The Secret Agent (The Penguin English Library)

Upton Sinclair at his best. The story of an accidental "secret agent" and the traps he falls into. The innocent victims this poor man takes with him is another example of the tyranny of the Fascist regimes Sinclair despises. It is an excellent example of this man's skills, never failing to keep the reader guessing as to where the grim tale will lead. If you like Sinclair with "The Jungle" and "King Coal", you will enjoy this one, too.

For lovers of Ukiyo-e, pictures of the floating world, Sanshiro is the perfect complement - gentle and joyous literature of the floating world. This book brings to mind the wonderful, ethereal, dreamlike quality of a Turner painting - so apt, with Sanshiro's focus on the textural qualities of clouds and sky. The humour is carried beautifully through the translation. And the sudden ending - initially surprising, but with hindsight, perfect. Soseki brings the times to life.

The kindle edition includes a very informative introduction, which thankfully doesn't over-reveal the plot, as well as an excellent glossary of the unfamiliar Japanese historic and cultural references. Highly recommended.

This is a classic Japanese novel well worth reading. The introductions helped to understand the book. However some of the story of university life and culture seems outdated. In other respects it's a story of a naïve country boy going off to university in the big city and bumbling his way through the changes. Some of that story line will always apply.

The hazards of following a reviewer's suggestions are compounded if you and the reviewer don't share similar tastes. So it was with my purchase of this book based upon an article about classic spy novels I read in the WSJ. It is true that Conrad's book is a classic and it is about a "secret agent", and I wasn't expecting a LeCarre or Fleming sort of read, but I found it plodding and somewhat dull. I was intrigued by the fact that English was not Conrad's first language and by how well he had assimilated the language and culture. I finished the book but it felt like an assignment for school.

Some really beautiful descriptions, and gems - that are themselves worth reading. The slogging through pages and pages to get to them is a significant drawback. I will still try to read other JC books, when I can spare the time.

I enjoyed this book, but it was a little different than most books I've read. There aren't really any protagonists, and none of the characters are particularly likable. You can understand them, and identify with some of them, but not really like any of them.

Wanting to re-read this modern classic after some decades, in the course of a second visit to Conrad's writing, I made the mistake to buy this Signet edition.
Don't do that! It sucks. The print is compact and the letters too small. It has no explanatory notes, which would be important for this kind of book. It is a punishment to read this.
Stay away from this edition and buy the Oxford World Classics pocket book instead.
I will review that shortly.

At first Joseph Conrad's writing seemed difficult to read and to understand. It was choppy in places, but as I read on I became used to his writing or maybe he changed the choppy way he wrote. I began to understand the theme of the novel, and all of the characters and their place in the plot. I ended up getting into the story and thoroughly enjoying it.
I read this book as a bookclub selection. Our theme is "revolution"..

My English teacher, Mrs.?, told us in class (1963) that Joseph Conrad was a good witer of English. She was correct. However, I read Lord Jim
at her insistence, and I recollect nothing from the story other than the fact that Lord Jim seemed always to be dressed in white. Was I wrong; was he dressed in tourquoise? I don't recall. Recently, I started to read The Secret Agent because Mrs.? said he was a good writer of English. However, I waded halfway through, a month ago, and I cannot at this point take up the thread again.
Jeffrey M. Dundon

My English teacher, Mrs.?, told us in class (1963) that Joseph Conrad was a good witer of English. She was correct. However, I read Lord Jim
at her insistence, and I recollect nothing from the story other than the fact that Lord Jim seemed always to be dressed in white. Was I wrong; was he dressed in tourquoise? I don't recall. Recently, I started to read The Secret Agent because Mrs.? said he was a good writer of English. However, I waded halfway through, a month ago, and I cannot at this point take up the thread again.
Jeffrey M. Dundon

If a 21rst century reader tries reading this as a thriller, he or she is likely to be disappointed. It is about terrorists, political intrique, and obscure foreign influences, and it does have a compelling plot -- will the criminals be discovered? It does not, however, have the hectic pace or high tech violence of most modern spy novels. Also, it does have Joseph Conrad's prose, which is a lot more elaborate than that of current day thriller writers.

But if a modern reader approaches "The Secret Agent" as literature, and as a compelling historical document, he or she will be rewarded. Conrad's psychological acuity makes it vividly clear that the terrorists are human -- something that people in the late 19th century were just as likely to forget as we are today. Conrad's focus on their individual humanity is not intended to excuse them, but rather to show how people become entangled in enterprises of violence. Moreover, I at least was amazed at how much in common terrorism in Conrad's day had with terrorism today. A wonderful, if difficult, exploration of an unusual subject.

The Secret Agent was a major risk for Joseph Conrad, a London tale of international political intrigue far removed from the symbolic sea adventures he had previously written. That it is not only one of his greatest triumphs but also one of the best novels of its kind testifies to his greatness. The diversity it introduced to his canon is truly remarkable; very few writers have works so different in nearly every respect. It is thus essential not only for those who like his other work but also for those who do not.

The immediate subjects are terrorism and anarchism, and I know of no work that uses them with more brilliance or verisimilitude. Conrad's Preface says that he thought it a high compliment when terrorists and anarchists praised its realism, and he indeed deserved it. He brings this truly underground world vividly to life, depicting everything from speech to customs to dress in believable detail. The vast majority of course want nothing to do with such a world, but the peek is undeniably fascinating. Conrad's psychological insight is particularly intriguing and valuable. All this brings up the important - some would say central - point of how Conrad views these characters. That terrorists and other unsavory personages have been sympathetic to it - particularly the Unabomber's obsession with it - seems to strongly suggest that Conrad leans toward them, but a close reading of the text or mere glance at his Preface shows otherwise. He clearly has nothing but contempt for them; this comes across forcefully in the narrator's ironic mockery and Conrad's noting that Winnie Verloc is the only true anarchist - a terrorist jab if ever one existed. In his view, they were pretentious, portentous, and above all, simply ineffectual with greatly exaggerated self-importance. Thus, though the book does a great service in peering into their dark world, it also arguably gives false comfort in showing them as ambiguously inept. The ominous last paragraph undercuts this somewhat, perhaps reflecting Conrad's uneasiness about the future. From an American perspective, the book of course has added interest in a post-9/11 world, but we must not let knee-jerk reactions blind us to its true worth and value.

