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What is the best book you have read ?

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CrazyMusicLover · 31-35
Hmm, one of my most favorite is Martin Eden by Jack London.
Abrienda · 26-30, F
@CrazyMusicLover London was a fascinating man. He understood human greed almost as well as Joseph Conrad, who understood it perfectly.
CrazyMusicLover · 31-35
@Abrienda Could you recommend me something from Joseph Conrad, please? I am not familiar with works of this author.
Abrienda · 26-30, F
@CrazyMusicLover I am so sorry for not replying sooner! of course I can

Heart of Darkness....on which the movie Apocalypse Now was based. It's theme is civilization is fragile and the Darkness (in this vase the savagery of the Congo jungle) waits everywhere to overwhelm it inside us. This disturbed people very much at the time but they would see the Darkness take over whole nations of high culture such as Germany and Russia very soon. Conrad was inspired by a real event that took place in the Congo some years earlier. Maybe I will post on comment on it...

Nostromo....this must be my favorite. Takes place in a fictional South American Republic. It is so many themed that it is hard to summarize for you in an intelligent way but it revolves around four completely distinct characters and deals with trust, faith, loneliness, vanity, envy, greed and thwarted hopes borne silently. It is also how things do not always get better with time that progress may be material but not spiritual and that maybe what we lose by progress is not worth what we gain...Conrad so perfectly expresses that sentiment that he needed only half a page to do it.


Lord Jim... this was written after Heart of Darkness but fear replaces savagery as "lying in wait", It is about honor and that there are somethings that you do in a moment of weakness you can never escape, that the weakness is part of you and will come out again and again in ways you do not anticipate. Like Wilde, Conrad implies such a mistake can only be redeemed by your death. It also has one of my favorite quotes..."A man can be judged by his enemies as well as by his friends."

What brought me to Conrad was a short story of Conrad's called "Almyer's Folly". My father gave it to me when I was only 15, thinking that as a Eurasian girl I must consider its theme, the choice between two fundamentally different racially based cultures, and the message Conrad gives about the choice. It disturbed me very much and took me some time before I could talk to my father about it but when I did the world suddenly became very sharp and clear. Perhaps I shall post about that instead.

Sorry for the length but I wanted to treat your request seriously.