Wilson Harris, “The Frontier on Which ‘Heart of Darkness’ Stands” (1981)

Notes by Cathelein Aaftink, March 10^th 2005

334

Harris does not agree with Achebe’s reading of HoD as a display of Conrad’s racism.

Achebe disregards the fact that a novel goes beyond the historical situation of the author.

The novel as a “medium of consciousness” is a product of the intuitive self. The intuitive self breaches the historical, sovereign self and therefore the novel can be terrifyingly objective.

[What exactly is the intuitive self? How should we understand objectivity? It is absolute truth? How do we know which truth is absolute? Is this not a new order that should be overthrown?]

The interaction between historical self and intuitive self brings about the “changing form,” the way in which art goes beyond what appears to be there. Thus, art asks for a heterogeneous, symbolic approach, instead of a homogenous, literal one.

335

Contrary to South America, Africa is not familiar with seeing things in a homogeneous way. The heterogeneous way is necessary though for a community to “create a living future.”

[E.g., masks are Gods. Is this not yet another prejudice about Africa? Does Harris here deny Africa a living future? Is that something we can agree with?]

HoD is a frontier novel that points to things, to other ways of seeing things that Conrad could never reach himself.

The form of HoD, based on the comedy of manners, belongs to a tradition that is focused on maintaining the status quo, pretending that a cultural situation, in which some groups are dominant and others are conquered, is actually naturally determined.

336

Instead of keeping the traditional world order, Harris argues that there should be a dialogue between the heterogeneous cultures.

Achebe does not acknowledge that in HoD proprieties of the established order are parodied. For instance, Kurtz’s manifesto of imperial good and moral light & the postscript “Exterminate all the [alien] brutes.”

[Could “brutes” also refer to the European colonizers?]

337

Parody borders upon nihilism, therefore Conrad’s intuitive imagination could not provide a creative solution, or a new order.

[Nihilism = the belief that nothing has any meaning or value; the idea that all social and political institutions should be destroyed.]

Conrad’s parody attacks and distorts liberal complacency.

“Kurtz’s totalitarian loss of soul”

[Is this what happens?]

337, 338

Harris perceives a tendency in 20th century literature: beyond parody, beyond imagery.

[To what extent does every interpretation of literature goes beyond imagery? Literary texts and imagery often point to things that cannot be made clear “literally.” Should not all literature be read as if it is imaginative, as if there is “something more”?]

338

Conrad uses many adjectives, because they demonstrate the fluidity of meaning, of images. In contrast, nouns are static and pin down reality.

338, 339

Music is an important image in imaginative literature: e.g., the human voice goes through stone and wood, indicating that also stone and wood are subject to change. Nothing is secured from disruption or transformation.

339

Quote Ehrenzweig: “In the end the human voice itself must break in as a symbol of extreme disruption in order to obey a more profound logic.”

[What is this more profound logic? The dialogue? Perhaps when manifested, this new status quo can and should be overthrown as well.]