The Secret Agent

My thoughts on: The Secret Agent

A few opinions.                                 from: The Secret Agent                 by: Joseph Conrad

                If I had to describe how I felt about the book the Secret Agent in just a word or maybe two, it would be mind-numbing. I could use slow, or drab, or tedious; but mind-numbing has somewhat of a more accurate approach to how I felt about the book. It refers to the style: the overly complicated sentences that make speed reading next to impossible. It refers to the plot: the fact that a sequence of events can be delayed in happening for so long, that, the intensity of the scene, the moment you have been waiting for is delayed out still, even longer, and the entire intensity of the scene is nearly lost in the process. The process being: the unfolding or over revealing of the here and now. It refers to the deep description of setting, how the trivial matters, like the color of a lamp or a patch of dirt on a wall, can somehow or another drag on for paragraphs on end. These are the inconsequential instances as to why I refer to the story as mind-numbing. However, I also choose this word in particular because it has somewhat of a chilling effect to it. That is exactly how I felt during particular parts in the story. For instance, the last part of the book (the part where Winnie, in my opinion, nearly loses her mind.)-That part, in itself, is what I would call a mind-numbing scene. I just remember putting down the book after I was done reading, and being like, “oh?” Like I just felt terrible in general. The entire family was basically wiped out, Stevie, Mr. Verloc, and assuming the woman in the paper was Winnie, then her too. I was literally “numb” in the mind. So right after I put the book down,(it was a Saturday night) I immediately had to put in Call of Duty and start slaying Zombies to comfort myself and get my mind off the way the book ended. I’m kidding about that, but in all honesty, I really was sort of struck with awe during the last part of the book. I had no clue what I felt, or why I felt it, but I definitely felt something. I don’t even know if that something was even towards the characters in the book, I think it might have actually even been towards the author himself. Thinking about it now, I would almost call the feeling I had-disgust. I think I was just plain generally disgusted, and not even at the characters themselves but at the situation in general, that Conrad just had to go ahead and right this terrible book with this terrible ending that I just so happened, by no choice of my own, have to read for my AP Lit class. So I feel obliged to personally and sarcastically thank Mr. Conrad for writing a book that made me feel no joy or happiness whatsoever. But then, I stop, and I realize that the book is written about an even that really happened, that these were times that people really lived in, and decisions people had to really make and struggle with, and I find myself back to square one where I am not really sure how I feel about all this..yet I know I feel something, and it’s just not good.