The Secret Agent

In this world of modern day spying, Joseph Conrad's spy story, The Secret Agent, is very pertinent. It deals with the over reaching influence of politics in everyday life, the sordid underbelly that lies beneath our civilization's sophisticated veneer, the strange persuasive power of anarchy, unbridled capitalism and its tragic consequences and the scourge of terrorism, exploitation and espionage. In an uncannily prophetic plot, The Secret Agent portrays a sinister scheme to bomb the famous Greenwich Observatory in London. Mr. Adolf Verloc is a lazy, indolent shopkeeper (who had “an air of having wallowed all day fully dressed in an unmade bed”) and owns a tiny establishment in a dingy back street in Soho. The store which sells a variety of merchandise, including “dirty pictures” contraceptives, patent medicines, cheap stationery and the like is merely a front for his real activities.