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    El Agente Secreto
    El Agente Secreto
    El Agente Secreto
    Audiobook2 hours

    El Agente Secreto

    Written by Joseph Conrad

    Narrated by Various Narrators

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    About this audiobook

    Un sujeto anodino y mediocre, Verloc, vive con su mujer Vinnie, más joven que él, su suegra y su cuñado, que tiene algún problema mental. Regenta una pequeña tienda en el centro de Londres y lleva una vida bastante normal, al menos en apariencia. Sin embargo, el inspector Heat sospecha que detrás de esa fachada se oculta un criminal peligroso y, aunque no tiene ninguna prueba, es testarudo y va a seguir investigando hasta que la encuentre.

    El agente secreto, en este Audiolibro, relacionándose con anarquistas y comunistas, consigue crear una atmósfera de inseguridad contra la que la policía británica se ve incapaz de luchar.

    - See more at: http://www.sonolibro.com/audiolibros/joseph-conrad/el-agente-secreto#sthash.IlhnZe2K.dpuf
    LanguageEspañol
    PublisherSAGA Egmont
    Release dateSep 6, 2019
    ISBN9788415356172
    Author

    Joseph Conrad

    Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) und Ford Madox Ford (1873–1939) gehören zu den bedeutendsten Erzählern der modernen Literatur des 20. Jahrhunderts. In seinen vielschichtigen, auch vieldeutigen Romanen und Erzählungen knüpfte Conrad oft an die Erfahrungen seiner Seemannsjahre an. Die Romane von Ford Madox Ford haben an Wertschätzung in den letzten Jahrzehnten ständig zugenommen und gelten heute ebenfalls als Klassiker; er arbeitete viel und eng mit Joseph Conrad zusammen, mit dem er mehrere Bücher verfasste.

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    Reviews for El Agente Secreto

