At first sight The Secret Agent is a novel where content and form seamlessly overlap, and where unorthodox narrative proportions echo its ideological paradoxes in anarchist aesthetics. But the structure is at odds with the theme – somewhat like an abstract painting within a classic, ornate frame. Rather than invoking fragmentation, the nonchronological chapters in The Secret Agent allow for unity and consistency: a way to display control. The novel is knitted in an overlapping pattern of interweaving sequences and temporal criss-crossings, where scattered and eclectic details add structure to disorganized characters, chapters and circumstances. The Secret Agent is not a sustained discussion of one topic, but a manifesto of marginality or manifest marginality: a novel written in the margins.