Rating: 
Summary: riveting
Review: The secret agent of the title is not a character you can root for but merely pity, as his rather bland vanity sets in motion not only a shocking tragedy but his own downfall as well. The disharmony right below the surface of his fragile, awkward family life finally explodes right about the time he sends his frail mother off to live by herself; the even bigger plot explosion to follow becomes a catalyst for the rest of the story's major events. Conrad's narrative style is often so dense you may lose track of what's going on, but you never lose track of the finely etched characters, whose motives here all cross paths over the same sad (and ultimately pointless) episode. Patient readers will be lulled into a heartbreaking tale whose story elements eerily parallel the terrorist schemes of today. But then again, terrorism isn't exactly a modern day nightmare. (It's been going on throughout history.) Overall, the heavy, thick writing magicially gives way to some very memorable and forlorn people, who never do get to realize their dreams. The clash of law and lawlessness, morality and indifference, and love and family loyalty, feature strongly on practically every page.
Rating: 
Summary: The Secret Agent, the book with mroe twists than a twisler
Review: The Secret Agent, the novel with more twists than a twisler. In Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent, there is lots of complex language. "The utter unexpectedness, improbability, and inconceivableness of such an event robbed this vague declaration of all its effects." This is typically how the book is written. There are extreme amounts of description, and it has an extensive vocabulary within the pages of this novel. The language has a way to catch your eye and make you think. All the characters match well into their setting, and the plot twists them into each other. Although it is so hard to, this book is worth reading.
Mr.Verloc, the protagonist, is a man who lives two lives. He is in one life a lazy husband who owns a pornography store and has to support a family. His other life, believe it or not, is even more twisted. In his other life he is a secret agent for the British CIA. There is lots of love, trust, unfaithfulness, and traitors. Mr. Verloc is double crossed and must fight for his life and to gain back his respect.
The Secret Agent is a very complex book. It can change your perspective with just the turn of a page. Basically, the secret agent, Mr.Verloc fakes his death and has politics and enemies mixed with allies to deal with. Several problems arise for him in the book but he manages to work around them.
Joseph Conrad writes very complex, has a limitless diction, and uses British terms while writing this book. For Example he says, "in brown trousers and a claw hammer coat." Instead of saying straight cut coat. Claw hammer" is a originally facetious way of saying straight cut coat. This novel will make you think and will not simply tell you what happens. He also says, "Like a galley slave's bullet," Instead of saying cannonball. This is a kind of book that will not tell you something but will infer it, and you have to interpret the words.
Mr. Conrad does a good job describing his characters. He paints a great picture of each character. "His eyes were naturally heavy; he had an air of having wallowed fully dressed in an unmade bed," is how he describes Mr. Verloc. Winnie Verloc was described as, "a young woman with a full bust, in a tight bodice, with broad hips. Her hair was very tidy. Steady eyed like her husband, she preserved an air of unfathomable indifference behind the rampant counter." Within these few sentences he tells you her personality and her physical features and you feel as if you almost know her.
Another thing he does well is relate each character's features to their surroundings. Mr. Verloc is pictured as almost dirty with wrinkly clothes and like he has many things he can fix about himself but he chooses not to. His house consequently is described as, "one of those grimy brick houses which existed in large quantities before the era of reconstruction dawned on London." This fits Mr. Verloc's personality because he is a grimy man who exists in large quantities in London. He is the type of man who is lazy and unfortunately very regular in London.
Joseph Conrad is a great author, though very hard to read. His books make you think with every turn of a page and his characters create the most unpredictable circumstances, and act strange when taken out of their own comfort area. This book is good as long as you've got lots of time to think and it is also a book you must read more than once.
Rating: 
Summary: entertaining and absorbing on multiple levels--NOT difficult
Review: This novel can be read as a psychological character study, as a political critique, or as a thriller. Each way it is thoroughly satisfying. Although it was written in 1904, its political premise closely parallels the situation the United States has been in since September 11, 2001. The ethically dubious "anti-terrorist" tactics of the foreign embassy that protagonist Verloc works for are essentially the "anti-terrorist" tactics of a certain 21st-century un-elected American president. This novel has twice been adapted into film, by the bye. There is a bowdlerized, squeamish, and ineffectual 1937 Alfred Hitchcock version, and there is a faithful and brilliant 1996 version starring Bob Hoskins, Patricia Arquette, Gerard Depardieu, and Robin Williams with music by Philip Glass. Re: "If you examine his sentences, he [Joseph Conrad] is without question, along with Theodore Dreiser, perhaps the worst constructor of sentences in the English language." Presumably, the author of this remark is not familiar with the works of pulp science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, for example, and has perhaps read no other newspaper but the New York Times for the past decade. In any case, I found "The Secret Agent" particularly well written, evocative, and easy to read. There were only three sentences in the entire novel that struck me as awkward, confusing, or unidiomatic. The one I remember is a line of dialogue: "Have you been waiting long here?" A 21st-century American would say, "Have you been waiting here long?". Possibly I've caught Conrad thinking in his native Polish here (or in his here native Polish), but for aught I know a Englishman in 1904 would have put it as Conrad has his character put it. In any case, the solecism, if solecism it be, is easily forgiven.
Rating:
Summary: Best enjoyed if you keep focussed while reading it.
Review: This novel is truly both what Conrad subtitles "A Simple Story," and quite a hard nut to crack. Not having read any of Conrad's other, more famous works, I have nothing to compare The Secret Agent to, but I would say that it proved in my own mind that the man is a master of revealing human emotions and motivations. There isn't a single character, however insignifigant they may seem to the story itself, who is not fully developed, from the Assistant Commissioner of Police to Toodles the Secretary to Winnie Verloc, to the intensly creepy "Professor." Nor was this merely description tacked onto the plot; indeed, it took precendence over the plot and became my purpose for continuing to read the book. For the story is simple, and not overly meaninglful.
I will say that Conrad's prose occasionally slowed me down. Once into the middle of a chapter or a conversation I had no problems, but the beginning of each chapter, especially the early ones, was extremely confusing, and had to be suffered through before the books strengths were revealed.
|