    4/5

    38 ratings21 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I read this for a class. Not to say that I don't love classics, because I do, but if I hadn't needed to finish this for credit I probably never would have gotten around to it. The writing is gorgeous. The atmosphere is well developed and multi-layered. However, none of the characters are sympathetic. It's hard to care about what happens when I don't care about any of the characters.
    • 5/5
      Leopards might not change their spots – but works of literature can certainly change their meaning.Once this was a stylish novel of superior language use, playing with the genre of spies and flooring the ‘le Carrés’ of the future before they even put pen to paper.Well defined major characters and good descriptions – Dickensian almost but nodding to the modern.This time it was a vicious (as only humour can be vicious) satire on certainties and politics.In a world of ocean sized deceit, where atrocities and terrorism originate in ones friends and where one does not really know ‘the enemy’, small lives are wrecked leaving little flotsam to wash ashore.Winnie, whose story this is, is as tragic a figure as you will find in any ‘Bodice Ripper’ – she marries, for the sake of her family, the safe middle class man who lodged with her mother; her mother leaves in order to safeguard the prospects of an idiot son; the son, brother to Winnie, is hardly noticed by Verloc, double agent for a seedy government, until he is pressured to breaking point by an enthusiastic know-nothing (young, First Secretary, Mr Vladimir).No one is to blame – next to nothing happens, but a devastating hole is cut out in the reader’s faith in the essential goodness of the universe.The terror comes with the realisation this is our world – this is the manipulation of modern governments and those agencies set up to protect us – Nothing has changed: If anything, it is more like this than it was at the time of writing.
    • 4/5
      The blurb on the back of this book speaks of "ruthless irony" and "black satire", and it's not wrong. When I first read it last year I wasn't too impressed, being, perhaps, not in the mood to appreciate the said "ruthless irony" and "black satire". I'm pleased, therefore, that I put it aside for a future re-read instead of just releasing it at the time.Conrad's portraits and depictions of his motley group of anarchists and revolutionaries are devastating. Verloc, supposedly a ruthless terrorist but in reality is a double-agent, is motivated above all with protecting his domestic comfort but succeeds only in blowing it, along with his half-witted brother-in-law, to smithereens.The Professor, a walking bomb filled with contempt and venom for all and sundry and forever declaiming the need to kill and destroy anything and everything, is a pathetic, lonely, bitter little man who will never do anything except fulminate and sneer.Ossipon, seducer and swindler of women and dedicated to living off others like any other social parasite, an opportunist whose too late discovery of the ghost of a conscience leaves him fighting off incipient madness.Michaelis, possibly the most humble and self-effacing revolutionary ever (if that's OK by you), flabby in mind and body and in effect a pacifist.Ironically only the repressed hysteric Winnie Verloc, utterly focused since childhood on protecting and mothering the half-witted Stevie and convinced that "things do not bear looking into", proves capable of deliberately killing another human being and it is precisely that repressed hysteria which triggers the act of killing which also causes her to immediately collapse in a paralysis of terror.
    • 4/5
      This is a random read from the "1001 books you should read before you die"-list, so I knew nothing about this book other than its title. I started reading, and from the start I really didn't like it. In fact, I actively disliked it. I found the first half of the book to be a muddled and messy blend of politics, social commentary, satire and attempts at humour. As standalone elements all of these would probably have held up, but the way in which they were blended together made the story confusing, really hard to read, and disagreeable to me. Considering how little was actually happening, it was baffling how hard it was to keep up with it.Then everything changed.The mood of the book changed drastically. The relatively lighthearted, almost superficial, story turned dark. It became intense, emotional and gripping. One passage in particular, which takes up most of the second half of the book, had me completely gripped. The situation isn't particularly dramatic, but the way in which it is recounted is extremely immersive. After reading it I felt like I'd been holding my breath for a few hours. A lot of time is spent describing a very sort passage of time, yet not a word is wasted. One of the characters is in an extremely fragile emotional state, and as they get closer and closer to the edge, I found myself dreading what would happen when they fell off it. But I had to know. I had to continue reading. Way past when I should have gone to sleep.Concluding anything about this book is very difficult. Perhaps the start of the book was necessary for the rest of it to be so good. Maybe the contrast in mood and tone is what made the book have such an impact on me. I'm not sure whether I'd recommend it or not. I really, really didn't enjoy the first part of the book, and I'm finding it hard to describe how much I enjoyed the last part. Take from that what you will.
    • 2/5
      The last three chapters were the only ones I didn't have to literally force myself to read, but they by no means made the book worth reading.
    • 4/5
      Easier to read than most of conrad's work. Prescient? Arguably. More accurately a timely description of the convergence of the industrial revolution with mass media sublimated into "man against society." A post 9/11 reading is too facile in an approach to appreciate the nuances of the characters (izations)... definitely a must read.
    • 2/5
      What am I missing here? Seems dry, wordy, rambling with minimal plot development. I struggled through the first 115 pages and gave up. A rare "did not finish" for me.
    • 3/5
      Cleverly plotted depiction of nihlism and anarchism amidst the fog of late 19th century London. I did enjoy many of the in-depth descriptions of psychological states. Both conspirators and law enforcers are carefully portrayed, and with ample attention to detail - think of Henry James writing a Dan Brown novel. But I was also dismayed by more than a few passages of turgid prose. Several key "scenes" drag unnecessarily. And maybe it's just my personal taste, but Conrad really does overdo the irony bit.
