My first read for the Through The Decades Reading Challenge is a novel I have been meaning to reread for ages.  I enjoyed it as a teen – how does it fare now I’m at the wrong end of my forties?

Very well, indeed, as it happens.  

It’s not a thriller in the modern sense for the lens is not focused on the derring-do of spies and terrorists. It’s an examination of the fallout of a terrorist act gone badly wrong.  More I cannot say without spoiling what is actually an intriguing and horrifying set of circumstances.    And though the title points to Mr Verloc, The Secret Agent, as the prime character, the story is really that of his wife, Winnie.  And what an emotional rollercoaster that turns out to be. 

Winnie and her dim-witted brother, Stevie, are the only characters painted positively in Conrad’s novel.  The Victorian anarchists are a bunch of immoral and incompetent ne’er-do-wells; their outer appearance as repulsive as their morals.  Yet the world in which they operate is quite often as amoral.  The halos of embassy officials and the police force have slipped also.  Thus the novel retains its currency for a contemporary audience.

The core of the novel lies in the examination of the relationship between Mr and Mrs Verloc -  a marriage of convenience for both.  Verloc marries Winnie to give himself an edge of respectability and a front for his activities.  Winnie marries him to provide a safe-haven for her brother and doesn’t look too closely at her husband’s habits, preferring to turn a blind eye to his unsavoury associates.  Neither does she tell him of everything she does.  The arrangement works well enough for 7 years, when the unravelling begins ….

Much is made of Conrad’s use of complex sentences with unwieldy vocabulary.  Fortunately the plot is such that the pages turn themselves at times.  I was particularly engrossed in the final scene between Verloc and Winnie. They are at complete cross-purpose.  The damage is done and yet Verloc’s self-confidence remains undented.  Winnie is his wife.  Ergo she is fond of him.  Yet she does not seek solace in his arms.  Verloc “was disappointed.  There was that within him which would have been more satisfied if she had been moved to throw herself upon his breast.  But he was generous and indulgent.  Winnie was always undemonstrative and silent.  Neither was Mr Verloc himself prodigal of endearments and words as a rule.  But this was not an ordinary evening.  It was an occasion when a man wants to be fortified and strengthened by open proofs of sympathy and affection.  Mr Verloc sighed and put out the gas in the kitchen.  Mr Verloc’s sympathy with his wife was genuine and intense.”  And, it must be said, fake at the same time.  For Verloc simply doesn’t understand his wife’s viewpoint. The reader does. In the same scene Conrad dissects Winnie’s mental state with real sympathy and acute psychological insight. While  Verloc’s incomprehension and self-justifications make Winnie’s blood boil,  the reader is laughing at his bumbling idiocy.

Conrad, writing in his 3^rd (!) language, has other stylistic tricks up his sleeve, including tight control of the timeframe.  The identity of one key figure remains hidden, revealed only to the reader as it is revealed to the characters.  Thus are the suspense and the horror magnified.

Final Analysis:  I’m really pleased I revisited this novel, which is now confirmed as one of my favourites.

Here's a quick update on my progress with the LiveJournal 50 Book Challenge / 15000 Pages Challenge.

31.  Good Morning, Midnight - Reginald Hill ****
Another excellent title in the Dalziel and Pasco series, which I enjoyed even though I had seen the televised version.  Great humour, clever literary references and Dalziel's blatant contempt of political correctness equals entertainment writ large.

32. Sunset Song - Louis Grassic Gibbon ****
Recently voted the greatest Scottish novel.  It's good ... very, very good, in fact.  More to follow.

33. Day - A L Kennedy **1/2
See review here.

34. When We Were Romans - Matthew Kneale ***
See review here.

35. Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell ***1/2
See review here.

36. The Redbreast - Jo Nesbo ****
Review to follow.

37 Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth *****

See review here.

38 Justin Thyme - Panama Oxridge ***1/2

Review to follow.

39  Double Vision - Pat Barker ***

See review here..

40  Jim Crace - The Pesthouse ***1/2 - ****

Review to follow.

50bookchallenge 

40 / 50 (80.0%)

14,292 / 15,000 (95.3%)

It has long been an acknowledged fact that  reading book blogs and joining internet discussion fora are not the smartest moves when you are trying to overcome CBPS (chronic book purchasing syndrome).  I had a TBR mountain before I discovered the internet - I now have a mountain range on the scale of the Canadian Rockies.

Trying to read through this backlog of books is a nightmare but I have recently discovered bookblogs hosting reading challenges designed, it would seem, to help me do exactly that.   So, with enthusiasm, I have joined the Book Awards Challenge and (somewhat belatedly) the By The Decades Challenge, titles for which are all coming from the TBR.  I just have to locate the books I'm going to read.  I'll start looking in the pile named Mount Edith Cavell.

26 A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian - Marina Lewcyka 3/5 
Reread for the book group.  I still don't get what all the fuss is about.

27 Stasiland - Anna Funder 5/5 
Fact was stranger than fiction in the former East Germany.  This is a great accompaniment to the recent award-winning film "The Lives of Others".

28 On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan 3/5 
Better than "Saturday" but still way below the standard of "Atonement".  This novella feels like a novel McEwan couldn't be bothered completing.

29 The Royal Game - Stefan Zweig 4/5 
Other editions call this "Chess".  Another riveting read by Zweig.  I've now determined to read anything I can get my hands on.  His novel "Beware of Pity" will probably be my next Zweig title.

30 A Spy by Nature - Charles Cumming 3/5
Promising debut novel by an author touted as the next Le Carre.  Industrial espionage, it seems, is as dangerous as spying during the Cold War ever was.  I will be reading the follow-up "The Hidden Man" very soon.

50bookchallenge

29 / 50 (58.0%)

15000 page challenge

Plus 2 audio books 
Death Jest's Book - Reginald Hill
Flesh and Blood - John Harvey

9,756 / 15,000 (65.0%)