Je suis les ténèbres | Lisez!

EAN : 9782260055051

Shaping : BROCHE

Pages : 208

Size : 140 x 189 mm

Voir la fiche produit

I am the Darkness

Joseph Denize

Release date : 03/02/2022

Intertwining the universe of Joseph Conrad with the novels of H.P. Lovecraft, “I am the Darkness” describes Jan Kurtz’s long descent into hell in the very heart of Africa. A brilliant and diverting rewrite of “Heart of Darkness” paired with a literary homage to the father of “cosmic horror”.

In 1888 a trade agent by the name of Kurtz embarks on a journey to the Congo. His official mission is to write a report about the “philanthropic” dimension of colonialism. Leaving behind his fiancée Victoria, he hopes to make a fortune by plundering the ivory resources of this newly... In 1888 a trade agent by the name of Kurtz embarks on a journey to the Congo. His official mission is to write a report about the “philanthropic” dimension of colonialism. Leaving behind his fiancée Victoria, he hopes to make a fortune by plundering the ivory resources of this newly found African El Dorado in the name of the government. In Leopoldville he encounters Moreau, a French explorer, in whose company he subsequently embarks on a journey upriver on the Congo. After harrowing encounters with cruel local customs and colonialists behaving savagely with the natives, all that is still left of his philanthropic ideals vanishes irrevocably once he takes up his post in the heart of the forest. The tribe does not cooperate, the ivory takes time to arrive, and the three soldiers that are supposed to protect him overtake command of the outpost. Worn out and diminished by fever, his reason falters and he kills his compatriots in a fit of frenzy before falling in an obscure shamanic trance. When he regains consciousness, the savages have consecrated him as a living God. Elated with his new status, Kurtz turns his back on Western civilization for good. But by chance, Moreau crosses his path again, pretending to have unveiled the mystery of the origins of life itself. He also shares an unspeakable truth, a secret kept by the forest since the dawn of mankind, which sheds a new light on Kurtz’s strange destiny.
Joseph Denize was inspired to his novel upon re-reading Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. The famous sibylline and obscure words pronounced by colonel Kurtz at the moment of his death – “The horror, the horror” – made him wonder what Kurtz could have really experienced during his stay in the Congo. And this is what he tried to imagine by blending the horror of Joseph Conrad’s work with the concept of “cosmic horror” coined by H.P. Lovecraft, the father of the modern horror novel and another important literary influence on the author. Much more than a pastiche, this novel is a diverting and imaginative literary homage that also explores the concept of barbarism and highlights the contiguity of the humane and the monstrous.

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Voir la fiche produit

EAN : 9782260055051

Shaping : BROCHE

Pages : 208

Size : 140 x 189 mm

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