A remarkable read and a necessary one as a precursor to Graham Greene and all those who describe social services on the fringe of politics and the fringes of life itself, who are to come after Conrad fifty years later! I am used to being at sea, or near a sailor with Conrad, but here, aside the mention of some ships’ rats, there are no nautical themes at all. The story gives us an astounding insight into (red) anarchy and terrorism on British soil around the time of the Russian tumult, with agendas and arguments that cannot sound too unfamiliar to modern ears, complete with (potentially suicide) bomb attacks, and inter-continental espionage, internal mistrust, and sly plots aimed to manipulate social opinion. How much power can the people ever have? And what would they do with it, anyway? Turn the world into a nanny state?! (See the delightful epilogue...!) I was already surprised to read in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, something close to a psychological thriller, and Conrad embroiders upon one of the central thmes of mental anguish, pecunary dejection, lack of appreciation, personal desperation, passionate emotion as compared to psychiatric “degenerateness” and amorality. *-* Mind, there are one or two rather longwinded chapters concentrated around the politics of policing and diplomacy, or the social hardship of the working class - but we are a century plus on, don’t forget, so bear with what might well have been rather confrontational back in the day… What is no different to any of his other novels: Conrad’s writing can be very high-brow; putting simple things in very elaborate phrasing almost for a pure love of (much) language if also to convey the pomp of the circumstance or to inject some irony. For the rest Conrad’s sardonic commentary here is nicely balanced by an endearing portrait of a simple-minded man and the family dynamics around this character. This nuance seems more post WW2 than early turn of the century! All his characters are unique, and where necessary intentionally caricatures of themselves.