The Secret Agent

The Secret Agent
by Joseph Conrad
read: 2011
Modern Library #46, Guardian 1000 Novels

I read The Secret Agent around Christmas last year, a bit more recently than Heart of Darkness.  I want to like Conrad more than I do; he plays in the realms of moral ambiguity, which I've been known to appreciate.  The protagonist Verloc exploits his mentally challenged brother-in-law Stevie to commit a terrorist act, but he is caught between forces outside of his control.  The exploitation is odious but stems partially from a moral inability to commit such a horrific act personally.  Ultimately Verloc only wants to run his modest shop and live out a quiet life with his wife.  Conrad portrays the tension between Verloc and his wife less as a result of a failure on the part and either of them and more as a tragic misunderstanding that exists between all people.  There are great themes in the story, complex and universal.

Despite that, The Secret Agent left me a little bit cold.  The characters feel empty.  Part of that is no doubt deliberate on Conrad's part, as he portrays the aloofness that exists even between man and wife, but it makes the moral dilemmas and serious choices the characters have to make less compelling.  Ambiguity is great, but too often when reading The Secret Agent my feelings strayed more to indifference.