"Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings....And this stillness of life did not in the least resemble a peace. It was the stillness of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention. It looked at you with a vengeful aspect." The place is the Belgian Congo, "darkest Africa" of the late 19th century. The narrator, Marlow, describes his experiences running a river steamer for the Company and the cruel colonial exploitation which was practiced. Marlow goes into the jungle in search of the mysterious and powerful white trader, Kurtz, hoping to find answers and explanations in that shadowy figure's character for the evil surrounding him. Conrad's haunting novella is narrated by Michael M. Thompson.

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