The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad (1907). A darkly comic work (and thus rare for Conrad), this novel follows a group of anarchists and spies—including an American who walks around with a bomb strapped to his chest—plotting to blow up London’s Greenwich Observatory. Often now misread as a condemnation of terrorism, The Secret Agent is really an ironic critique of abstract ideology and careerist bureaucracy—both forces that use and crush the individual.
Total Points: 8 (GG 8)