Salvador Rus Rus itibaren Harmers Haven VIC 3995, Australia
An easy-to-read philosophical book on "truth" I will admit is not the easiest thing to write, and Simon Blackburn fails to achieve it with "Truth: A Guide." The book greatly lacks clarity and organization and lurches from idea to idea and chapter to chapter. The one exception is a chapter called "Nietzsche: The Arch Debunker," in which that German philosopher's hammer-like prose spurs Blackburn to better clarity. The best book on small-t truth is still Sissela Bok's 1978 "Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life." A good book on truth and falsehood is the 2001 "The Liar's Tale: A History of Falsehood" by Jeremy Campbell.
As short as this novel is, only about half of it is a novel; the other half is Marxist philosophical reverie. Eagleton is a brilliant writer in both genres but I wasn't happy with the way he blended them here (compared to, say, Moby Dick, where that blend is wonderful). Also, I agree with many other reviewers that his brilliance sometimes gets in the way, as if hyper-cleverness were the point.