Rating: 2/5
Review:
Not for me
I didn’t get on at all well with A Philosophical Investigation. It
sets out to be a dystopian thriller with serious philosophical
content, but I’m afraid I just found it over-long, convoluted, a
bit tedious and rather show-offy.
Published in 1992,
the book is set in 2013 and one problem is Kerr’s vision of a time
we have lived through. It’s prescient in some ways, but the sheer
unrecognisability of the setting does get in the way, especially
things like the hopelessly under-imagined technology, no NHS and
expensive, dirty hospitals and so on. The story concerns one of a
plague of “recreational” serial killers who has been found to
lack a part of the brain which inhibits violence and is killing
others on the secret list of similarly affected people. Each has
been given a codename; the killer’s codename is Wittgenstein...and
so we get into a lot of philosophical discussion.
Much of the
discussion is in Wittgenstein’s internal voice and for me, it
doesn’t work. I’m happy to wrestle with philosophical ideas,
butI found much of this unconvincing both in its context in the book
and in its content. Rather than being intellectually stimulating I
found it often tendentious and, frankly, more interested in showing
the reader how frightfully clever the author is than in developing a
reasoned, readable argument and story. Tellingly, I thought I was
reading it for the first time until well after half way I came across
a scene I recognised. I had plainly read it when it came out and
remembered almost none of it. This says something about my memory, I
admit, but also much about the book, because I can recall books I
liked from well before then.
I know many people
admire Philip Kerr’s books greatly, but I’ve never been wholly
convinced by them and this has done nothing to help. It’s minority
view, I suspect, but I can’t recommend this.
(My thanks to
Quercus for an ARC via NetGalley.)
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