★ 09/24/2018
This scintillating biography of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche illuminates a man struggling constantly to reshape accepted ideas about society, morality, and religion. Drawing on close readings of his writings and on archival research, Prideaux (Strindberg: A Life) traces the outline of the philosopher’s life, from his father’s death when Nietzsche was four years old and his early education at his mother’s knee, through his days at gymnasium, where he excelled in languages, to his early and pivotal friendship with Wagner, his romance with the writer Lou Salome, and his slow and lonely descent into dementia. Even as a teenager, Prideaux shows, Nietzsche was developing his knack for striking language, and by the time he met Wagner, Nietzsche had developed his own style—one centered around the struggles between reason and instinct and “between life and art.” Given that ideas from Nietzsche’s later work—the need to overcome, the will to power, and the Übermensch—were later appropriated by Nazis, Prideaux is at pains to show that his philosophy focused on the “need to overcome ourselves,” not others. Nietzsche often compared his writing to dancing, and Prideaux’s invigorating study captures the joyous and often ebullient character of this writer’s deeply influential work. (Nov.)
I Am Dynamite!: A Life of Nietzsche
Narrated by Nicholas Guy Smith
Sue PrideauxUnabridged — 17 hours, 19 minutes
I Am Dynamite!: A Life of Nietzsche
Narrated by Nicholas Guy Smith
Sue PrideauxUnabridged — 17 hours, 19 minutes
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Overview
A groundbreaking new biography of philosophy's greatest iconoclast
Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the most enigmatic figures in philosophy, and his concepts-the*Übermensch, the will to power, slave morality-have fundamentally reshaped our understanding of the human condition. But what do most people really know of Nietzsche-beyond the mustache, the scowl, and the lingering association with nihilism and fascism? Where do we place a thinker who was equally beloved by Albert Camus, Ayn Rand, Martin Buber, and Adolf Hitler?
Nietzsche wrote that all philosophy is autobiographical, and in this vividly compelling, myth-shattering biography, Sue Prideaux brings readers into the world of this brilliant, eccentric, and deeply troubled man, illuminating the events and people that shaped his life and work. From his placid, devoutly Christian upbringing-overshadowed by the mysterious death of his father-through his teaching career, lonely philosophizing on high mountains, and heart-breaking descent into madness, Prideaux documents Nietzsche's intellectual and emotional life with a novelist's insight and sensitivity.
*
She also produces unforgettable portraits of the people who were most important to him, including Richard and Cosima Wagner, Lou Salomé, the femme fatale who broke his heart; and his sister Elizabeth, a rabid German nationalist and anti-Semite who manipulated his texts and turned the Nietzsche archive into a destination for Nazi ideologues.
I Am Dynamite!*is the essential biography for anyone seeking to understand history's most misunderstood philosopher.
Editorial Reviews
The Times Biography of the Year 2018
“An exemplary biography. . . . Nietzsche steps out of the mists of obfuscation and rumor, vividly evoked. . . . An attentive, scrupulous portrait.” —Parul Seghal, The New York Times
“This vibrant account of Friedrich Nietzsche’s life is a searching portrait of the philosopher and a keen assessment of his work. . . . Nietzsche often worried that he would be misread and misused; that he was, and still is, underlines the value of clear-eyed interpretations such as this.” —The New Yorker
"Prideaux’s biography is a strikingly original portrait of Nietzsche and beautifully written." —Antony Beevor, author of Stalingrad
“Prideaux’s stylistic virtuosity and narrative talent has carved a much wider entry point to Nietzsche’s life and thought, setting a new standard for the genre.” —Maria Dimitrova, Bookforum
"This is what every biography should be like—engrossing, intelligent, moving, often downright funny, and filled with insights and sharply observed details from an extraordinary life. Simply a blast." —Sarah Bakewell, author of At the Existentialist Cafe
“The biography Friedrich Nietzsche has been crying out for since the day he lost his reason and embraced a horse in a Turin square in 1889. Prideaux brings a calm and steady light to bear on this most incandescent of philosopher-poets, with illuminating results.” —John Banville, The Guardian
“Splendid. . . . A beautifully written, and often intensely moving, account of a life devoted to the achievement of intellectual greatness and the exploration of the conditions for its flourishing.” —Jonathan Derbyshire, Financial Times
“An outstanding biography impressive in the depth and breadth of its knowledge.” —John Carey, The Sunday Times
“If ever there was to be a popular biography of Nietzsche, this is it. . . . Prideaux is a dogged, amiable guide and leaves you in no doubt whatsoever that her frail, footloose, ill-tempered subject was one of the most extraordinary people who ever lived” —Leo Robson, The Evening Standard
