The Dream of the Celt opened my eyes to bad behavior in the
Belgian Congo and that behavior's impact on the movie
Apocalypse Now. In the book, Mario Vargas Llosa's flawed hero Roger Casement meets Joseph Conrad. As noted by
The New York Times Review of Books , about prior books on Roger Casement, "For a number of weeks the two men shared a room. Conrad found inspiration at that time for
Heart of Darkness; Casement was beginning on the road toward becoming a hero, a martyr, and a traitor." Had Conrad not written his famous novel, it is doubtful John Milius and Francis Ford Coppola would have sent Captain Willard off to Cambodia and the world would have been without a great film, based on a great book, based on an awful incident in history. That history is well worth reading in Mario Vargas Llosa's terrific novel.
