Customer Reviews

The Secret Agent

5 star:		(44)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

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.

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.

This is a grim, gritty, cynical tale set in the world of the anarchists and secret agents around the start of the 20th century. There are no blind romantics, no overwhelming causes, and no anarchistic politics. As is often the case with Conrad, this is a story about people, people in an exotic world.

The setting is London, the crime an attempt to blow up the Greenwich Observatory. The motives are far from pure: money, careerism, hack value, a peaceful mind. Mrs. Verloc, an anarchist's wife, is at the center of the tale. As Conrad tells us, and shows us repeatedly, she is not a woman to look beneath the surface of things, but she is a woman of some depth.

The story is sad. It is a tragedy, and the ending seems inevitable given the players Conrad has set in motion. This is probably appropriate given the subject matter.

The writing is excellent. The tale is well told. I would have given it a full five stars save for the sheer grimness of the tale. If you are a reader who gives extra points to depressing stories, you should consider this ranking a five.

At the end of the novel Comrade Ossipon says, "An impenetrable mystery...this act of madness or despair." He is thinking about what Winnie has done. He cannot fathom it. The novel is unfathomable too; dense, twisting, sordid, ironic. There are some great scenes in this book. At the end, Verloc thinks Winnie truly loves him when in fact she doesn't, and never has; she had always loved the butcher. The horse scene where Stevie pets the old mistreated horse also comes to mind.

The only character Conrad has sympathy for is Stevie, and he gets blown to bits. Stevie is the only one who can truly show love. Ironically, he's mentally retarded. Everyone else is manipulative and calculating.

The book was published in 1906, some 50 or so years after Das Capital, The Communist Manifesto, etc. were published. Europe was swarming with "revolutionists" and "anarchists." Journalists were writing about "the people" and "the masses" and "social justice." Conrad was no dummy. He analyzed what was going on around him in England, France, Germany, etc., then he wrote this book as an "answer" to the socialists, anarchists. This is probably one of the most supremely ironical novels ever written. Stevie's demise is meaningless; there is absolutely no sense or purpose to it. The anarchist world in the novel is meaningless, peopled by sordid, parasitic rabble-rousers and journalists. Even Heat, the Assistant Commissioner, Sir Ethelred, the Assistant Commissioner's wife, the lady patroness, the "good side"--none of them without guilt. They too are schemers, calculating their social advancement. Like a coin, they are just the flip side of the socialits'. The whole society is corrupt, socialist and police alike. In repugnance, Conrad just blows up the whole damn mess. And how ironically does he do it! He blows up the only redeeming thing in that society, a retarded boy who loves without calculation, who goes into emotional fits when witnessing any gratuitous cruelty--cruelty even shown to animals. Dark novel. Great book!

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

Joseph Conrad's novel "The Secret Agent" is referred to in many places as the prototype of today's political and espionage thrillers. Except that it's not really much of a political thriller at all. The agent of the title, Mr. Verloc, has grown complacent in his role as an informant to a foreign embassy in London and is pressured by his superiors into pulling off a shocking act of terrorism in order to prove his worth to his colleagues. The novel is mostly about the domestic repercussions that occur when things go badly wrong.

This novel effectively toys with the reader's expectations, but it does so in a somewhat dubious way. Conrad introduces several characters and sets the stage for what appears to be a thriller with political overtones: several people have a vested interest (personally or politically) in the outcome of Mr. Verloc's actions. However, none of these characters ends up being of any importance, and nearly all of them drop out of the narrative altogether. The novel ends up being much more about Mrs. Verloc than it does about anyone else (including Mr. Verloc). This effectively pulls the rug out from under the reader's feet, but I would have received more satisfaction if Conrad had been able to keep suspense alive while still juggling a larger cast of characters. Maybe I should have been ready for this narrative sleight of hand, given the novel's subtitle, "A Simple Tale," but as it was the novel didn't take focus until it was 3/4 over and by that time too late for me to shift my sympathies.

What the novel does well, however, is to give its reader a deliciously tangible sense of the seedy underworld at play in late 19th-century London. Conrad personifies the mist, funk and squalor of London until the city itself nearly becomes a character in the action. Also, for anyone who maybe knows Conrad for being an obtuse, thick writer (especially if your previous knowledge of him comes from reading "Heart of Darkness" and "Lord Jim"), "The Secret Agent" is refreshingly straight forward.

I don't want to in any way be condescending, either to those who will read this review, or to those marvelous writers who have gone before, but I do think modern readers do not always approach older writing in the proper frame of mind. We need to remember that the only mass entertainment they had was novels, and the pace, because that's all there was in those days, is understandably slower. What modern writers would dismiss in a line or two might take a page or more for people like Conrad and Dickens. But, oh my, the places you can go, if you just consent to be seated in one of those old-time carriages!

THE SECRET AGENT is certainly a case in point. Like all Conrad--for my tastes, at least--he was a bit difficult to read in places. Conrad really loaded up a sentence. But when he's on his form, he writes some of the best sentences ever crafted in English Literature.

Other reviewers have given many of the plot points, so I won't repeat them here. Let me just say that I just finished reading the novel last night, and many of those images are still with me--epecially those in the last section of the novel.

It was tough sledding in the beginning. Quite frankly, I found myself wondering why some consider this novel to be one of Conrad's finest, but there were enough of Conrad's marvelous sentences to keep me in the book. Then I got to the part where Winnie learned of her brother Stevie's fate, and Mr. Verloc's role in it, Verloc being Winnie's husband. From then to the end of the book it was a ride in a rocket! Conrad's depiction of Winnie's feelings, culminating in her own ghastly actions, must surely rank among the very finest scenes in literature. It was just astounding, especially when one considers that Conrad wrote at a time when women's thoughts and feelings were considered trivial, if they were thought of at all. But those passages that revolved around Winnie's reaction to Stevie's death could have been written yesterday, in the sense of getting down to how a woman in her place would feel. As for the sentences... well, only the masters wrote at that level, and Joseph Conrad is certainly one of these.

If you're one of those avid readers who takes the time to read reviews like this, read THE SECRET AGENT. You won't be sorry you did.

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.

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

It is amazing how well this terribly story fits into nowadays reality. Terrorism, with all its hideous irrationality and contradictions is masterly depicted by Conrad. And so is human nature. Every single character is treated here as the center of his/her own universe, which results in wonderful psychological creations. From the very Mr Verloc -the secret agent- to an apparently insignificant cabman, all of them are given here the opportunity of redemption, since they are so humanly feeble. The author reaches this goal by arriving at numerous standstills where action seems to be suspended in the air while characters are sunk in deep reflection -or else are aided by Conrad's voice on account of their difficulties to express themselves.

The whole story is encircled in a gloomy atmosphere that turns to be very difficult to escape from. It starts with Mr Verloc's visit to "the embassy" where he is assigned a mission to "justify" his work as secret agent. Being scornfully treated, he finds himself involved in a plot that leads him to take actions he would have never think of...wouldn't he...? Thus, his initial attempt to blow up the Greenwich observatory ends up in a dreadful tragedy whose unspeakable consequences had not been meant by his author.

Although not easy to follow for the non-native reader, which is my case, this appalling and great story is really worthwhile. I am glad I have made the effort.