Voyage au coeur du Congo belge

RELEASE NOTES:

Pour le Parc à livres :)

I hoped to know Joseph Conrad's books and try to improve my english again. This is quite done, thank you, DandyMonk ! (don't be in a big hurry about this book : they told me it was difficult)

december : 4 pages read : it's too difficult and a lot of books are still waiting for me !

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

Sent to ETMadrid in London !

Un très grand merci, DonaSwann! Ce petit livre est le bien venu chez moi et n'attend que ma lecture. Je tenterai de ne pas trop le retenir de son voyage :)

I finished reading this yesterday as a quick interlude between other books. I was struck by the beauty and strength of the prose in the first chapter, but by the latter third of the book I was slightly confused by what messages it was trying to convey, though I'm sure the confusion was intentional. Certainly the images of the slavery Marlow sees on arrival in the Congo are shocking, especially as they are based on Conrad's own experiences in 1890, long after its supposed abolition. The issues are complex as Marlow himself seems to come out of his time there not entirely unscathed. A long time ago I bought a copy of "Lord Jim" also by Conrad and as I liked his linguistic style, I look forward to reading it.

Interestingly, Fergal Keane refered to this book on more than one occasion (probably related to his time in Rwanda) in "Letters from Home" that I'd just finished.

One of the reasons I loved the beginning is that it describes the boat sitting at dusk in the Thames Estuary, not so far from where I am now based. Thank you DonaSwann for sending it to me.

12/03 I was going to release this almost immediately, but I knew that my husband would also love the first few pages. As it turns out, I refrained from releasing it as he wants to read the rest. The riverside pub where we were is a good place to read and release it, so we'll be back there once he's read it.

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

The last time I saw this book it was in the hands of my husband on the number 78 bus. But I'm pretty certain now that he must have inadvertently left it somewhere along the southern part of Commercial Street, either in the Toynbee Studios or in the Princess Alice pub. Shame - he'd been enjoying the first few pages. But at least it was well labelled, so this became a wild release a short time prior to its intended release, and a short distance from where I'd hoped to release it. I hope that a new reader has picked it up and that one day we'll have news of it again.

17/08/10 Picked up another copy of this that had been left out by a neighbour in our post room. My husband can now finish reading it and I'll then release it where I intended to release this one.