For his son and daughter, he was a loving but cruel father. For his parents, he was an ungrateful child. For his homeland, he was an indifferent citizen. For his brother and sister, he was affectionate but distant. With his friends, he was selfish. In love, he was sluggish. In his mind, he was foolish. In matters of power, he was passive. And as for his soul, a life of evasion.
"And if it has twisted me, so what," thought Moses Hertzhog. Having already failed as a teacher and writer, as a father and husband, he suddenly discovers that he is not just the victim of a family conspiracy, in which his second wife and his best friend participated, but, like all of us, a victim of a wider plot that the modern way of life sets up against us every day. Just one step away from a nervous breakdown, he manages to confront social absurdity and indifference. And the reader can only identify with him in this confrontation.