This brings up another important point - the novel has long had great relevance elsewhere. Though written in the early twentieth century and set in the late nineteenth, it in many ways encapsulates the uneasy political atmosphere that dominated much of Europe, Russia, Latin America, Asia, and elsewhere throughout the last century. Their citizens have become unwillingly familiar with people like the book's characters and especially their deeds, giving the novel near-prophetic prescience. Its strongly implied portrait of Russian political machinations - taken up directly a few years later in Under Western Eyes - is particularly notable in coming but a decade before the Bolshevik Revolution. Conrad clearly had his finger on the world's political pulse as few artists have. It is also easy to forget that his vision is not limited to extremes like terrorism and anarchism; he vividly dramatizes the political unrest and unjust social conditions that make such extremes possible as well as official responses. In short, he zeroes in on much of what is wrong with the Western world in the last century plus. Almost no one noticed initially, but it became ever clearer that the book darkly anticipated much of the twentieth century's direst events, making it in many ways even more valuable than when new.

Yet it is also a historical novel in the best sense. The portrayal of late Victorian London is one of the most notable of any city in literature. We get a good idea of what it was like to live there, especially in its dark underbelly - and Conrad leaves no doubt that it was far from pretty. His descriptions are very visceral, emphasizing dirt, grime, and overall dreariness. There is widespread sentimental longing for many Victorian aspects, but Conrad does not let us forget the darker side. Again, this is not restricted to those outside the law; Conrad always had great sympathy for the poor and downtrodden and shows their plight here with stunning bluntness. This imparts more emotion than is usual in Conrad, chiefly pathos, and is also very thought-provoking. Conrad always excelled at this last, and The Secret is a preeminent example despite its shortness, giving food for thought on everything from sociopolitical issues to domesticity.

Despite all this, the novel can also be enjoyed on a very basic level as a sort of detective story/spy adventure hybrid. Conrad after all belongs to the golden era of detective fiction and was skilled enough to work in elements without compromising his art. There is not much mystery in the usual sense, but he manipulates the narrative to provide a great deal of dramatic irony and suspense. The spy aspect was more original - indeed one of the first instances of its kind and enormously influential. All this means that those who dislike Conrad's usual settings and plots may well be pleasantly surprised.

As ever with Conrad, there is no conventional hero or anything like one; nearly all characters are indeed thoroughly loathsome. Verloc, the protagonist, is somewhat ambiguous; though ostensibly dislikable as a petty traitor, some have seen him as at least slightly admirable or high-minded in trying to carry out his deed without loss of life and in his strong family support. Like many Conrad characters, he is notable above all for sheer incompetence. He is so hapless that condemning him seems not only superfluous but near-cruel; aside from whether or not we think his end deserved, he can easily arouse either pity or contempt depending on one's charitableness.

His wife is one of the more nuanced depictions; some even see her as the hidden key or the real story beneath all the political trappings. Conrad's Preface indeed refers to the book as "the story of Winnie Verloc." And so it is in some ways. Though Conrad is legitimately called essentially conservative, some have found feminist threads in his work, and this may be the best example. Winnie is a truly tragic figure, a perhaps extreme but in many ways representative example of what a woman can be reduced to in an overtly sexist society. She married for money rather than love and often wonders if she made the right decision; it is easy to say no in today's liberalized world, but such sweeping generalizations are unfair for the time. It was after all virtually impossible for women to get by without a husband's income. More importantly, Winnie is kind and caring, full of sympathy and empathy as almost no Conrad characters are and not without intelligence. How we should view her drastic act is a very open question, as she is arguably more sinned against than sinning and certainly pitiable, whatever her faults. Conrad is not one to lionize characters, but she is one of the few he does not outright condemn, which says much.

With characteristic irony, Conrad makes the mentally enfeebled Stevie the most sympathetic and possibly the most likable character. However conventionally limited, his depth of feeling and empathy nears a human ideal, as may his unquestioning love and loyalty. His revelation on the coach is one of literature's greatest, most powerful, and most thought-provoking scenes, and his conclusions here and elsewhere are very possibly at least as legitimate as the most storied philosophers'. The contrasts between him and other characters, especially criminal ones, is the source of much irony.

As all this suggests, the book is very much in line with Conrad's dark vision, however otherwise different from prior works. Aside from focusing on the criminal and lowly, its overall picture is near-misanthropic; the novel condemns terrorists and their ilk but also seems to say there is not much worth protecting from them. Human interaction is painted very bleakly; love, domesticity, family relations, and nearly every other interpersonal area seems doomed to fail. Communication itself is almost hopelessly futile. There is also a strong fatalistic streak; characters are drawn into terrible situations against their will and seem unable to escape or even comprehend them. The Secret shows humanity on the verge of great distress with little or no hope of avoiding it.

Much of this comes from the unique narrative style and distinctive prose. Conrad is of course a noted stylist, and this is one of his most notable works in that way. His vocabulary is incredible, his descriptions are breathtaking, and he is eminently quotable, which is truly amazing considering that he was not a native English user. There are so many times when he expresses an idea so perfectly and articulately that many will think with a start that they have had such feelings but could never express them, much less so well. The Secret stands out from some prior works, especially the epic Nostromo, in being remarkably concise; Conrad says only what must be said, sculpting precisely. This is clearest in the dialogue, which is almost non-existent and very brief, not to mention distinctly clipped, when present; the characters are so hapless that they can apparently not even articulate their thoughts. The narration is a distinct contrast, teeming with Conrad's ever-brilliant and eccentric language. This implicitly mocks the characters even more, as does the ostensibly neutral narrator's frequent sniping sarcasm. Many have said that the narrator - and thus presumably Conrad - has an almost malevolent attitude. This makes the book simply too dark for some but also leads to significant black humor, almost the only humor Conrad allowed himself; for what it is worth, The Secret is thus his most humorous book, however far from humorous it generally seems.

The story is also notable for being told in an essentially straight-forward way. As always with Conrad, the prose is somewhat dense, but it is substantially less so than elsewhere, and we do not have to work through multiple narrators as so often with him. The story is not linear but is far easier to follow than usual; the feeling of being lost and disoriented that turns off so many casuals is never present. Conrad subtitled the novel "A Simple Tale," and it is indeed simple in this way, at least compared to his other stories, making this his most accessible major work and giving appeal beyond his usual base. However, it is far from simple in ways that really matter - characterization, themes, philosophical and sociopolitical depth, etc. - and may in many ways be said to have the best of both proverbial worlds.

All told, this is essential for anyone who likes Conrad and a good place for neophytes to start, while even those who think they dislike him may be in for (an admittedly dark) treat.

During every age tarnished by the spectre of terrorism, there are novels attempting to address the phenomenon. The Secret Agent is one of the best. It is hallmarked by Conrad's black humour, a sort of cosmic wry joke on the bleak futility of anarchism, and the damage it inflicts on innocent victims. Mr Verloc is a strange man, disconnected in fundamental ways from the society in which he lives and, also, his wife. When he hatches a plan to satisfy a mysterious agent at the embassy and blow up the Greenwich Observatory, the repercussions are unexpected, and his attempts to retrospectively justify them are portrayed with macabre brilliance by Conrad.

