes and understood the symbolism of Heart of Darkness on a surface level, he was able to connect personally to the text.
Another girl who rated the book with five stars wrote: "I couldn't say enough about Conrad's mastery of prose. Not a single word is out of place." wr When I read her rating, I realized that I probably hadn't payed enough attention to Conrad's diction and syntax the first time I read it, and that maybe this time I'll appreciate it more. My connections online are leading me to look deeper into the text in order to feel what other people have felt.
One more review by a man who gave Heart of Darkness five stars illustrated his own personal story of receiving the book for Christmas as a child, and the way it connected him with his father. Reading about the way this book affected this young man's life in such a powerful way made me want to read it and allow it to teach me the way it taught him.
When we read about other people's experiences and the the things they love and find helpful, it helps us to be more open and accepting readers. I'd guess that many people who don't like reading simply didn't like the texts they were forced to read in school and the opinions they were forced to develop by teachers who may or may not have enjoyed the text either. When readers connect online with honesty and personal history, we are bound to find ways that we connect to books and to each other.
I kind of had the same experience with Heart of Darkness when I was in high school! I enjoyed reading your post. I like what you said about reading others posts and coming to appreciate literature more.
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