The Heart of Darkness

I have been reading Conrad's "The Heart of Darkness" (Loci: driveway) which is written as Marlow's yarn to his fellow travelers about his encounter with the mighty Kurtz. What I find particularly interesting is the storyteller's tricks he uses. For instance, as the narrator berates Marlow's story style when Marlow states, "'I don't want to bother you much with what happened to me personally,' he began, showing in this remark the weakness of many tellers of tales who seem so often unaware of what their audience would best like to hear..."(141).

While the narrator sees this as a defect of the storyteller's, I think it clearly shows the storyteller's art! He's got the audience intrigued as much about what he wont say as the tale he is about to spin. And a very good tale it is.