The Secret Agent
I thought that this would be an intellectually challenging read but in my view it's a novel with an interesting plot but spoilt by lazy caricatures with even the plot let down by being lazily finished. Conrad seemingly dislikes anarchists and paints them all as short ugly lazy fat revolutionaries who obviously have psychological problems. The only intellectual effort was in looking up the odd long and obscure word but I stopped doing that when one on-line definition pointed out that the word was very seldom used except by Conrad. Maybe instead of thinking up obscure words the efforts should have been put into the plot development. Apart from my vocabulary challenges this was an easy read and the last two chapters sort of redeemed the book. It was a bit like reading a Hammer House of Horrors plot. Shadows of knives indeed! Maybe back when written in the early part of last century it didn't seem to be so hackneyed but other great authors managed to avoid poor plots and characters. I picked this up in a Books for Free shop (healthyplanet.org) and it was a Penguin "Modern" Classic (my quotes) printed in the mid 1950's with a 3/6 price tag. Anyone under 50 will need to look up that currency notation. Not sure I'll rush off to read his other classics even if for free...
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