Kirilov kills himself because he is forced to it by very clearly defined interests, carefully delineated intrigues. His act, however mad, is rational, conscious, meditated, premeditated. Kirilov’s character is based entirely on his strange philosophy of suicide, and his act is merely the perfectly logical extension of his ideas.

Dostoyevsky grasped the madness of reason stubbornly determined to carry its logic through to the end. The terrain Tolstoy explores is the opposite: he uncovers the intrusions of illogic, of the irrational. That is why I mention him. The reference to Tolstoy places Broch in the context of one of the great explorations of the European novel: the exploration of the role the irrational plays in our decisions, in our lives.

The Possessed. If you analyze that novel from the purely technical viewpoint, you see that it is made up of three lines evolving simultaneously, each of which, if need be, could make an independent novel: (1) the ironic novel of the love between Madame Stavrogin and Stephan Verkhovensky; (2) the romantic novel about Nikolai Stavrogin and his amorous relationships; (3) the political novel about a revolutionary group. Since all the characters know one another, a subtle storytelling technique easily manages to tie the three lines into an indivisible entity.

Each character is lighted at a different intensity and in a different way. Lucie, who is one of the most important characters, has no monologue of her own; she is lighted only from the outside by Ludvik’s and Kostka’s. The absence of interior lighting gives her a mysterious, elusive quality. She stands, so to speak, behind the glass; she cannot be touched.

In the bureaucratic world of the functionary, first, there is no initiative, no invention, no freedom of action; there are only orders and rules: it is the world of obedience.

Second, the functionary performs a small part of a large administrative activity whose aim and horizons he cannot see: it is the world where actions have become mechanical and people do not know the meaning of what they do.

Third, the functionary deals only with unknown persons and with files: it is the world of the abstract.

To place a novel in this world of obedience, of the mechanical, and of the abstract, where the only human adventure is to move from one office to another, seems to run counter to the very essence of epic poetry.

A totalitarian state is in fact, a single, immense administration: since all work in it is for the state, everyone of every occupation has become an employee. A worker is no longer a worker, a judge no longer a judge, a priest no longer a priest. They are all functionaries of the State. “I belong to the Court,” the priest says to Joseph K. in the Cathedral. In Kafka, the lawyers, too, work for the Court. A citizen in today’s Prague does not find that surprising.