In addition, the descriptions of late 19th Century London - the black crumbling streets, the rain, the horse and carts, the gas lamps, are brilliantly drawn, especially in the books's early chapters.

Anarchism was a mysterious and hugely damaging European terrorist phenomenon for several decades during the 19th and early 20th Centuries. Conrad, growing up in Tsarist Russia, knew this well. His vision is an oblique masterly characterisation of this nihilistic force.

Adolf Verloc runs a seedy shop in Soho. His wife, mother in law and brother in law Stevie, know his revolutionary associates, but not the fact that he acts as a secret agent for a foreign power. But when a new ambassador demands that Verloc perpetrate an outrage to awaken the sleeping British public to the threat on their own doorstep, Verloc sees his steady income vanishing so he schemes a bomb outrage that has disastrous consequences-personally, not politically...
Still a classic espionage story, and still profoundly relevant. Where once it was anarchists who posed the terrorist threat, later it was the IRA and today the Islamic fanatics-and Conrad has the whole picture down to a 'T'. All involve the murderous futility of their 'cause', all doomed to fail as mankind is too big and varied to fit into their narrow ideals of Utopia, and the whole is still a game between them and the secret services.
Conrad states that the novel is mostly about Winnie Verloc in the situation she is suddenly thrown into, and this and the detailing of each characters psyche gives strength to the plot and whole shape of the book. There was much indignant outrage when the novel was written (1906) over Conrad's having the police colluding and working with criminals in this 'game', but it has proved to be a remarkable accurate account to this day.
Based on a true incident of a failed bomb outrage in Greenwich , Conrad brilliantly opens up this dark and ugly world for public view. A timeless classic that will forever-sadly- have meaning in a world constantly battling a never ending list of fanatics with causes.

“The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale” is a strange story of terrorism. Conrad set the
stage for what could be an unusual mystery; with characters like Verloc and his wife, that
seemed filled with animosity and suspicion toward each other. And yet, when it came to
personal affairs, Mr. Verloc always needed to know where Mrs. Verloc was at all times;
Except when he went on a holiday without her, and would be gone for weeks. Was he
really on a secret mission? Was it because of possessiveness? Then why would he stay
away for so long? What was Mrs. Verloc afraid of? If it was Mr. Verloc, then why
wouldn’t she leave while he was on one of his excursions?

The picturesque setting took me back in time to old London and a different way of
life as our story began with Mr. Verloc taking his morning walk, right on cue. Knowing
his wife, while taking care of her brother full time, would take care of things at the shop
too; this would leave his mind for other pressing matters that seemed more important to
him at the time. But where did he really go on these morning excursions? Was he meeting
someone else? Was he planning something secret, and could not tell his wife about it?

As the mystery deepened, Mr. Verloc became more agitated and decided to take
Mrs. Verloc’s brother Stevie with him on one of his morning walks after she begged him
to. Was Mr. Verloc dragging Winnie’s brother into something he could not get out of?
One of my favorite parts of the book that showed a lot of excitement was, where
Winnie kept telling Mr. Ossipon to go inside and turn out the lamp. When he
walked inside and saw what had happened, he suddenly knew what terror felt like. This
true-to-life page turner kept me engaged in trying to find the missing clues to the mayhem
and murder, along with Chief Inspector Heat.

This novel is a classic of the espionage/terrorism genre. I believe that I've read it three times over the years, as I'm a Conrad fan, and have been so for decades. The first time I read it, I found it a tough slog. Conrad is not easy reading, and I think that accounts for a sizeable portion of the negative reviews. However, when I read it again, it grew on me, as I was able to see things I had totally missed before. The bottom line is that it's not a true thriller--it's more literary than that. But, if you have the patience to really dig into it, there's a lot of value in it.

We live in uncertain and even dangerous times. Cruel beheadings are shown on the internet, stories of war and terror lead the nightly news and the daily paper is crammed with reports of violence and mayhem. It is easy to think that our age is perhaps especially cruel. And yet it isn’t. Not long ago it was the brutality of communist systems that appalled the West, of terror rampages of the Bader Meinhof Gang or the Munich Olympics, the mad mullahs of Iran and so on.

So it is interesting to find a superbly written book about terror in a time long ago. The Secret Agent is just such a book, and how marvelous it is. Its subject is the seamy, sordid world of anarchists in Edwardian England. The year is 1907 and the main characters are Adolf Verloc, a small-time pornographer and part-time secret agent and anarchist, and his long-suffering wife Winnie. The story could seem seriously dated and improbable, but only if you forget how really terrifying the anarchists of that time were. They were that era’s terrorists, and they struck with great violence and cruelty. Crude bomb-makers blew themselves up in crowded trains and cozy cafes in Paris, crackpots from obscure political sects took potshots at crowned heads and political figures. And more victims fell than just the Archduke and Archduchess of Austria at Sarajevo. William McKinley, the U.S. president, was assassinated, as was an Austrian empress, a French president, an Italian king and a Spanish prime minister. The crimes were vicious, shocking and deadly, just like today.

Conrad conjures up this time of paranoia, delusion, cruelty and stupidity with all his considerable powers. He takes the reader deep into the criminal mind at work, with great subtlety and art. It is all very chilling and macabre, but at the same time it is so fascinating that you cannot avert your eyes.

Much of the story concerns a plot to bomb the Greenwich Observatory outside London, designed to be a symbolic attack on knowledge itself. But the real meat of this story is what is going on inside the heads of these odious characters; Conrad takes the reader on an intimate interior tour of their thoughts and calculations. It is a psychologically horrifying tale, but it is told in an old-fashioned, Hithcockian way. Only three people die in this tale, but the level of suspense is kept at a crackling level and the narrative bowls along at a pressing pace. The story unfolds with a sly, almost lewd sense of humor and an unhealthy relish for the macabre. It is a great story, told with unfailing skill and a blood-curdling charm.

There is little to add to the thousands of scholarly articles written about this great classical novel. In this review I just want to make a general point.

The main part of plot of The Secret Agent is a failed conspiracy to blow up the Greenwich observatory at the end of the nineteenth century. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, this novel was praised as clairvoyant. A number of columnists dig out Conrad’s take on the terrorist mind: “impervious to fear”, “lacking the great social virtue of resignation” and suffering from an odious, intolerable, and humiliating sense of injustice.

