The Philosopher: a novel

‘The Philosopher’ (John Hazzard), all the way from Australia, or some other God forsaken place, arrives in a small Pacific North Western town armed only with his wit, his radical vision of Philosophy, and his foreign accent. His mission? To challenge the community’s cherished values, traditions, politics and religious fundamentalism. ‘The Philosopher’ soon attracts many enemies in town, and becomes the target of death threats and attacks on his property. A modern day Socrates, he is accused of ‘mocking the gods’ and of ‘corrupting the youth.’ Structured as a series of lectures, and full of Philosophical conundrums, thought experiments, and debates about God, Sex, Drugs, Pornography, Art, War, Animal rights, the Soul, and the Unconscious, this novel enlivens contemporary philosophical debates and crystalizes them in the ambitions of a man’s struggle to transcend the mundane and escape Plato’s dark cave of shadows. It is often hilarious, sometimes sombre, and always thought-provoking.