    • 4/5
      As fan of both Joseph Conrad and the spy novel, my biggest complaint about The Secret Agent is that it was oversold as containing insights into 9/11 and the mechanics of terrorism. The Secret Agent is a good spy story (not great) and the writing is perhaps not quite as dense as vintage Conrad can be. This reader did not, however, perceive any particular insights into 9/11 (unless one thinks it really was an inside job).The story is set in London in 1907. The spy Verloc is double-agent for an unspecified country, presumably Russia, and a member of a small anarchist group. As might be guessed, the characters comprising the anarchists are idiosyncratic to the point of eccentricity. Some members are merely playing, others enjoy the sound of their own voice a bit too much, and one enjoys mixing chemicals to create explosives. At bottom, these anarchists are ineffectual – much talk and little action. Verloc’s only income besides his pay as an agent provocateur comes from a sleazy little shop where he sells odds-and-ends – and pornography. Vladimir, who runs Verloc out of the unnamed embassy, threatens to cut Verloc off unless he carries out a magnificent operation. The story alternatively centers around Verloc’s rather odd home life as much as his career as a spy. His wife has married him so that she and especially her developmentally disabled brother Stevie will have some security. When Verloc involves Stevie in the terrorist operation the tale begins its hectic and exhilarating run to the finish.Conrad weaves an interesting tale of political intrigue and psychological insight. To my eye, the book offers only some insight into the way governments deal with terrorist threats and very little of use in understanding the nature of current threats. Reviewers who rediscovered the book after 9/11 larded the book down with rather grandiose claims of prophetic visions. In the Secret Agent, Conrad gave us a good read (probably a very good read at the time of its writing) and one that belongs on the bookshelf with other notable spy literature (like Smiley's People, Kim (Penguin Classics), Red Gold: A Novel and The Human Factor by Graham Greene to name only a few). That should be enough for anyone.
    • 4/5
      The story starts as a comedy and ends in tragedy. Its a story of Mr.Verloc, a married man with a small bookstand. He is also a secret agent employed by a foreign govrnment and works with the revolutionaries and anarchists in the country. One day he is summoned by the new ambassador to the foreign embassy and is ridiculed upon his appearance and given a task to create dread in the common populance by blowing up the Greenwich park. He consults his anarchist friends and goes ahead with a plan that ends up hurting his innocent family.A beautifully narrated story. Conrad has a style of mixing comedy and serious events in the story.
    • 4/5
      Mr. Verloc is a Russian secret agent keeping a shop in London where he lives with his wife, her infirm mother, and her idiot brother. Mr. Verloc has become comfortable and lazy in his role, but the Russian ambassador insists on action. Verloc puts together a bomb plot to blow up the Greenwich Observatory and implicate the anarchists, but things go disastrously wrong. This novel is said to be the precursor of the espionage thriller. While it was very subdued compared to the modern thriller, I found it to be pretty engrossing. It was interesting to see the motivations the characters had for their actions and the how the unforeseen affects of the bombing played out in so many lives.
    • 3/5
      Reading The Secret Agent is work. It takes effort to follow Conrad's unconventional use of English. It takes effort to understand where the plot is going. I'll be honest—it takes effort to pick the book up of the night stand and read another chapter!Just when I was preparing to dismiss this book, I made it to the last three chapters. If the whole book was as psychologically profound and tense as these chapters, Conrad would have had something!In the end, it was too little too late. I can't recommend reading this book. I can't even understand why it made it into the ranks of Everyman's Library.
    • 3/5
      A college professor once explained to me the brilliant structure and thematic intent of Conrad's "The Secret Agent." I was capitvated by his discourse, so I immediately went out and read the book. What a disappointment.This, alas, is another Guilty Displeasure.Well, not wholly displeasure, and not wholly guilty.I failed to see any "metaphysical interest" in the book, and the structure of this stated "simple story" was not really all that impressive. It is evocative, though, and the parts that kept my interest were very good. But it went on too long, and did not strike me as a very impressive revelation about the mind of a terrorist and saboteur.The Hitchcock movie of this book, "Sabotage," is one of the better of his early sound pictures, though perhaps a failure overall.
    • 4/5
      A fantastic read. I first read this novel as an undergraduate nearly thirty years ago and was immediately taken by the sheer plausibility of it's setting and characters.Re-reading it now I was struck by how contemporary it seems, even though it was originally published as long ago as 1908, during a period in which Britain seemed all to gruesomely concerned with the menace of imminent war with Germany.The various revolutionaries and anarchists have their own well defined networks, but so, too, do the police who struggle pot keep tabs on the various foreign nationals of ill repute. Conrad even delves into the depths of political dispute, introducing an unnamed Home Secretary who is daily attacked in the Commons and lambasted in the popular press.All together this is an impressive journal capturing the suspicious and pessimistic zeitgeist of the time, lovingly rendered in Conrad's characteristically flawless prose.An absolute treat - I just wish I had re-read it far sooner.
    • 3/5
      A pretty good thriller. but the reader has to wade through hundreds of pages of Conrad's thick prose to get the story. The cops and the anarchists are clearly boobs, and so too are most of the central characters. Doctorow's preface is very worthwhile.
    • 5/5
      Like Heart of Darkness, Secret Agent:

