The Secret Agent
Joseph Conrad
The next installment in my own personal Great Greenwich Readathon, I was a little nervous of The Secret Agent. I fully expected it to be written in some ancient crusty old style, dry and dusty and only of academic interest.
But there's only one way that books become classics, and as with virtually every classic I've ever read, I found myself drawn in to an intriguing web of ideas, not to mention genres. It was, frankly, easier to read than a kids' book that I'm currently ploughing through in the name of completism.
It's exactly one hundred years old this year - not that anyone else seems to have noticed - yet the themes of politics, terrorism and personal grief are as fresh now as ever. Even the concept of someone wanting to deliberately harm a great Greenwich monument isn't entirely far-fetched given the context of last Monday's events...
This was written at the very beginning of the genre novel when the rules of such things hadn't solidified, and if you try to pigeonhole at it as such, you'll find yourself tied in knots. What is it? A police procedural? Political satire? A straight tale of espionage? A thriller? Surely not a comedy? There are elements of all of these, but Conrad himself describes it as "a simple tale." I would argue that ultimately it's really about human frailty - the things we do for others - consciously or otherwise - and the real effect they have on those around us. It is a story of consequences and repercussions.
Set in London, around a dirty bookshop in Soho, the plot is centered on a real-life "anarchist" attempt to blow up Greenwich Observatory. Conrad took the news story and created a fiction around it, treading an unsettling path between what really happened and his own interpretations, intriguingly cynical for the times. In one of my favourite scenes, the sinister Mr Vladimir from an unnamed embassy, coolly reflecting on the best target for a terrorist attack, dismisses in turn a church, restaurants, theatres and art as not actually being horrific enough. He talks about targets the way a modern advertising exec might consider the best place to put a hoarding, with a clinical knowledge of what would really get to the core beliefs of each social class.
There are wonderful references to the area - the would-be terrorists get off at Maze Hill Station, and one of them escapes via the now-defunct Greenwich Park Station, but not without being spotted by the keeper of the Lodge at King William Gate (now the Cow and Coffee Bean Cafe.) But to just use this as an historic document would be a shame. Conrad's writing rises above mere pot-boiler. There is something of Dickens in it - hardly surprising, he was a great fan, but it has an almost modern feel too. The futility of misplaced trust and ultimately pointless sacrifice on the part of several of the characters is told simply enough, but has a resonance that speaks today.
The next installment in my own personal Great Greenwich Readathon, I was a little nervous of The Secret Agent. I fully expected it to be written in some ancient crusty old style, dry and dusty and only of academic interest.
But there's only one way that books become classics, and as with virtually every classic I've ever read, I found myself drawn in to an intriguing web of ideas, not to mention genres. It was, frankly, easier to read than a kids' book that I'm currently ploughing through in the name of completism.
It's exactly one hundred years old this year - not that anyone else seems to have noticed - yet the themes of politics, terrorism and personal grief are as fresh now as ever. Even the concept of someone wanting to deliberately harm a great Greenwich monument isn't entirely far-fetched given the context of last Monday's events...
This was written at the very beginning of the genre novel when the rules of such things hadn't solidified, and if you try to pigeonhole at it as such, you'll find yourself tied in knots. What is it? A police procedural? Political satire? A straight tale of espionage? A thriller? Surely not a comedy? There are elements of all of these, but Conrad himself describes it as "a simple tale." I would argue that ultimately it's really about human frailty - the things we do for others - consciously or otherwise - and the real effect they have on those around us. It is a story of consequences and repercussions.
Set in London, around a dirty bookshop in Soho, the plot is centered on a real-life "anarchist" attempt to blow up Greenwich Observatory. Conrad took the news story and created a fiction around it, treading an unsettling path between what really happened and his own interpretations, intriguingly cynical for the times. In one of my favourite scenes, the sinister Mr Vladimir from an unnamed embassy, coolly reflecting on the best target for a terrorist attack, dismisses in turn a church, restaurants, theatres and art as not actually being horrific enough. He talks about targets the way a modern advertising exec might consider the best place to put a hoarding, with a clinical knowledge of what would really get to the core beliefs of each social class.
There are wonderful references to the area - the would-be terrorists get off at Maze Hill Station, and one of them escapes via the now-defunct Greenwich Park Station, but not without being spotted by the keeper of the Lodge at King William Gate (now the Cow and Coffee Bean Cafe.) But to just use this as an historic document would be a shame. Conrad's writing rises above mere pot-boiler. There is something of Dickens in it - hardly surprising, he was a great fan, but it has an almost modern feel too. The futility of misplaced trust and ultimately pointless sacrifice on the part of several of the characters is told simply enough, but has a resonance that speaks today.
posted by The Greenwich Phantom at
08:55
7 Comments:
Conrad is the real chronicler of our times and fully understood the thinking of “mindless” terrorism better than we do today. Personally I think the Cutty Sark was an inside job. On another note I would note bother watching property ladder, I to was excited at my beloved Greenwich being profiled, but it could have been anywhere, there was a couple of shots of the Naval college and the rest of it on the smug developers and their over ambition. Great blog BTW
Aw gee, thanks. Personally I don't think it was anything more sinister than an accident. We are too keen to think that there is someone to blame for everything these days. Sometimes bad stuff happnes.
Basically I was just enjoying myself with some Conradian symbolism...
you probally have read it but Charles Jennings Greenwich book is excellent with refreshing look at the dome in the last chapter.
I mean to come to Jennings's book at some point. I personally am in two minds about it. It has a lot of really great information and his style is wry, but every so often I tend to think perhaps just a little too wry for my taste. I sometimes wonder whether he actually likes the place - or whether it was just another commission. It does improve on subsequent readings, perhaps once one's used to his style, but I am not 100% convinced. I will just have to read it once again, just to be sure... ;-)
I seem to remember that a few years ago the BBC filmed The Secret Agent during the time when the observatory was being renovated. Rather than wait for the work to finish they build a full-size outline of the observatory sited next to the original. Sounds bizarre now I think of it.
There was a movie version of The Secret Agent which aired on the BBC about a year ago. It had a very impressive cast but I have to say it was a bit of a Turkey. As for location shots, don't blink, you'd miss them. I'll have to get hold of the book, on the subject of which Mo Hayters "Birdman" is set in Greenwich, an excellent read , but gruesome with it.
Fantastic. I'm running low on Greenwich books - I only have about 4 novels to go before I'm stuck with Herberts "The Rats" so I'll deffo check this one out.
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