Understanding Hitler

Do students still sit up till three in the morning, arguing passionately but inconsequentially about whether human existence is free or determined? In my time, I took the side of determinism, the fierceness of my defence a cover for my doubts; and my defence notwithstanding, I demanded the greatest possible freedom for myself.

I argued, with striking unoriginality, that a human being (save for myself, of course) was the vector of the forces of heredity, environment, and circumstance. What else, after all, could a human be? A causeless cause, like God?

In so far as a thriller might be said to have metaphysical preoccupations, these are the questions asked in the novel The Boys from Brazil …