But, in The Secret Agent, most social rebels are not fanatics driven by hatred, but narcissistic personalities driven by vanity, “the mother of all noble and vile illusions”. “In their own way the most ardent revolutionaries are perhaps doing no more but seeking for peace in common with the rest of mankind—the peace of soothed vanity, of satisfied appetites, or perhaps of appeased conscience”. Moreover, politicians, bureaucrats, diplomats, and police officers (of all ranks) are also moved by personal “impulses disguised into creeds”. “We can never cease to be ourselves”, writes the narrator towards the end of the novel.

Conrad is a thoughtful pessimist. He is suspicious of “all men whose ambition aims at a direct grasp upon humanity—artists, politicians, thinkers, reformers, or saints”. He is also skeptical about rational attempts to improve the world. His point (and the general point that I wish to make in this review) is simple enough: “history is made by men, but they do not make it in their heads”.

Despite its title and subject matter--terrorism--don't approach this novel expecting the pacing of a contemporary thriller. The suspense builds slowly as Conrad introduces a bizarre cast of obnoxious characters. London is no bed of roses. Conrad's intimate knowledge of the city was gained from his practice of taking long and wide-ranging walks. The city he describes is a dingy, oppressive, monstrous place, an urban "heart of darkness." The storyline doesn't move in a linear fashion and there are jumps that require the reader's close attention. The dialogue can be difficult to follow as well because the author doesn't always identify who is speaking. These challenges aside, The Secret Agent is a brilliant, groundbreaking novel of the early 20th century. The Oxford World Classics edition has a useful introduction, notes on obscure references and word usage, and a chronology of Conrad's life and times.

Joseph Conrad's ''The Secret Agent,'' focuses on an anarchist plot to blow up the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, designed by the eponymous secret agent to incite a government backlash, a precursor to contemporary conspiracy theories. Conrad's villain, the Professor, is always armed with explosive devices strapped to his person suggesting the book may have been an inspiration to Yasser Arafat's disciples.

Even so, Conrad's characterisation of The Professor was not an innovation in Edwardian fiction, but rooted in the tradition of Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot. Instead, there is a satirical aspect to the work, concerning British and European attitudes toward terrorism and counterterrorism. Several of the characters are ridiculously typical, including the too shrewd Russian Mr. Vladimir, the bumbling policeman, Chief Inspector Heat, the anachronistically named, and unready British aristocrat Sir Ethelred. The intended crime is risibly based on a failed attempt to blow up the Royal Observatory in 1894, mismanaged, as in the novel, by foreign saboteurs. The ineptness of the terrorists only serves to demonstrate that the countermeasures of the authorities are both pointless and draconian.

There is a motive provided for the intended crime, being Vladimir's hatred of science, or at least a sense of inadequacy that it evokes in the mind of the Russian diplomat, whom Conrad describes as an employee of an embassy from a foreign country. Vladimir is a caricature who orchestrates a crime he presumes the anarchists would favour, whom he wants his secret agent, Verloc, to pretend to be. Despite being violent, maladroit lunatics, the anarchists believe they are rational agents of right in a world of deluded madmen. Ironically, Conrad mocks the diplomat, yet still endorses his view that unquestioning faith in science that typifies secular British society, is just as absurd as any other sacrosanct fetish.

Conrad wrote his novel when there was a rash of political assassinations in the late 19th century, causing the western governments to behave more like autocratic, czarist Russia than enlightened democracies that looked down on the excesses of Eastern Europe, including Conrad's native Poland. ''The Secret Agent'' provides a perspective from a writer who is more familiar with the effects of successful terrorists, and the brutal reprisals their anarchic crimes provoke.

Written in the early years of the 20th century, when anarachy, socialism, revolution, and an undercurrent of violence surged through the veins of most developed countries, "The Secret Agent" not only reflects the fears and reactions of contemporary society as it responds to new challenges, but also tells a very human story that ultimately makes this book the classic that it is.
"The Secret Agent" himself is a married man who runs a shady store on a side street in London. Early on, he is called to task by a higher up and given a task that does not particularly sit well with what little conscience he has. He is not a cold or heartless man, but functioning as a covert operative in a world of anarchists and bomb-makers, he has come to rationalize violence and its necessity in a changing world. Before he acts in accordance with the wishes of his boss, Conrad introduces us to a number of his cohorts- revolutionaries, anarchists, felons- each with his own set of values and personal reasons for believing and acting the way they do. By the time the act of violence is committed, the reader is unsure whose side to take in the struggle that is occurring- that of the police and society, eager to accuse someone, even if it is the wrong person; or the revolutionaries, willing to commit acts of violence and murder in order to achieve their ends.
To further confuse matters, Conrad introduces two characters, innocents, who play a major role in the development of the plot- the Secret Agent's wife, who has unknowingly loved and supported a man of deceit for many long years, and the wife's brother, a simple man with mental deficiencies. It is these two characters who represent the heart and soul of this book and who provide an emotional force and importance behind the convoluted events that eventually occur.
While there are obvious parallels between this book and the modern day problems we face with terrorism today, the core of this story is a human drama that resonates well after the book is finished. Conrad is an excellent writer, and his ability to address complex and far-reaching issues- anarchy, terrorism, violence as a means towards an end- and place them in a compelling and engaging story of real people living life, results in one of the most noteworthy literary accomplishments of the 20th century.
This is a must read!

I must admit to having a love-hate relationship with Conrad. His novels possess an undeniable power, and I have read each of his novels with the utmost fascination. Yet, I can't say that actually reading a Conrad novel is an enjoyable experience. His vision of the world is a tad too bleak, his confidence in human nature way too despairing, and the overall atmosphere way too gloomy for me to derive pleasure from reading Conrad.
Although not set in one of the exotic locales which we associate with Conrad, THE SECRET AGENT is both one of his finest and one of his most typical novel, with one exception. In most of his books, the plot revolves around situations which inevitably lead to tragedy and disaster, but in which a central character is often able to somewhat redeem his life by an act or acts of personal heroism. The feel is usually quite similar to that of Norse mythology, in which Gods and men will struggle at the end of the world against the forces of evil, but will lose. The challenge is to oppose the evil heroically. But in THE SECRET AGENT, the central character is anything but heroic, and is in no truly important way opposed to the powers of evil.
I have to admit to being perplexed by claims that Conrad was a great prose stylist. I will confess that I find that with his prose, the sum is greater than its parts. If you examine his sentences, he is without question, along with Theodore Dreiser, perhaps the worst constructor of sentences in the English language. Perhaps having learned English only after reaching adulthood is to blame. Many of his sentences are grammatically opaque. Frequently his sentences are incomplete or badly constructed. Almost never does Conrad seem to sense the rhythm of the language. Perhaps this lack of rhythm is what many mistake for a great prose style. I have spent a fair amount of time in the secondary literature on Conrad, and so far I have yet to find a single Conrad scholar who felt that he possessed a command of the English language. The consensus seems to be that he is a great writer despite his struggle with the English language, not because of any mastery he possesses over it.
Overall, I hold this to be one of Conrad's most important novels, on a par with UNDER WESTERN EYES, HEART OF DARKNESS, VICTORY, and NOSTROMO.
Ironically, Alfred Hitchcock filmed a version of THE SECRET AGENT, but it was not the movie with the same name. Hitchcock's THE SECRET AGENT was actually based on Maugham's Ashenden stories (which Maugham says were based upon his own experiences as a secret agent; he claims to have been one of the more inept agents in history). Hitchcock's version of the Conrad novel was SABOTAGE. Hitchcock changed many of the details, and his religious beliefs never allowed him to engage in the despair one finds in Conrad (Hitchcock was a devout Catholic). Although his version resembles Conrad, it isn't a very faithful adaptation either in plot or in spirit.

