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He was one of those idealists who, struck by some compelling idea, immediately become entirely obsessed by it forever. They are quite incapable of mastering it, but believe in it passionately, and so their whole life passes afterwards, as it were, in the last agonies under the weight of a heavy stone which has fallen upon them and half-crushed them —from “The Devils”, by Fyodor Dostoevsky 

I actually read “The Devils” first around 1970, when it seemed as though the nation had tipped, and characters from Dostoevsky were sliding, by the thousands, to the Bay Area, mostly into Berkeley. At political meetings, anti-war meetings, bookstore readings (remember when there seemed to be one every night in our one of our then-many bookstores?) the speaker would be interrupted by some young or not so young, passionate, sincere, only slightly-scruffy idealist, demanding or offering “real” answers to—something. Occasionally, at talks by very well known writers or politicians, a passionate questioner who became a long-winded orator had to be escorted out. I grew to dread the question period whenever I did a reading. Spotting one of those all too familiar faces, I learned to be blind to their wagging hands, call on someone with a less urgent expression, then quickly “run out of time” for questions. 

By the early 1980s these conspicuous “idealists” were gradually disappearing, giving up on Berkeley as the answer to their questions. Maybe like Dostoevsky characters, they passed rest of their lives “in the last agonies under the weight of a heavy stone” of the ideas that had possessed them. But not all of them. One of them, I remember, came back to claim some property he’d left in the south Berkeley house next door to ours, where he’d rented a room from the previous owner. We didn’t recognize him, with his double-breasted suit, clean-shaven rosy cheeks, and short hair. “What are you doing now?” we asked. He shrugged. “I’ve taken over my father’s bank.” 

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