A study of utopias since Thomas More’s classic of that name and genre, this is a rich book on an important subject. In 25 essays, Jameson explores “the Utopian form and the Utopian wish”. Why do we continue to need or create utopias, and why is science fiction such fertile ground for them? Jameson’s analysis shows an intimate understanding of the works of Philip K. Dick, Brian Aldiss and others. Along the way there are many felicities.

Unfortunately, this is also a dreadful and depressing book. Its ideas are good, but its prose is awful. You need sunglasses to read this stuff. Jameson epitomises the dense, constipated writing that kills clear thought. The antithesis of Orwell, he rarely uses an English word when a German, Greek, French or Latin one will do. We have “Aristotelian energeia”, “nouveau roman”, “the linear narrative with its beginning (in media res or navigationis)” and all the other bamboozlements of pompous prose in this “well-nigh Heideggerian Stimmung”. Jameson loves abstract nouns and phrases such as “the hegemonic emergence of various anticausal doxa”. It’s pretentious guff, and a model literary dystopia.

This is worth reading largely as a perverse paradigm. Generally, bad writing comes from bad thinking. This is an exception to that rule, and the sadder for it. Say what you mean, Professor Jameson, and mean what you say. In English, you would be very rewarding.

ARCHAEOLOGIES OF THE FUTURE: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fiction by Fredric Jameson

Verso, £14.99

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