Perhaps "Verloc" wasn't even his name, perhaps he wasn't English or French either. He didn't stand out, he didn't attract attention. In Conrad's day, the phrase, "banality of evil" had not been invented, but the novel he wrote illustrates it brilliantly. A vague man of no strong personality or convictions, but of lazy temperament, winds up as a German agent in London, dealing with all the anarchist/radical leftist groups that existed there in the 1880s. This man works as an informer for the British police as well. He runs a pornography shop as a cover and lives with a pretty, but unexceptional woman of lumpen background who finds him a secure, reliable partner. She has a weak, mentally-retarded brother. Verloc's German `handler' demands a particular outrage to force the British government, by dint of subsequent public opinion, to crack down on terrorist/anarchist groups and individuals that found Britain a convenient refuge from severe repression on the Continent. After great strain, Verloc manages an effort at the required "outrage", but with dire consequences for the family. Nobody gets out of this alive. The British police, in the persons of two officers of very differing backgrounds and mentalities, soon piece together what has happened.

As in other of Conrad's novels like "The Heart of Darkness", "The Secret Sharer", and "Almayer's Folly", the main beauty of THE SECRET AGENT is its psychological sophistication. Each character, even minor ones, is drawn in brilliantly accurate strokes, so that the reader understands the inevitability of the actions of each.....the plodding, scheming Verloc, the unquestioning wife, the lost, pathetic brother-in-law, the sharp man of action (Chief Inspector), and the more thoughtful, careful Assistant Commissioner, not to mention a society lady, and an assortment of crazy, lecherous terrorists who can't organize their way out of a paper bag. Conrad is no doubt one of the greatest writers in English. This novel of the seedy side of Victorian London---not by dint of fast moving action...is one of his best. This is not a beach read. It is a classic of world literature.

Some have suggested reading this book to understand the events on 9/11. That is a debate that I don't want to take a stand on here on the store.

First, this is a good book, and a worth-while read in any case. Conrad is not only worth reading, he's a necessary read.

The story is set in London in 1907. The secret agent Verloc is double-agent for an unspecified country, most likely Russia, and a member of a small anarchist cell. The anarchists are particular to the point of eccentricity. Some members are merely players, others enjoy the sound of their own voice, and another enjoys mixing chemicals to create explosives. Like some modern `home grown' terrorists, these anarchists are ineffectual - much talk and little action. Verloc's only income besides his pay as an provocateur comes from a dusty little shop where he sells odds-and-ends - and pornography. Vladimir, who runs Verloc out of the unnamed embassy, threatens to cut Verloc off unless he carries out a magnificent operation.

Conrad begins to weaves an interesting tale of political intrigue and psychological insight.

The mastermind of the plot isn't an anarchist either he's a Russian diplomat frustrated with the refusal of the London police to arrest the anarchists which are in his way. In short, a government sponsors an act of terrorism in order to provoke a crackdown on terrorists.

It's a very interesting story, and one that any lover of good spy stories, literature or stories of human nature.

I must admit to having a love-hate relationship with Conrad. His novels possess an undeniable power, and I have read each of his novels with the utmost fascination. Yet, I can't say that actually reading a Conrad novel is an enjoyable experience. His vision of the world is a tad too bleak, his confidence in human nature way too despairing, and the overall atmosphere way too gloomy for me to derive pleasure from reading Conrad.
Although not set in one of the exotic locales which we associate with Conrad, THE SECRET AGENT is both one of his finest and one of his most typical novel, with one exception. In most of his books, the plot revolves around situations which inevitably lead to tragedy and disaster, but in which a central character is often able to somewhat redeem his life by an act or acts of personal heroism. The feel is usually quite similar to that of Norse mythology, in which Gods and men will struggle at the end of the world against the forces of evil, but will lose. The challenge is to oppose the evil heroically. But in THE SECRET AGENT, the central character is anything but heroic, and is in no truly important way opposed to the powers of evil.
I have to admit to being perplexed by claims that Conrad was a great prose stylist. I will confess that I find that with his prose, the sum is greater than its parts. If you examine his sentences, he is without question, along with Theodore Dreiser, perhaps the worst constructor of sentences in the English language. Perhaps having learned English only after reaching adulthood is to blame. Many of his sentences are grammatically opaque. Frequently his sentences are incomplete or badly constructed. Almost never does Conrad seem to sense the rhythm of the language. Perhaps this lack of rhythm is what many mistake for a great prose style. I have spent a fair amount of time in the secondary literature on Conrad, and so far I have yet to find a single Conrad scholar who felt that he possessed a command of the English language. The consensus seems to be that he is a great writer despite his struggle with the English language, not because of any mastery he possesses over it.
Overall, I hold this to be one of Conrad's most important novels, on a par with UNDER WESTERN EYES, HEART OF DARKNESS, VICTORY, and NOSTROMO.
Ironically, Alfred Hitchcock filmed a version of THE SECRET AGENT, but it was not the movie with the same name. Hitchcock's THE SECRET AGENT was actually based on Maugham's Ashenden stories (which Maugham says were based upon his own experiences as a secret agent; he claims to have been one of the more inept agents in history). Hitchcock's version of the Conrad novel was SABOTAGE. Hitchcock changed many of the details, and his religious beliefs never allowed him to engage in the despair one finds in Conrad (Hitchcock was a devout Catholic). Although his version resembles Conrad, it isn't a very faithful adaptation either in plot or in spirit.

