A Debut Novel That's Long on Male Philosophers but Short on Feminine Insight ; the Thursday Book

Beginning of article

A GIRL'S GUIDE TO MODERN EUROPEAN PHILOSOPHY

By Charlotte Greig

SERPENT'S TAIL, [pound]10.99

Charlotte Greig's first novel begins with its narrator, Suzie, screaming herself out of a dream. She is prone to nightmares, but untroubled by them in the reasoning light of day, when she attends seminars at Sussex University.

She describes herself as "a clueless philosophy student", and does seem short on insight into herself and the 1980s world she inhabits. She fails to notice that her live-in lover, Jason, is charmless, misogynistic and gay. She has an affair with a fellow- student, Rob, whose main interest in her is having sex, which his own …