"We do not know," wrote George Steiner, "whether the study of the humanities, of the noblest that has been said and thought, can do very much to humanize. We do not know; and surely there is something rather terrible in our doubt whether the study and delight a man finds in Shakespeare make him any less capable of organizing a concentration camp."

I took a course on the philosophical novel, taught by Maria Němcová Banerjee, an expert on Milan Kundera’s work, and began to think about how novels engage intellectual traditions, how they can make use of and even serve as a form of philosophy.