Rating: 
Summary: So slow! It's so descriptive that I fell asleep
Review: This book is so descriptive that you would fall asleep reading. Everything drags on and on. As a high school student, I wouldn't recommend it. Even though my teacher taught me not to judge a book that has been admired by people for more than a century, Im gonna say it; It's so boring!!!
Rating:
Summary: Terrible! The book is so slow, and it drags on and on.
Review: I was taught not to judge a book that has been a top literature for the last century. There must be something everybody else find that I don't. But I read this book as a group for a literature class. The book was so descriptive, everything juss drags on and on. I fell asleep a couple times. I totally don't recommend this! None of my group member would either. Save yourself sometimes reading better books!
Rating: 
Summary: Conrad's genius in short form
Review: It strikes me as absurd that anyone could find this novel as anything less than brilliant. Conrad gives us at least seven wonderfully drawn, human characters drawn together in a plot that seethes with moral contradictions in a book that is less than 250 pages long. There are many praised novelists that blather on twice as long and say far less (like Ayn Rand, for instance).The other criticism voiced here is that his language is tangled and he describes too much. Yes, his language takes some getting used to, but remember he was writing for an age without TV. Moreover, his descriptions are more precise than people give him credit for. That precision is part of what makes his characters so human. This book was on the Modern Library's 100 best novels of the 20th century and deserved so. Give it a chance, read it carefully and you'll find a wonderful book about the human condition.
Rating:
Summary: The term "intrigue" actually means something here
Review: Tired of the cookie-cutter characters and ridiculous dialogue in Grisham and Clancy? Bewildered by their almost complete ignorance of human psychology? This book is the elixir you need, pitting terrorists against state tyrants in turn-of-the-century London. It is suspense that slowly turns inward, from the impersonality of national ideological battles to the intimate horror of a woman slowly discovering her husband's second life. Enjoy, too, many of Conrad's great obsessions: the "bombs" that initiate a historical record; the dispersal of human agency; the wisdom of suspended contradiction.
Rating:
Summary: Bitterly, brilliantly funny
Review: The thing that so many people seem to miss about The Secret Agent is the humor. In all the discussions about it's effect on other novels, social relevance, worrying comments on the human condition etc., the fact that this is actually still a very funny book seems to get lost. Conrad manages to sustain a deeply ironic tone throughout the book, but the fact that he never seems to crack a smile at his characters' stupidities doesn't mean that you shouldn't.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing!
Review: Ok, honestly i bought this book because it was a short book by a classic english author (a requirement for my english class.) But once i started the book I loved it. I loved conrad's view of humanity. And the plot was great. And once i got started I found the book remarkably easy to read.
Rating: 
Summary: tough at first, but worth it
Review: to prove that high school and college students are capable of enjoying great works of literature: i read this book in for a high school class and loved it. granted, i hated it until the last 2 chapters, but then everything came clicking into place for me and i adored it. this is a book that needs to be read slowly and discussed frequently for maximum enjoyment and understanding. there's so much here about the nature of humanity and morality, if you really think about it. a really, really great book, and i'd suggest it to anyone who's really willing to contemplate the issues.
Rating:
Summary: A dark and nihilistic tale; grim realism at its best
Review: As I read through the "critical" comments of high school and college students who are assigned to read the works of Joseph Conrad then fuss and fume at the very idea of it, I find myself deeply disappointed by their lack of appreciation for the subtleties of great literature. They have little time or patience to devote to an author who provides his readers with so much vivid description, building toward a stunning and inevitable climax. In the "Secret Agent," Conrad points to the frailties of the human condition, the large forces of nature at work that conspire against the simple and downtrodden man trapped by his own cunning devices. Mr. Verloc is a simple, plodding peasant; and just why he embraces the anarchistic cause is never made clear to the reader, but no matter. He is trapped in a sterile nightmarish world where the idealists and the self-proclaimed revolutionaries are as morally bankrupt and empty of human emotion as the system they purport to overthrow. Conrad's characterizations are brilliant. His use of dialog and description, a hallmark of the early twentieth century realists, and the grim ending to this novel is a masterpiece of understatement. It is too bad that fine old classics of literature like this one and the more famous Conrad novella "The Heart of Darkness" must be subjected to the vapidity and sophomoric opinions of a generation of students weaned on MTV, the Simpsons, and thirty-second TV soundbytes.
Rating: 
Summary: Details galore
Review: Conrad's book has a very good idea and I respect that. However throughout the book Conrad insists on describing things with twenty adjectives or more. His descriptive nature turns readers off and for any college student as I am I would rather spend my time numbing my brain with chemicals. However the book is a thriller and it is a book with many issues that are prevalent in today's corrupt society.
Rating:
Summary: bad
Review: don't read it..ok
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