Content area
Full text
The book that moved me most deeply and earliest was Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. I read it in 1948, when I was 18. I no longer believed in God, but I still believed that the men who ran my country had high ideals, and that the United States was a beacon to the world. In 1948, I had not yet learnt about the treachery of our corporations during the Second World War - which had not yet undermined labour unions - and I felt that companies like Westinghouse and General Motors were patriotic institutions. I largely accepted the received wisdom of my period. Doestoevsky's novel awakened me from this delusion.