Instead, I would argue that the book should be read as a hypertext, one layer of which consists of traditional philosophical arguments which are meant to persuade an audience well-versed in the tradition of western philosophy that certain assumptions that pervade that tradition must now be called into question. Above all, Taylor wants to call into question the assumed dichotomy between superficiality and depth. To read Hiding without coming to grips with that central argument would definitely be to misread the book. The surface of this book is also an experiment in the principles of superficiality for which Taylor is arguing, and these elements of the text also serve to advance that argument. All of these different layers are linked together in the hypertext of Hiding.
Surface connects with surface in a text that both presents and embodies an argument about surfaces.
Hiding is divided into five chapters, the first and last of which are the most ambitious and theoretically rich. Taylor frames chapter one in terms of the question of detective stories. Taylor refers us to the work of Dennis Potter and Paul Auster, whose stories are all about detectives who look for clues on the surface which reveal the hidden truth, but discover in the end that there is no hidden truth, only layer upon layer of skin, and the endless complexity that goes with it. Much of chapter one will be incoherent unless you understand Taylor's use of this detective story, and this is a crucial part of the text because the question that Taylor poses about the possibility of detective stories is also a question about the possibility of philosophy and criticism in general. In the remainder of the book, Taylor adopts the role of the superficial detective that he has discovered in Potter and Auster.