1001 Book Challenge - The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad

You think terrorism, strapping explosives to the chest and walking into a public area is a modern phenomenon? Joseph Conrad was writing about it 100 years ago. Published in 1907, at what most critics consider the early part of the modernist era, the book does admittedly contain pessimistic, almost apocalyptic, critiques of society. It is also a very black comedy and this irony helps disarm the reader from any hellish visions of the future. One of Conrad’s most dramatic ironies in the novel is that the novel's 'villains' - anarchists- are full of bravado but no action, yet it is the personalised characters, those with the most to lose, who are most capable of violence. A must read. It is fabulous.