[ book tip by David McMahon ] The Secret Agent is subtitled 'A Simple Tale', but it's far from that. It's a remarkable book, and not just because English was only Conrad's third language.

Verloc, the owner of a dirty book shop in late nineteenth-century London, is secretly in the pay of a Great Power's Embassy. Instructed to carry out an anarchist outrage to provoke the British government into more repressive measures against dissidents, he and his simple-minded brother-in-law Stevie attempt to bomb the Greenwich Observatory. The plot goes disastrously wrong, with fateful consequences for not only Verloc, his wife and his co-conspirators, but also the police, the Embassy, politicians and high society.

The story is entertaining, with countless plot twists and a strong undercurrent of farce reminiscent of Tom Sharpe. But it's also profoundly gloomy. Conrad paints a starkly bleak picture of society. Almost all his characters are ugly in some measure, many of them caricatures – the failed medical student who spouts pseudo-scientific nonsense, the aged, bald self-styled 'terrorist' whose toothlessness is metaphorical as well as real. And all, from the Cabinet Minister down to poor Stevie, are trapped in absurd circumstances by their own mediocrity.

In the midst of this futile existence you might expect Conrad to sympathise with those who show contempt for it. On the contrary; the misanthropic explosives expert, the Professor, is every bit as sterile as the society he loathes so much. But even when Verloc's wife Winnie has freedom within her grasp, she fails through her own lack of will and the cowardice and bad faith of the man she is relying on.

With the rise in global terrorism, reams have been written about the banality of terror. You could try and read it all. Or you could do yourself a favour and read The Secret Agent instead.

[ Favourite quote ] 'And the incorruptible Professor walked too, averting his eyes from the odious multitude of mankind. He had no future. He disdained it. He was a force. His thoughts caressed the images of ruin and destruction. He walked frail, insignificant, shabby, miserable – and terrible in the simplicity of his idea calling madness and despair to the regeneration of the world. Nobody looked at him. He passed on unsuspected and deadly, like a pest in the street full of men.'

[ book info ] Conrad, Joseph: The Secret Agent. A Simple Tale. (original language: English) Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008 (1907). ISBN: 978-0-19-953635-1.