The funniest, strangest, or worst (depending on how you look at it) thing about Joseph Conrad's "The Secret Agent" is that it makes light of a situation -- terrorism -- that maybe was not a big deal at the time it was written but nearly a hundred years later has become a fearsome world problem. The terrorist activity described in this novel apparently is based loosely on a real incident, but Conrad avoids specifying any actual political motivations and instead makes his story as basic and general as possible.
The "terrorist" is a most unassuming man named Mr. Verloc. He runs a stationery and news store in London where he lives with his wife Winnie, her mother, and her mildly retarded brother Stevie. For the past eleven years he has been drawing pay from an unspecified foreign Embassy for occasional information on the activities of an anarchist organization, the "local chapter" of which is comprised of a bunch of malcontent duffers whom he has managed to befriend. An official at the Embassy, Mr. Vladimir, thinks Verloc is not very bright and plans to use him as an agent provocateur to get the anarchist organization in trouble. He suggests to Verloc to blow up an unlikely but symbolic target, the Greenwich Observatory; as the source of the prime meridian or zero-degree longitude, it's like the seam of the world. Using a bomb made by another of society's outcasts, a creepy fellow known only as the Professor, Verloc enlists Stevie's help to carry out his scheme.
Fast forward to immediately after the (unsuccessful) bomb blast: Police Chief Inspector Heat is investigating the incident, reconstructing the crime back to its source, and, interestingly enough, competing with his own superior officer. The post-blast events are where the novel really develops unexpectedly, in which we see what kind of tenuous relationship Verloc has with his wife, and the cruel treachery of one of his dishonest comrades. The structure of the novel is remarkable in the way it establishes the chronology of events, sets the pacing, and lets the scenes unfold as naturally as if they were being staged.
I found this novel to be a lot of fun and, despite the serious subject matter and the fact that it was considered quite violent for its time, actually kind of funny. I see it as not an attempt at a spy story or "thriller" but rather an early example of black humor, in which the narrative is filled with wry wit and each character is given a certain comical edge as if Conrad were making subtle fun of the whole business. It is a book that defies expectations, discards formulas, and immerses itself in the tremendous possibilities of the creativity of great literature.

In _The Secret Agent_, Conrad takes an incisive look at post-Victorian England.
Even as it emerged from the Industrial Revolution as Mistress of the World - the last and the greatest of the old, geographically-powerful empires, and one on which the sun never set - Conrad reveals the British culture to be at a cross-roads with itself. Morally and ideologically bankrupt, struggling to come to grips with its deep-seated past even as it looked despairingly into the future, this England is a mix of characters straight from a Dickens novel living in a world of drudgery and despair worthy of Kafka.
The story focuses on Verloc, a secret agent who has outlived his time. Included in the narrative, as well, is the circle of naive and outdated visionaries and utopians with whom he comes into contact. The plot follows Verloc's stated task - the planting of a bomb at the Greenwich Observatory, a metaphor relating to the struggle of science versus ideology that cannot be missed. The end result bespeaks not the superiority of science over ideals, or vice versa, so much as it testifies to human weakness and fickleness.
Above all, Conrad has written a psychological novel - a broad narrative that examines human motive and methodology against the backdrop of a city that hangs stubbornly on to the mores of the late Victorian Age. More poignant still, its citizens seek to find the meaning of their existence beyond the impersonal, mechanical demands of their place in society - and failing that, they seek to inject their own meaning and sense of purpose into the world around them. Accordingly, Conrad's analysis of the masks people wear is masterful and gripping.
Seemingly rather pointless as far as plot development is concerned, _The Secret Agent_ was never meant to be a thriller and should not be read as such. Instead, it is a brilliantly ironic and incisive look at human nature and the lengths we will go to to preserve our perceived purpose in life. Read it and you will come away with a new sense of perception not only of yourself and those around you but also of the reality you live in.
- Benjamin Gene Gardner

The prose in this book is not actually very difficult. I suspect that what people tend to find difficult is the singularly unpleasant nature of the characters taken together with a very different look at terrorism than is popular in literature and film today.

"You anarchists should make it clear that you are perfectly determined to make a clean sweep of the whole social creation. But how to get that appallingly absurd notion into the heads of the middle classes so that there should be no mistake?"

The Secret Agent was one of the first novels to address issues of terrorism and espionage. The way that Conrad approaches it is brilliant-- these are not wild-eyed men, driven by passion. The main character in The Secret Agent, Verloc, is just doing his job-- in the end, he commits the central atrocity in the book out of fear of being sacked. There is virtually nobody likable in this book with the exception of Stephen, Verloc's gentle and retarded brother in law.

The book is best seen as a dark comedy with an ensemble cast. The complacent British police who think it best to leave the anarchists alone, the motley crew of would-be terrorists-- each with their foibles and weaknesses. It feels at times like watching a clockwork unfolding-- one that you know will take its toll on the most innocent participants.

This is one of Conrad's most important works, but not one of his most likable. I thought it was a very good read. I certainly think that it is a thought-provoking book, particularly considering the times. Highly recommended.

"Sanshiro" is a coming-of-age novel, Meiji Japan style. This is definitely not one of Soseki's better known novels, especially in the United States, but it still has an appeal and sharpness that transcends time and cultural barriers.
"Sanshiro" is in many ways both different and yet similar to Soseki's most famous work, "Kokoro." Both include tales of heartbreak and tragedy, along with social commentary on Japanese society. For whatever reason, Sanshiro struck me as a much more "modern" book than Kokoro. Using the word modern on a book written 100 years ago may seem odd, but reading Soseki's comments on Japanese society at the time (end of the 19th/beginning of 20th century Japan), then considering the ultimate result of the Meiji cultural "revolution" (the emphasis on Western science and Eastern philosophy which led to militaristic ultranationalism), and then again the state of Japan today and it is clear that Soseki's comments are not outdated.
Similarly, Sanshiro's Mineko is a much more modern, "Western" young lady than her counterpart in Kokoro. Unlike Kokoro's Ojosan, who didn't seem to have a thought of her own, Mineko is beautiful, intelligent, slightly haughty, and has a mysterious appeal about her. She is not some trophy to be captured, but a person to be respected in her own right. I found myself verbally assaulting the annoyingly clumsy Sanshiro when he missed opportunity after opportunity to get to know Mineko better. Of course, when he finally develops some guts it's too late. The blame for this unhappy end falls on Mineko as well, as she is one of Sanshiro and Yojiro's generation's "unconscious hypocrites" in the words of Soseki. Mineko knows that she has found a fellow stray sheep in Sanshiro, yet she ultimately abandons him.
Soseki's writing is again a joy to read. Every time you encounter a passage that seems to start getting a little monotonous, he throws in a paragraph that seems absolutely brilliant. The characters are similarly memorable. I liked Kokoro a bit better, but Sanshiro is still an excellent book that has aged well.

