Truth or Death: The Quest for Immortality in the Western Narrative Tradition

By Thierry Hentsch

In the tradition of James Frazer, Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell, Thierry Hentsch retells, with new urgency and a keen critical eye, "the story of the West" that shapes our perception of the world. Yet, "the story of the West" does not exist. Only a reading of its most seminal texts--from Ulysses to Hamlet , from the Torah to the Gospels, from Plato to Descartes--can bring it alive. His tale turns on a startling discovery: The Christian message of immortality is conditional. To overcome death--the touchstone of the human condition--the believer must accept the Truth of salvation. Western civilization, by replacing God with technoscience, offers the universal promise that salvation may now be gained on earth. Yet, as a condition, it would impose its own absolute morality on the world. Truth or Death: the Biblical injunction is ours as well.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0889225095
• ISBN13: 9780889225091
• Release Date: October 2004
• Publisher: Talonbooks, Limited
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.38 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A new classic of contemporary criticism

The late philosopher Thierry Hentsch produced a profound, inspiring and luminous book that examines the Western literary tradition as a quest to prevail over mortality and hope for building social tissue when most people have stopped believing in afterlife. A serious masterpiece full of sensitivity, literary style and philosophical discipline.