“Back in the sepulchral city”

I found myself back in the sepulchral city resenting the sight of people hurrying through the streets to filch a little money from each other, to devour their infamous cookery, to gulp their unwholesome beer, to dream their insignificant and silly dreams. They trespassed upon my thoughts. They were intruders whose knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretence, because I felt so sure they could not possibly know the things I knew. Their bearing, which was simply the bearing of commonplace individuals going about their business in the assurance of perfect safety, was offensive to me like the outrageous flauntings of folly in the face of a danger it is unable to comprehend. I had no particular desire to enlighten them, but I had some difficulty in restraining myself from laughing in their faces so full of stupid importance. I daresay I was not very well at that time. I tottered about the streets – there were various affairs to settle – grinning bitterly at perfectly respectable persons.

– from Heart of Darkness

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“The horror! The horror!” – Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad

Their administration was merely a squeeze, and nothing more, I suspect. They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force – nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others. They grabbed what they could for the sake of what was to be got.

I read Heart of Darkness for the first time during the Christmas break. I was struck by such a sense of how current it seemed that, without wishing to appear ridiculous, I think it’s a very good allegory of the current government and their approach (captured by the quote above).

At the level of the individual, the following descriptions by Marlow, Conrad’s explorer making his way up the Congo River to find a key person in a British Company’s empire-based operations, of the role of administrators within that Company put me in mind of most Ministers:

This papier-mâché Mephistopheles[;] it seemed to me that if I tried I could poke my forefinger through him, and would find nothing inside but a little loose dirt, maybe.

and

‘The groans of this sick person’, he said, ‘distract my attention. And without that it is extremely difficult to guard against clerical error in this climate’.

It’s not a cheery note, but I found a lot in Heart of Darkness and modestly suggest you add it to any reading you list you might have. Incidentally, it also means I shall be watching Apocalypse Now again in the near future.