The Secret Agent

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: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Dark humor and a bleak prescience
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: The Secret Agent
Review: Joseph Conrad's 1907 novel, "The Secret Agent," is a difficult little book. It's story is difficult and its characters are largely unpleasant. By difficult and unpleasant, I don't mean to say the novel isn't any good. Far from it. These terms I mean to denote the impenetrability of motive, of sense. The story of a group of anarchists, police, and a family caught in the middle in late Victorian England, "The Secret Agent" is far from Conrad's subtitle, "A Simple Tale". The novel, for me, is about hatred, mistrust, and breakdowns in communication.

"The Secret Agent" begins early one morning in 1886. Mr. Verloc, a secret agent for a foreign embassy, who lives in a small apartment with his wife Winnie, her mentally ill brother, Stevie, and their mother. Keeping an eye on a particularly ineffectual anarchist community in London, Verloc pretends to be an anarchist revolutionary himself. As the novel opens, Verloc is called in by his new employer Mr. Vladimir. Vladimir, discontented with the apparent lack of production out of his secret agent, and even further with the lackadaisical English police, wants Verloc to act as an agent provocateur, and arrange for a bomb to spur the English government to crack down on the legal system. As religion and royalty are, according to Vladimir, no longer strong enough emotional ties to the people, an attack must be made upon "Science," and he selects the Greenwich Observatory as the appropriate site for action.

The novel introduces us to a range of wholly unsympathetic characters. The anarchist collective roughly consists of "Doctor" Ossipan, who lives off his romantic attachments to women barely able to take care of themselves; "The Professor," explosives expert, who is so insecure, he is perpetually wired with a detonator in case he is threatened by police capture; and Michaelis, the corpulent writer, engaged upon his autobiography after a mitigated sentence in prison. Conrad's portrayal of this cabal is wholly ludicrous - a band of anarchists that are better at talking than doing anything to achieve their undeveloped goals. No better than these are their nemeses, the London police, here represented by Inspector Heat, who identifies so much with the common criminal element, you'd think he was one himself; and the Assistant Commissioner, who is so dissatisfied with his desk job, that he would do anything to get out on the streets - but not so ambitious as to upset his nagging wife and her social circle.

At the diffuse center, if it has one, of Conrad's novel, is the Verloc family, held together by ties no less tenuous and flimsy than any other community in the work. Verloc and his wife communicate and interact by monosyllables and the broken bell of their front door. Winnie Verloc knows nothing of her husband's secret life, and tries desperately to prevent him from taking offence at having to support her infirmed mother and practically useless brother by forming a society of admiration amongst them for her "good" husband. Lack of real communication and sympathy amongst the Verloc household is at the heart of Conrad's satire against late Victorian England.

As the Greenwich Bomb Outrage is an early, but central moment in the novel, it would not be spoiling anything to tell you that this is where Conrad really earns his paycheck. His mode of bringing all the disparate characters and subplots of the novel together throughout the rest of the book is both reminiscent of and radically undercutting the influence of Charles Dickens in Conrad's social critique. "The Secret Agent" is a clever novel, but exceptionally bleak. Thinking about other early 1900's British novels like Samuel Butler's "The Way of All Flesh" or Virginia Woolf's "To the Lighthouse," Conrad's "The Secret Agent" is another of these works where a British writer tries to assess the state of the Empire in the aftermath of Victoria's demise - examining past follies to be overcome, and peering without optimism at what lies ahead.

Rating:
Summary: Great mixture of intrigue and black humor
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Dark humor and a bleak prescience
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: No Dostoevsky, but close.
Review: Mr Verloc is a 'closet' anarchist and a secret agent. Much of his work to date has been of the sedentary type, until the appearance of the smooth talking Mr Vladimir. Dissatisfied with the lack of action by Mr Verloc, he threatens to fire him if he doesn't do something dramatic soon. The suggestion is to blow up the Greenwich observatory in order to wake the slumbering middle classes.

This causes Mr Verloc weeks of anguish as he tries to figure out how to go about this task. His anguish is so much like that of Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov. (The similarity is not accidental; Conrad was heavily influenced by Dostoevksy's style). He finally manages to find a way out of his predicament and it is here where the plot gets thicker. The final quarter of the book is where the real action is, and the twists and turns aren't as predictable as you first make it out to be.

For those brought up on the quick, descriptive style of the modern novels, Conrad's roundabout way of saying things can get a bit irritating, but then that is what makes a classic right? Whatever your preference, I would recommend this book to those who like a good detective novel with a dose of non-conventional 'philosophy' thrown in.

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: Classic, clean literature
Review: I read this book recently, and I seriously enjoyed the whole experience of reading it. The book, set in London, and based around an attack on the Greenwich Observatory is a fantastic read for those of you who like espionage, moving, exasperating thrillers. The characters, though sometimes eccentric and perhaps, some may say, strange, are realistic to the problems of the early twentieth century, and although the elderly language seldom used today was sometimes hard to tackle, it was a great, magical read. It left me feeling angry with some characters, but also happy that a writer could use twists and turns, and suspense to make a good book a fantastic, gripping novel. If you haven't read it, have a go: you may not enjoy the first part as it mentions hard hitting, truthful, content, but sure enough the sheer thrill of such a book relly is a rollercoaster ride for a reader.

Rating:
Summary: A Contemporarily Relevant Classic
Review: Conrad's The Secret Agent (Don't get excited, I can't underline from my browser...) is the brilliantly written story of the life of an anarchist in England at the turn of the century. Mr. Verlock is an agent for the French embassy in London, yet, at the same time, an activist for an anarchist revolution. Verlock lives with his young wife Winnie and her slightly disabled kid brother Stevie, atop a store on a run down street in London. The plot takes place around 1895, a time when anarchists in England carried out terrorist acts for their cause. Around 1895, Britain considered Anarchists common terrorists. Though most believe that Conrad portrays Verlock as a terrible person, one finds that by following both Verlock, and the investigation into a failed plot to destroy a London observatory, Conrad really displays the ease with which one's beliefs can change into terrorist plots. Thus, Verlock is not really portrayed as such a bad person. This book, especially relevant in today's age of terrorism, a wonderful read, and full of symbolism, will make you think.