The Readable Classic: The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad

Students are faced with a dilemma: how, when constrained by the imposing intellectual monoliths that are prescribed reading lists, to read purely for the sake of pleasure.

With the prospect of reading the monstrous Moby Dick or the seemingly endless Das Kapital by 2:15 on Thursday, reading more seems impossible. That isn't to say required reading can't be enjoyable, but for many of us it was the sheer pleasure and escapism of reading that inspired us to apply to York in the first place. Deadlines, essays and lectures can make us forget the joy of indulging in a good book.

Simply choosing a book to read can be enough to put us off. Faced with a seemingly limitless selection of books; a readable regiment of imposingly archaic intellectualism and contemporary, popular pulp. Is it possible to read for pleasure yet broaden our literary and cultural scope? It's obvious that reading War and Peace or The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire during an already hectic term-time schedule is, frankly, unrealistic, yet for some of us 'chick-lit' and fantasy fiction hardly present desirable alternatives.

Here's my solution: 'the readable classic'. Just because a novel is published by Penguin Classics or the OUP, doesn't necessarily mean it's unfathomably complex or painfully dry. As well as being pretty well the cheapest books out there, classics can provide stimulating digestible works of satire and great artistic beauty. So park yourself on the sofa with a few hours to spare, brew a cuppa, grab an apple and follow my literary lead with some espionage-orientated escapism...

The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad

Set in the grimy, overpopulated streets of a late Victorian London eerily bedecked by fog and strewn with the seeds of revolution, The Secret Agent is an espionage novel devoid of the glitz and glamour often associated with the genre.

Far from being a Bond-like, independent man of means and sophistication, Mr Verloc, the novel's protagonist, is a seedy, over-weight, middle-aged nobody beset on all sides by forces out of his control. Engaged by a foreign diplomat as a double-agent operating within an anarchist cell, Verloc, a humble shop-keeper by day, must contend simultaneously with the ever mounting pressure of his employer, the almost maniacal zealousness of his anarchist peers, and the everyday constraints and footfalls of domestic life. Inevitably, this all becomes too much for the lowly Verloc, when asked to catalyse the cell into an act of terrorism, he commits an act yet more depraved than even his revolutionary counterparts seem capable.

In a narrative that is constantly shifting, Conrad deceives bluffs and intrigues his readers through 200 magnificently seedy, yet somehow endearing pages.

Loosely based on a failed attack on London by a French anarchist, The Secret Agent provides more than a gripping plot projected onto an interesting historical context. Conrad also packs in a number of sub-themes, including mental-illness, marital issues and adeptly deals with the complex pathology of those willing to die for their cause. The character of Steven for instance, Verloc's brother-in-law and sufferer from mental disabilities, may initially seem out of place in a genre so associated with rapid plots and taut characterisation, but these deviations from expectation are what make this such a genre-defining work. Indeed, the characters derive much of their interest from an almost glorious repulsiveness; a complete lack of pretence.

Released initially without much success, the novel's readership has steadily grown. This gradual swelling of reputation is particularly apparent in contemporary American culture. The Secret Agent was infamously the favourite novel of Theodore Kaczynski or the 'Unabomber', who supposedly identified with the psychopathic bomb-maker 'the Professor'. The novel's appeal has also grown in the post-911 world, as terrorism remains a ubiquitous feature of our socio-political consciousness.

Interested in more books like this one? Try...

• The Heart of Darkness, undoubtedly Conrad's most famous work, intricately weaves the tale of Marlow, a sailor sent to the darkest, unexplored regions of the Congo to rescue Kurt, a talented trader who has gone missing in the heart of the dense and foreboding jungle. This is a novella about colonialism and the fragile nature of man and civilization. It also provided the inspiration for Apocalypse Now, directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

• The Untouchable by John Banville is another, more modern example of an espionage novel with some literary guts, this time of a more philosophical bent. Victor Maskell is an art expert and ex- double-agent, recently outted and trying to cope with his new found infamy. Nostalgic, arrogant, almost existential and certainly nihilistic, Maskell is an intriguing figure set in equally intriguing circumstances.

• The 1996 film The Secret Agent, directed by Christopher Hampton and with an all-star cast including Bob Hoskins, Gerard Depardieu and Robin Williams and based on Conrad's novel has received mixed reviews, but is certainly worth watching purely for William's excellent portrayal of the psychotic professor.

Diggory Dunn will be back with more espionage in the next edition of 'The Readable Classic' in a fortnight...

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