Heart of Darkness: A Signature Performance by Kenneth Branagh
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Heart of Darkness: A Signature Performance by Kenneth Branagh
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Narrated by:
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Kenneth Branagh
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Written by:
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Joseph Conrad
About this listen
Prose that demands to be read aloud requires a special kind of narrator. For the Audible Signature Classics edition of Joseph Conrad’s atmospheric masterpiece, Heart of Darkness, we called upon four-time Academy Award nominee Kenneth Branagh.
Branagh’s performance is riveting because he reads as though he’s telling a ghost story by a campfire, capturing the story’s sense of claustrophobia, while hinting at the storyteller Marlow’s own creeping madness. Heart of Darkness follows Captain Marlow into the colonial Congo where he searches for a mysterious ivory trader, Kurtz, and discovers an evil that will haunt him forever.
With this landmark work, Conrad is credited with bringing the novel into the twentieth century; we think Branagh brings it into the twenty-first.
Stay tuned for more one-of-a-kind performances from actors David Hyde Pierce, Leelee Sobieski, Tim Curry, and more, only from Audible Signature Classics.
Public Domain (P)2010 Audible, Inc.Editorial Reviews
"The horror! The horror!" In this brooding and justly celebrated novella of 1902, seaman Charles Marlow is cruising quietly down the Thames at dusk with some friends. As night begins to fall, he tells them of his harrowing journey down an African river in search of the unscrupulous and near-legendary ivory trader named Kurtz, a quest deep into inky spiritual and symbolic darkness. Acclaimed Irish actor/director Kenneth Branagh impersonates Marlow in this recording. Admirably, while fully playing the drama, he never goes overboard. He plays the tale for the great yarn that it is. But had he taken more cognizance of its trajectory and subtleties, he would have made the listening experience far richer than he has.
Critic Reviews
What listeners say about Heart of Darkness: A Signature Performance by Kenneth Branagh
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 26-08-23
The definite audio version
Kenneth Branagh's magnificent performance brings this classic to life. A haunting take on western colonialism.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Illanjana Bhadra
- 26-05-24
The narration of the story
Kenneth Barnagh's voice and narration is Godsend.I felt myself drawn into the story. Thank you Sir.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 16-02-24
Impressive language, questionable content
This is a book written in 1900 about European excursions in Africa. Specifically, it is the story of one individual, Kurtz, who is described as very remarkable and who has hypnotized local tribes into worshipping him. He is essentially collecting ivory and gone beyond the mandate of his trading company.
The reasons for his worship are not clear and frankly the fascination of narrator with this character is arising out of stories told by other travellers.
All in all, maybe the book has become bit dated for it to be comprehensible and admirable.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Placeholder
- 09-12-21
Darkness: The Absence of Light
Nothing wrong with the narrator. He did his best. But did he understand what he was reading? What strikes me about Conrad's book is the absence of light. This Polish writer wants to take us on a dark befuddled journey into the heart of Africa, but what I find befuddled is his brain. All the way giving dark hints, but not shining the beacon of clarity on the deceptions and degradations of the colonial, European imperialist mindset and heart.
If it wasn't for Spark Notes, I would not have understood what Conrad was getting at. He is not the type to call a spade a spade. I would have been happier to read a historian on the Belgian atrocities on the defenceless Congolese population. Here is Conrad trying to imitate Browning in The Duchess of Malfi. Vague, ambiguous and really pointless.
To think that I spent over 3 hours listening to Marlow's morbid and meandering reflections. I am sure he put his audience to sleep, but Conrad wouldn't admit that. Conrad's propensity for overblown intellectual drama and his painfully mastered English (always a foreign language to him!) must have been parodied by those more familiar and adept with English than he was.
I would say, Please don't inflict Conrad's novella on simple-minded high school pupils. Let this man be dissected thoroughly at a post-graduate level.
Do I feel better off, having struggled through this book? No, I need to read a historian's exposé on Leopold II, in order to get at the truth.
I do not feel any achievement in finishing this book. It is like walking through the mud in a tropical swamp...at night, a moonless night.
Kurtz? Another of Eliot's hollow men. The most unfleshed-out character I've ever come across. More like a shadowy ghost or evil spirit. Kurtz or Cursed, it's the same thing.
I do not stand with Chinua Achebe and Edward Said in their criticism of Conrad, but I would not want this benighted literary piece to be inflicted on high school students.
I wouldn't call this a classic of Western literature. But the comic strip at https://youtu.be/XIFUHIM-w7M deserves all appreciation! How many suffering students of literature have been saved by Spark Notes!!!🌷🍁🌷😃😃🌷
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Chhuansanga Chhakchhuak
- 01-12-20
Top class narration.
Beautiful narration. Made me enjoy the novella more than i should have. Would love to listen more stories narrated by Kenneth Branagh.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Shreker
- 15-07-23
Awesome narration, vivid description but vague story
I selected to read it after going through several reviews that raved about it. But the central character Mr. Kurtz remains a mystery. The intro at the start was helpful. Without it, it would have been difficult to get author’s point.
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