In Defence of Realism

'A bracing counterblast to the post-modernizing gibberish of contemporary literary theory' - "The Spectator". 'Tallis drills into numerous assertions that have become immovable escarpments in current literary discourse until they collapse of their weight. His method ...consists mainly of using the critics' own words to destroy them' - "Studies in the Novel". 'Raymond Tallis has become one of the foremost spokespeople for a way of thinking, writing, and reading that resists the inward-turning, world-denying postures of heroically gloom-ridden revolutionary inactivism so fashionable in the humanities and so irrelevant outside academia' - Brian Boyd, University of Auckland. "In Defence of Realism" is a powerful indictment of the fog of bad philosophy and worse linguistics that has shrouded much contemporary literary theory and criticism. Raymond Tallis, one of the most important critics of post-Saussurean literary theory in the English-speaking world, examines the reasons often cited by critics and theorists for believing that realism in fiction is impossible and verisimilitude a mere literary 'effect'.
He clearly demonstrates not only that the arguments of critics hostile to realism are invalid, but that even if they were sound, they would apply equally to anti-realist fiction, indeed to all intelligible discourse. Raymond Tallis is a professor of geriatric medicine at Hope Hospital, Manchester University. He is the author of numerous books, including "Not Saussure: A Critique of Post-Saussurean Literary Theory"; "The Explicit Animal: A Defence of Human Consciousness"; "Newton's Sleep: The Two Cultures and the Two Kingdoms"; and "Enemies of Hope".