The book certainly has its oddities, starting with the narrative voice: we are listening to a story told aboard a ship on the Thames that is waiting for a change of tide to send it on its way out to sea. The narrator-within-the-story, Marlowe, tells the entire tale in flashback, with Conrad only occasionally coming up for air to the deck of the Thames boat (Heart of Darkness was written as a three-part serial; I assume these narrative breaks are the stitching between installments).

I had heard much about this book over the years so I was curious to see the exact nature of the depravities upon which the infamous Kurtz had indulged himself. But two-thirds of the way through the book I realized we were never to really learn them. We know there’s a remote camp by a lake and an African tribe that regards him as some kind of demi-god, and we hear tell that he’s lawless toward other Europeans and single-minded in his quest for ivory. But these are all barely more than hinted glimpses.

The story turns out to be not so much about Kurtz as it is about Marlows’ imaginings as he gets deeper into the continent and gathers clues about the mystery man at the top of the river. I found this to be a relief, as Conrad seems almost as uninterested in fleshing out the Africans along the way. Kurtz is a brilliant civilized man; in the jungle his savagery is unleashed and he becomes a force unto himself.

I had to deal with a being to whom I could not appeal in the name of anything high or low. I had, even like the n******, to invoke him–himself his own exalted and incredible degradation. There was nothing either above or below him, and I knew it. He had kicked himself loose of the earth. Confound the man! he had kicked the very earth to pieces. He was alone, and I before him did not know whether I stood on the ground or floated in the air.

Yes, this is a working definition of a psychopath. If this were a modern Showtime or AMC television show, this would be the start of the action: the producers, writers, and actors would leave little gore or depravity to the imagination. But for Conrad this is the morality tale at the heart of the book. Shortly after being found, Kurtz conveniently dies and our narrator sails back downstream, going (we are helpfully told) twice the speed as before, back out to the ocean and civilization.

More: 

• Wikipedia: Heart of Darkness
• Heart of Darkness on Project Gutenberg

This weekend we’ve had a museum parked in our driveway. It’s the “BUS-eum” from the Traces Center for History and Culture in St. Paul, hosting a traveling exhibit on German POW’s in the US during World War II. We were happy to host the BUS-eum’s Irving Kellman over the weekend in-between stops in Cape May Courthouse and Vineland.  I asked him to give us the story of the German POWs on video.

As you might guess, there was a lot of Quaker connections in the 1940, with American Friends Service Committee involvement. Traces’ director Michael Luick-Thrams is a Friend and did his PhD thesis on the Scattergood Hostel, a refugee camp set up at the then-abandoned Friends school in Iowa. Many of the BUS-eum’s stops are Friends Schools, with public libraries being another common destination.

The visit was made with help from FGC’s Directory of Traveling Friends. I think this is the first time we’ve actually had a visitor after a decade of being listed there (most past inquiries have fallen through when they looked at a map and realized our distance from Pendle Hill, New York City or whatever other destination brought them east).

Father went to college (he was secretive about past, he might have done a semester at St Joe’s)
Father finished college
Mother went to college (two year secretarial program)
Mother finished college
Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor.
Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
Were read children’s books by a parent
Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively (because we’re good assimilationists)
Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
Had to take out less than $5000 in student loans in order to go to college
Didn’t need student loans to go to college out of high school
Went to a private high school
Went to summer camp (day camp at the Y for a few summers)
Had a private tutor before you turned 18
Family vacations involved staying at hotels
Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18 (pride kept us out of second-hand stores until we later crossed that class boundary where thrifting is cool precisely because its not a necessity)
Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
There was original art in your house when you were a child
Had a phone in your room before you turned 18
You and your family lived in a single family house
Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
You had your own room as a child (I was the only child at home after age 7)
Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course (my mom thought they were cheating)
Had your own TV in your room in High School (mostly as monitor for Radio Shack Color Computer she bought me junior year of high school)
Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
Went on a cruise with your family
Went on more than one cruise with your family
Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up (we were more zoo/county fair/Independence Hall tour types (hey, they’re all free/low-cost!))
You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family (n/a: included in apt rent, besides my mom would never let on that things were tight)

A list like this can never be all inclusive but it seems there are some big omissions. Where’s anything about family structure and finances, like “You had two parental figures living in your house” and “Both parents contributed to family income” or “One parent stayed home or worked part-time”? In my own instance, my father had a secret other family and never paid for anything other than the occasional trip to Roy Rogers (secret family to “Little Marty” at least, the women and older children presumably noitced he was only around half the time and constructed some mental run-around to explain it away).

The other omission is social networks. I have no memory of family friends. I cannot name one friend of my father and my mother’s friends were limited to a handful of “girls” at the office. By the time I got to high school I started to see how certain classmates were able to work the system to get the best teachers and classes and this was mostly accomplished by parents swapping notes after Hewbrew class or at church or at hockey practice. Friends are rightly noted for the strength of their social networks and I suspect these provide a social privilege that is far more valuable than parental salary.

Jeanne promises to write a part two to her post explaining what this all means to Friends. I’m looking forward to it though I’m unsure just what easy generalization can be made if we’re looking at origins. One of the few surveys trying to be comprehensive found Philadelphia-area Friends don’t reflect American averages yet for many convinced Friends our participation has mirrored (and perhaps been unconsciously motivated by) an upward class mobility. Keep an eye on Social Class & Quakers for more!