Joseph Conrad's novel, "The Secret Agent" is based on a real-life incident that occurred in Greenwich in 1894. Conrad's novel is built around the known facts of that case and concerns an agent who works for the Russian embassy. The agent, the anarchist Verloc, was well respected when he worked for Baron Stott-Wartenheim, but times have changed. When Verloc is summoned to the embassy, he receives a cold reception from his new superior, Vladimir. Vladimir tells Verloc that he's going to have to start producing or he'll lose the wages he receives. A humiliated Verloc is shocked when he receives orders to blow up Greenwich Observatory. Verloc has been living a double game for some time, and he also provides information to the British police. He married Winnie, the daughter of his landlady after Winnie's relationship with another man collapsed. Verloc and Winnie now run a small shop together, and Winnie is completely ignorant of Verloc's political activities. She's quite aware that several shady characters come and go, but she doesn't ask questions.

Winnie's emotionally damaged brother, Stevie also lives with the Verlocs. While Verloc imagines that Winnie loves him for himself, the truth is that Winnie married him for stability. By marrying Verloc, Winnie thinks she's assuring a safe home for Stevie, and so for her the marriage is a silent, unspoken pact. Verloc provides a home, and she, in return, is a good, uncomplaining wife.

When tragedy strikes in the most unexpected way, the Verloc household is thrown into turmoil. Conrad's novel explores the theme of the individual vs. political beliefs through the tragedy of his characters. Most of the characters within the novel are unpleasant--for Verloc, the 'cause' is secondary to his own skin, but he's willing to sacrifice another to maintain the status quo. Verloc's fellow conspirators are shown to be dismissive of the human race, and careless of any damage caused to the individual (except themselves). Everyone uses each other, and there's a hierarchy even in the police force that promotes use of individuals as long as they provide information. The two 'nicest' characters in the novel are also those who possess no political ideals whatsoever--Winnie and her brother, Stevie. These siblings are bound by the memory of an abusive childhood--Winnie's main desire in life is to protect Stevie, and he can't stand violence or cruelty in any form. These two innocents meet a horrible fate as the result of the 'high' political ideals of others.

The novel is not an easy read. I found the story a little difficult to get into until the drama picked up--this was largely due to Conrad's writing style that is often quite stilted by its excessive verbosity. However, that said, once the drama unfolded, I was unable to put the book down until I finished the final page. The characterizations of Verloc and Winnie are fascinating, dark and bleak. Married for years, the events of one day show how little they understand one another. Conrad considers the fate of humankind by setting a human tragedy in the heart of a political ideal, and he suggests that "the sound of exploding bombs" becomes lost next to a tragedy involving a handful of insignificant people. But the fate of individuals "as numerous as the sands of the seashore" fades into obscurity within a few short years. Is a cause ever worth sacrificing lives for?--displacedhuman

For all the talk of the supposed "difficulty" of this novel, I found it to be one of the best construed and told that I have read lately. It goes well beyond a simple thriller or spy novel; it is an intense human drama in which the characters have real personalities. Verloc is a loser. He has been living, for the last eleven or so years, off the payments of a foreign embassy which employs him to spy and report on the activities of a terrorist cell, also composed of frustrated, useless, all-talk-no-action losers. Other reviewers have aptly described these characters.
Verloc lives also off the meager profits of a news store, which serves as cover up for his clandestine activities, ignored even by his family. This consists of his younger wife, Winny, her mother and her retarded brother Stevie, a sympathetic but hopeless young man.
As the novel opens, Verloc is in deep trouble. The new officers at the embassy are displeased at the results Verloc's work has achieved, and so one of them brutally warns him that the pay will stop if he doesn't produce at least one major act of terrorism, say, blow up the Greenwich observatory, an icon of modern faith in science. Verloc gets obviously dismayed at this order, for he is no terrorist at all, just a scumbag of an idler. I won't spoil the rest of the story up to the attack, but the resulting situation will show how coward these terrorists are (we hope none of them were as bold as other terrorists we know are) and how fragile Verloc's family relations are, especially in view of the terribly stupid action he commits.
This is a very dark tale. None of the characters are attractive, but they are exteremely well developed, and that's what counts. The humor used by Conrad is without concessions: for all its cruelty, I found the bombing scene a very funny one. Conrad makes hard fun of all these types who talk and talk about anarchy, the "Revolution", ideology and their supposed love for humanity, a love conspicuously absent from their daily lives.
How pertinent, in these times, to have a great and darkly funny novel to taka a look at, now that the types have, sadly, passed into action.

The Secret Agent was published in 1907. It's author is Ukranian born Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) an old sea dog who wrote some of the greatest late Victorian and Edwardian novels in English. Among them are "Nostromo"; "Lord Jim" "Almayer's Folly" and classic short tales such as "Typhoon" and "The Heart of Darkness." The Secret Agent is a departure of sorts for Conrad in that in occurs in London and not on the seven seas or an island in the East Indies.
The Secret Agent is set in late Victorian London. Adolf Verloc is a French-English secret agent who has worked for a foreign embassy in London. He is obese, egotistical, dull-witted and seeks comfort in his home. He owns a slutty pornography shop in Soho where he lives with wife Vinnie, her mother and her dim-witted half-brother Stevie. Verloc is much older than wife Winnie whom he met and courted while living in Mrs. Verloc's boarding house. Winnie dropped a butcher suitor to marry the enigmatic Verloc.
One bright morning secret agent Verloc takes his mentally challenged brother-in-law Stevie to Greenwich Conservatory.. He has given Stevie a bomb to blow up the conservatory. the bomb is accidently discharged when Stevie trips killing the young man in an explosive blast. Police trace the crime to the Verloc's shop when they discover a part of Stevie's collar containing the firm's address.Verloc is later murdered by Winnie who blames him for the boy's death. Winnie is incosolable since her aged mother has recently moved into a retirement cottage and Stevie was like a son to her. Winnie and Stevie were both abused as chldren. Winnie hangs herself because she does not want to die on the gallows. The story is bleak and gloomy told in an ironic manner in which the bloviating Verloc believes to the end that he is the center of Winnie's universe. Instead his distraught wife stabls him with a bread knife. The novel was later portrayed on screen by Alfred Hitchcock.
The novel has many well etched minor characters including Inspector Heat of the London Police who does not agree with his supervisors in how to combat terrorism. Conrad also draws exoticcharacters who espouse anarchism and rebellion against the British government. Most of these persons are pitiful excuses for human beings being sadly misguided in their allegiances. The most memorable is the Professor who disdains humanity as he walks among the swarms of London's population.
Conrad provides the best atmospheric scene setting of any English novelist since Charles Dickens set the London scene in "Bleak House" in the 1850s. The London portrayed is swirling in cold fog, mud, chill rain and gas lit sreets. Conrad's chapter on the trip taken by Winnie, Stevie and their mother to her new home in a retirement cottage is a gem. Notable is Stevie's compassion for an old hansom horse and the poverty and hunger present in the urban jungle where good people suffer daily as they attempt to eke out a living and fight the wolves of hunger.
The novel was prescient in many ways concerning the 20th and 21st centuries bloody with the massive crimes committed by dictators, war and terrorism. Conrad's vision was as dark as Thomas Hardy's in its fatalism and the sadness of life on a godless planet. The novel is relevant for the dangerous days in which we live. Conrad is not an easy read but is essential to an understanding of the development of the modern English novel.

