George [is the title character of The Philosopher's Pupil], and a somewhat hypothetical figure, a product of the ideas in the novel. He has a reputation for being 'beyond good and evil' and 'closer to awful aspects of the world' than other people. He is ambiguously involved in the near-drowning of his wife at the beginning, and in the attempted murder of the philosopher Rozanov at the end….

The need to try to explain George is widely felt in Ennistone. In his own voice, he comes on like Edgar on the heath, uttering snatches of quotations that are mostly nonsense but signify a soul in torment. Rozanov, the elderly philosopher who is the object of George's obsession, is for his part obsessed with his granddaughter's virginity. Rozanov is much the more believable character, though this involves believing in a very abstruse thinker at a time of crisis and...