“This biography is nothing short of a revelation. . . . Here is Nietzsche as most of us have not encountered him before. . . . The great pleasure of Prideaux’s sprightly biography is watching philosophy in the making.” —Kathryn Hughes, The Guardian
“Masterful. . . . What sets Prideaux’s biography apart from previous accounts of Nietzsche’s life is its vibrant intimacy. Eschewing philosophical rigorousness for human proximity, Prideaux quite simply gets closer to Nietzsche than anyone before her.” —Morten Høi Jensen, The Los Angeles Review of Books
“An excellently researched and compulsively readable book. . . . Packed with insights. . . . This is not just a deeply enjoyable and enlightening book. It’s also an all-too-timely one.” —The Spectator
“Wide-ranging and sensitive. . . . An approachable biography of a usually forbidding man.” —The Economist
“Witty, terribly clever and steeped in the wild, doomed peculiarities of 19th-century Germania, I Am Dynamite! is a tremendous and reformative biography of a man whom popular history has perhaps done a disservice.” —Hugo Rifkind, The Times (London)
"A wonderful book about a truly remarkable man." —Nigel Warburton, author of Thinking from A to Z
“A wonderfully gripping new biography of Nietzsche—the type you stay in bed all Sunday just to finish.” —The Irish Times
“Beautiful and engaging. . . . Wonderfully readable. . . . The story of Nietzsche's life is by turns inspiring, poignant and dispiriting, and it has never been better told than in this riveting book.” —Ray Monk, The New Statesman
“I Am Dynamite is a wonderful insight into an almost impossible character. . . . Prideaux gives back the humanity to the all-too-human Nietzsche, and even manages to do so for his wicked sister.” —Stuart Kelly, The Scotsman
“I Am Dynamite! marks a natural progression from Prideaux’s previous two biographies of Munch and Strindberg. To those of us who value common sense, sound judgment, and quiet elegance, these three men are not exactly favorites—and nor is Wagner—but such reservations are blown away by the author’s formidable narrative powers, confirming her place among Britain’s top biographers.” —Henrik Bering, The New Criterion
“A handsome, well-paced, and readable new biography. . . . An engaging book. . . . Prideaux paints a vivid picture of Nietzsche.” —Jonathan Rée, Prospect
2018-07-31
A comprehensive biography of the philosopher who famously wrote that "God is dead!...And we have killed him."
Novelist and biographer Prideaux (Strindberg: A Life, 2012, etc.) portrays the German author Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) as a writer desperately in search of an audience. His father was a Lutheran pastor, and Nietzsche believed he would become one, too. He was "unusually sensitive to music" and composed throughout his life. By the age of 12, he said, he started to "philosophise," and he went on to become one of the youngest to receive a professorship at Basel University. Schopenhauer's work was an early influence, but Richard Wagner, whom he first met in 1868, and his wife, Cosima—whom Nietzsche had a crush on—inspired him greatly. His closest female friend was his sister, Elisabeth. Prideaux chronicles in detail their often rocky relationship and how, after Nietzsche's death, she rewrote his works, infusing them with her anti-Semitism, garnering Hitler's enthusiastic approval. In 1872, Nietzsche published his first book, The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music, which Prideaux describes as an "impassioned attack on the cultural degeneration of his day." She does a fine job of explaining how Nietzsche's nihilistic philosophy developed, book after book—most self-published—while the texts grew briefer and more aphoristic. She dramatically reveals a man obsessed with writing. After finishing Twilight of the Idols, he began The Will to Power the next morning. Prideaux also describes in detail his lifelong battles with severe headaches and eye problems. Finally, there's her sad figure of an itinerant man still writing and dejectedly carrying around with him his entire wardrobe of personal possessions. Prideaux notes that Nietzsche has appealed to an odd assortment of followers, from Thomas Mann, Albert Schweitzer, and James Joyce to Eugene O'Neill, Jack London, and Mussolini. What an irony, she writes, since Nietzsche "expressed his horror at the idea of having disciples."
Although a bit dry in places, this is a rich, nuanced guide to a complex and tortured man.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940169408959 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penguin Random House |
| Publication date: | 10/30/2018 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Read an Excerpt
On November 9, 1868, the twenty-four-year-old Nietzsche recounted a comedy to Erwin Rohde, his friend and fellow-student at Leipzig University.
“The acts,” he wrote, “in my comedy are headed:
1. An evening meeting of the society, or the sub professor.
2. The Ejected Tailor.
3. A rendezvous with X.
“The cast includes a few old women.
“On Thursday evening Romundt took me to the theatre, for which my feelings are growing very cool . . . we sat in the gods like enthroned Olympians sitting in judgement on a potboiler called Graf Essex. Naturally I grumbled at my abductor . . .
