From Iris Murdoch last novel Jackson's Dilemma.

He left the drawing room and went to his study. There on
the desk was his book about Heidegger, open at the page where he had left it such a little while ago. Benet perused the page which he had written.

Heidegger's central concept of truth or unconcealment should be understood by tracing it back to the Pre-Socratics, and to Homer, as he explains in an essay, originally a 1943 lecture, 'Wonder first begins with the question, "What does all this mean and how could it happen?" How can we arrive at such a beginning?' Heidegger quotes Heraclitus Fr. 16, 'How can one hide from that which never sets?' What is this hiding and from what? He then quotes Clement of Alexandria who adapts Heraclitus as meaning that one (the sinner) may hide from the light perceived by the senses, but cannot hide from the spiritual light of God. Well, though we may readily understand him in that sense, the Greek was not thinking about anything like a christian deity. Heraclitus, according to Heidegger, is not thinking of anything 'spiritual' or 'moral', but of something far more fundamental in the dawn of human consciousness. Heidegger here, as elsewhere in his writings, suggests a significant connection between aletheia (truth) and lanthano (I am concealed, or escape notice, doing or being something) and lethe forgetfulness or oblivion. He then engagingly quotes Homer, The Odyssey VII 83 ff. (It is always a relief to get away into Homer.) Odysseus, after his meeting with Nausicaa, now incognito in her father's palace, hears the minstrel singing about the Trojan War, from which Odysseus is now making his laborious way home. Verse 93. 'Then unnoticed by all the others he shed tears.' Literally, he escaped notice shedding tears. Heidegger points out that elanthané does not mean the transitive 'he concealed', but means 'he remained concealed' shedding tears. 'Odysseus has pulled his cloak over his head because he is ashamed to let the Phaeacians.' But doesn't this quite clearly mean the same as: he hid himself before the Phaeacians out of a sense of shame? Or we must also think 'shying away', aidos, from remaining concealed, granted that we are striving to get closer to its essence as the Greeks experienced it? Then 'to shy away' would mean to withdraw and remain concealed in reluctance or restraint 'keeping to oneself'. Of course this is an example of the persuasive movement of Heidegger's laborious argument when he wishes to read one of his concepts (in this case aletheia, 'thought as' unconcealment) into the minds of the early Greeks!

Benet paused, well what does it all mean, he thought, and why on earth do I go on with it? Am I losing my German? Could one forgive Heidegger or be interested in him just because he loved the Greeks? Benet loved the Greeks. But did he understand them, was he a Greek scholar? No, he was just a curious reader romantic psuedo-historian. He would really rather spend his time reading Hölderlin than Heidegger.

The lecture on the Heraclitus fragment is published as Aletheia.

This novel strikes me as an anti-"Remains of the Day", the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. There, a simple butler, Stevens, reminisces about his life serving the gentry, and the reader slowly grows aware of how disconnected in many ways Stevens is from the world around him. Unaware of the emotional bonds others have to him, and of his employer's involvement in the gathering storm of WWII. On the other hand, in Murdoch's novel, the butler, Jackson, appears to be the only grounded character. The rest of the characters, whom Jackson attends to, come across as frivolous. Especially Benet who has spent years worrying through his book. They are idly rich - none of them have jobs or the preoccupations of ordinary people - and disconnected from the world.  ¶ 7:49 PM