I happened to read this book about six months after reading Chesterton's 'The Man Called Thursday'. There are some similarities that spoiled the Conrad for me - especially because Conrad's treatment of the opening did not have the surreal and creative flair of Chesterton (the end wasn't as inventive either, but that's another story).
Both of these books are about anarchists and yet anarchism as a philosophy is not justified at all - I suspect anarchism was the unjustifiable terror of the time just as communism was to become later. And yet this did disappoint me. About twenty years ago I read 'The Syndic' by CM Kornbluth and in this there is a great rationale for anarchism (not that I think Kornbluth was an anarchist). It got me reading some of the great anarchist writers - especially Emma Goldman and Peter Kropotkin. For me, one of the greatest benefits of reading is broadening one's point of view, entertaining new ideas. So Conrad and Chesterton both disappointed me in having characters I found it difficult to identify with because they espoused philosophies without in any way supoporting them for the reader. (Another more recent example for anarchism is Ursula le Guin's 'The Dispossessed.)
Having said that, I found reading 'The Secret Agent' a labour, just as other reviewers reported. It is so unlike Conrad's other books (although some of his novels I have found difficult to read, but not for reasons of triviality as this one seems to show). But around page 100 things change. The remainder of the novel I wouldn't have missed for anything. It's the great luminous writing of 'Victory', 'Heart of Darkness', 'Lord Jim' and 'Almayer's Folly'. Quite suddenly the characters are engaging in a very personal way, and the events of the novel are surprising and revealing.

The plot of this story would be perhaps too sardonic, too morose, for today's mystery novel. This is not a running-full-of-action agent who gooses the reds and chases after or is chased by the bad guys. This is not Fleming, this is not Clancy, this is not today's secret agent. Instead, it delves into the introspection and seriously saddened life of the protagonist - Mr. Verloc, the secret agent.

Verloc may be an agent - but he is not sauvoir d'affaire. He is laughed at by his peers, is thought of as harmless by the police, and is being used by both. When provoked to do something substantial, he sets about to blow up an observatory. It fails. Instead, his accomplice is blown to smithereens and that sets about the chase and his unreproachable demise.

Eventually, we learn he has not only failed with explosives, but his failure has alienated him from the reds and the police. But, there is worse yet - his failure alienates him from his wife of 7 years and her family. This is a failure of mammoth proportions, as he not only ends up dying for his failures, but takes down his brother-in-law and wife with him.

Conrad's writing style may be out of date. It is difficult for today's reader as his book was written 100 years ago. Conrad's use of the English language often entails his deliberate overuse so that you know that he knows more of it than you know. Polish born boy, and forced to speak Russian by the occupiers, he eventually moved to England to write in its language. He is a foreigner who writes in a foreign language -- a deficit he well overcame.

In one passage he acknowledges foreigners' fluency when he writes, "Verloc . . . had come to the conclusion that some foreigners speak better English than the native." But, Conrad's syrupy use of English can effectively ruin some of the dialogue - for instance when Verloc is interrogated by the police, a low officer laughs at Verloc, the alleged anarchist, for being married as the concept of marriage to anarchists is an "apostasy." Apostasy? Name one of today's cops who uses the word! Name anyone!

Reagrdless of the writing style being dated, this book is well worth reading.

The major event of the plot is an anarchist conspiracy to blow up the Greenwich Observatory. An "agent provocateur", Verloc, is the man caught in the middle, a pawn in a game played by a high-ranking Russian diplomat, a leading police inspector and, on the other side, the sometimes clumsy and ineffectual anarchists. One example of the characterisation immediately sticks in the mind of the reader, long after completing the novel. It is the character of the mysterious Professor, a misanthrope and angel of destruction, who supplies Verloc with the explosives needed to carry out the plot and who embodies nihilism at its most extreme. Joseph Conrad is known for his dense and sometimes contorted prose, and the style of "The Secret Agent" is no exception. Though no great storyteller, he nevertheless demonstrates that he is a psychologist of the first order, in his searching analyses of character and motive. The novel is partly a domestic tragedy, a highly innovative and experimental early Modernist work, a darkly humorous tale with lashings of "schadenfreude" and an esponage thriller that anticipates, in many ways, the best and most recent examples of the genre.

In this novel the bombing of the Greenwich Observatory is the event around which story and characters detonate. The Observatory bombers are not anarchists. The culprits are an agent provocateur who has infiltrated the anarchists' ranks and his half-witted brother-in-law. The mastermind of the plot isn't an anarchist either he's a Russian diplomat frustrated with the refusal of the London police to arrest the anarchists. In short, a goverment sponsors an act of terrorism in order to provoke a crackdown on terrorists. The setting for all this is a Victorian London that Conrad describes as "the enormous town slumbering monstrously on a carpet of mud under a veil of raw mist" The idea Conrad sets out to blow up in the novel is modernism's sin of thinking abstractly about moral and human affairs--abstractly, scientifically, impersonally, and instrumentally. The anarchists think this way; the police do, too; and so do the government officials. Conrad dismisses them all. One person who does not think this way is the secret agent's brother in law Stevie who seems to be the pauper version of Dostoevsky's Idiot Prince Myshkin. Verloc's wife, Stevie's sister, Winnie answer's her brother's question about the police with the simplicity and honesty Stevie's nature required "Don't you know what the police are for, Stevie? They are there so that them as have nothing shouldn't take anything away from them who have." In a scene straight out of Nietzsche and Dostoevsky Stevie refuses to ride in a cab because of the horse being whipped to pull them. When the Cabman explains that he is trying to feed his poor children the empathy in Stevie's heart explodes like a bomb within him engendering feeling for the horse, cabman, and his children. "The monstrous nature of that declaration of paternity seemed to strike the world dumb. A silence reigned, during which the flanks of the old horse, the steed of apocalyptic misery, smoked upwards in the light of the charitable gas-lamp." He verbalizes his feelings telling us "Bad world for poor people". In Stevie's mind and heart "To be taken into a bed of compassion was the supreme remedy" Verloc, the secret agent, manipulates Stevie's heart to involve him in his terror scheme which results in disaster. In the future whenever I am about to be less than compassionate I hope to remember Stevie.