      - Is deeply cynical
      - And heavily allegorical
      - And ends with a bang (although this book also begins with one).

      I guessed a big part of the plot pretty quickly, so I guess that's a negative...although I'm not sure it was supposed to be hard to guess.

      It's about a cheerful, indolent secret agent who's pressed by his superiors to do something big to prove his worth. Complications ensue. And there's a guy who goes around strapped with enough explosives to blow everyone around him to smithereens, and a little rubber bulb in his pocket to trigger it, so no one has the balls to arrest him. I love that guy.
    • 4/5
      It took me a long time to read "The Secret Agent," and I don't know precisely why. It's a great book - a true classic, with hardly a sentence that one would chose to edit out - but it was heavy going at times and so dense with literary intent. As an examination of an attempted bomb-plot, and the fall-out that insued, it is masterful.
    • 3/5
      It seemed very well written ... but very hard to follow. I read two or three books at one time and I think it would be best to read this one cover to cover alone. I really had a hard time getting through it.
    • 3/5
      The elements of this book divide neatly into 3 parts to my mind.First there is a penetrating, scary, and yet amusing satire on the relationship between terrorists (and other criminals) and their society/target - painted in loving detail from both sides in fact.Second there is a sort of background of Victorian manners, particularly between the Verlocs, which I suspect is more or less accurate, but sort of reads like it's still satire from today's perspective.Finally there is something that, if the subject matter were different and there were more parties, I would characterise as bedroom farce. Unfortunately the subject matter is murder and suicide, but the misunderstandings and the like are typical of bedroom farce, although the explanations of precisely what they are is overdone to modern eyes.However, it is an interesting take on the whole bomb-making/revolutionary/terrorist state of mind, and well worth reading for this alone.
    • 4/5
      The first great spy thriller; the granddaddy of George Smiley and the like. Great! Could have done without the film with Bob Hoskins and Robin Williams, however. :)
    • 4/5
      While Joseph Conrad wrote this novel more than a century ago and the story is set in London in 1886, it is still timely with the predominance of terrorism in the news today. The novel deals largely with the life of one Mr. Verloc and his job as a spy interacting with secretive agencies and groups. Moving away from tales of the sea Conrad had begun to write more political novels focusing on contemporary themes of which The Secret Agent is a notable example. The novel deals broadly with the notions of anarchism, espionage, and terrorism. At the end of the Nineteenth century England, with its relative political freedom, had developed as a haven for radicals and other expatriates from the continent. Conrad leans on this to portray anarchist or revolutionary groups before many of the social uprisings of the twentieth century. The plot to destroy Greenwich is in itself anarchistic. Vladimir asserts that the bombing "must be purely destructive" and that the anarchists who will be implicated at the architects of the explosion "should make it clear that [they] are perfectly determined to make a clean sweep of the whole social creation." However, the political form of anarchism is ultimately controlled in the novel: the only supposed politically motivated act is orchestrated by a secret government agency. I believe that in his own subtle was Conrad is successful in building suspense while slyly ridiculing the questionable activities of the anarchist secret agent. While the novel is based on a true story I nonetheless enjoyed reading and wondering - would the bombing of Greenwich Observatory succeed? More recently, The Secret Agent is considered to be one of Conrad's finest novels. I enjoyed it as a novel about the city of London in a "City Literaryscapes" class at the University of Chicago, while the New York Times sees it as "the most brilliant novelistic study of terrorism". It is considered to be a "prescient" view of the 20th century, foretelling the rise of terrorism, anarchism, and the augmentation of secret societies.