Professor Leopold Nettles, the “hero” of Largo Desolato, is the author of a book that contains a troublesome paragraph laying him open to arrest on charges of “disturbing the intellectual peace.” Pressed by the government to recant, Nettles is tor­tured—by internal demons as well as external ones. Vaclav Havel has created a vivid and terrifying portrait of the writer in the totalitarian state that is as real and immediate as today’s headlines.