The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad

This is one of those books that you read really fast because of the suspense--you want to see what happens; at the same time, you know you are skimming through some really great writing, so you know you'll want to read the book over, slowly and deliberately. In short, this is a masterpiece.

Verloc is a dealer in light pornography, a trusted member of a rather inept group of anarchists, an occasional snitch to the police, and an undercover spy, reporting the anachists' plans to an unnamed embassy, which orders him to provoke his group to blow up Greenwich Observatory to bring discredit to the movement and to push England to be tougher on its dissenters. This is the stuff of the typical spy thriller, but Conrad takes it so much further.

Delving into the minds of his characters, Conrad reveals a very bleak picture of humankind: they are not even totally villainous, but only petty, self-seeking, casually corrupt, and, more often than not, capable of hiding their true motivations even from themselves. The London of his story is also bleak, dark, wet, unwholesome. Sounds pretty depressing, right? But it seems very real. This is not a good guys versus bad guys, happily-ever-after kind of book.

The genius of the novel lies in Conrad's ability to convey a characterization indirectly. He says of Verloc, "...he had an air of having wallowed, fully dressed, all day on an unmade bed," and, "Mr. Vorlec extended as much recognition to Stevie (his wife's retarded brother) as a man not particularly fond of animals may give to his wife's beloved cat...." Every character in the book is revealed in a similar manner, and their thoughts are conveyed in such a way that the reader can understand more about the character than he does himself.

So Conrad combines a suspenseful political spy plot with a psychological study of an unsavory London underworld, and he comes up with a masterpiece. I am sure Graham Greene must have been inspired by it, as some of his books are very similar in tone and method.

Although I have loved other Conrad novels, I had never read this one before. It is #46 on the Modern Library Top 100. I believe it should be listed much higher, certainly higher than The Golden Bowl.