the hyperbole that accompanied this book has left me scratching my [aching] head.... 'original, funny and brilliant' says the independent, 'exhilirating' according to the Guardian and there are many more. I will admit that I have so far only read about 1/3 of the book, and that took me almost the whole day! However, as yet, I have not been even a little tickled by his humour nor have I been particularly exhilirated... Ploughing through this book has at times felt like a fruitless task, had I not been studying it I would have given up long before... only once have i found a book so diificult and slow to read and that was steven hawking's 'a brief history of time'... ok, that has balanced up the wild praise, now for the reasonable findings.
Like the Hawking book, my difficulties have stemmed from not really understanding the subject matter... Within my demographic I don't think an ignorance of the finer points of theoretical physics is a necessarily a rarity, much in the same way that knowledge of cultural theory along with its leading proponents is less than extensive. I recognise that it probably purely my own failings which have kept me from getting as excited about this book as I should. But if the intention is to break down barriers and promote healthy debate then why be so incredibly obtuse? is it because you have flogged the dead donkey that is revolutionary socialism and been rejected by the masses even though it seemed such an obvious choice... so now you have no faith in humanity so have no interest in making yourself understoof. fuck the people right? they don't know whats good for them anyway. I must say this frustration was also clear in a previous text by XXXXXXX
So Eagleton is a smart guy, clearly. I think this is partly the problem. It is apparently meant for mere mortals so his insistance on repeatedly referencing people, ideas, philosophical paradigms of which the layman is largely going to be unaware, means he alienates his core target. This in itself is not a problem if things are adequately explained, in this case, they are not.
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