“The first Classical Society lecture of the semester had been arranged for the following evening and I had been very courteously asked if I would take this on. I needed to lay in a stock of academic weapons but soon I had prepared myself, and I had the pleasure to find, on entering the room at Zaspel’s, a black mass of forty listeners . . . I spoke quite freely, helped only by notes on a slip of paper . . . I think it will be all right, this academic career. When I arrived home I found a note addressed to me, with the few words: ‘If you want to meet Richard Wagner, come at 3:45 p.m. to the Café Théâtre. Windisch.’
“This surprise put my mind in somewhat of a whirl . . . naturally I ran out to find our honorable friend Windisch, who gave me more information. Wagner was strictly incognito in Leipzig. The Press knew nothing and the servants had been instructed to stay as quiet as liveried graves. Now, Wagner’s sister, Frau Professor Brockhaus, that intelligent woman whom we both know, had introduced her good friend, Frau Professor Ritschl to her brother. In Frau Ritschl’s presence, Wagner plays the Meisterlied [Walther’s Prize Song from Wagner’s most recent opera, Die Meistersinger, premiered a few months earlier] and the good woman tells him that this song is al- ready well known to her. [She had already heard it played and sung by Nietzsche, though its musical score had been published only very recently.] Joy and amazement on Wagner’s part! Announces his supreme will, to meet me incognito; I am to be invited for Sunday evening . . .
“During the intervening days my mood was like something in a novel: believe me, the preliminaries to this acquaintance, considering how unapproachable this eccentric man is, verged on the realm of fairy tale. Thinking there were many people to be invited, I decided to dress very smartly, and was glad that my tailor had promised my new evening suit for that very Sunday. It was a terrible day of rain and snow. I shuddered at the thought of going out, and so I was content when Roscher visited me in the afternoon to tell me a few things about the Eleatics [an early Greek philosophical school, probably sixth-century BC] and about God in philosophy. Eventually the day was darkening, the tailor had not come and it was time for Roscher to leave. I accompanied him so as to continue to visit the tailor in person. There I found his slaves hectically occupied with my suit; they promised to send it in three-quarters of an hour. I left contentedly, dropped in at Kintschy’s [a Leipzig restaurant much frequented by students] and read Kladderadatsch [a satirical illustrated magazine] and found to my pleasure a notice that Wagner was in
Switzerland. All the time I knew that I would see him that same evening. I also knew that he had yesterday received a letter from the little king [Ludwig II of Bavaria] bearing the address: ‘To the great German composer Richard Wagner.’
“At home I found no tailor. Read in a leisurely fashion the dissertation on the Eudocia, and was disturbed now and then by a loud but distant ringing. Finally I grew certain that somebody was waiting at the patriarchal wrought-iron gate; it was locked, and so was the front door of the house. I shouted across the garden to the man and told him to come in by the back. It was impossible to make oneself understood through the rain. The whole house was astir. Finally, the gate was opened and a little old man with a package came up to my room. It was six thirty, time to put on my things and get myself ready, for I live rather far out. The man has my things. I try them on; they t. An ominous moment: he presents the bill. I take it politely; he wants to be paid on receipt of the goods. I am amazed and explain that I will not deal with him, an employee, but only with the tailor himself. The man presses. Time presses. I seize the things and begin to put them on. He seizes the things, stops me from put- ting them on—force from my side; force from his side. Scene: I am fighting in my shirttails, endeavouring to put on my new trousers.
“A show of dignity, a solemn threat. Cursing my tailor and his assistant, I swear revenge. Meanwhile he is moving off with my things. End of second Act. I brood on my sofa in my shirttails and consider black velvet, whether it is good enough for Richard.
“Outside the rain is pouring down. A quarter to eight. At seven thirty we are to meet in the Café Théâtre. I rush out into the windy, wet night, a little man in black without a dinner jacket.
“We enter the very comfortable drawing room of the Brockhauses; nobody is there apart from the family circle, Richard and the two of us. I am introduced to Richard and address him in a few respectful words. He wants to know exact details of how I became familiar with his music, curses all performances of his operas and makes fun of the conductors who call to their orchestras in a bland voice; ‘Gentlemen, make it passionate here. My good fellows, a little more passionate!’ . . .
“Before and after dinner, Wagner played all the important parts of the Meistersinger, imitating each voice and with great exuberance. He is indeed a fabulously lively and fiery man, who speaks very rapidly, is very witty and makes a very private party like this one an extremely gay affair. In between, I had a longish conversation with him about Schopenhauer; you will understand how much I enjoyed hearing him speak of Schopenhauer with indescribable warmth, what he owed to him, how he is the only philosopher who has understood the essence of music.”
Schopenhauer’s writings were at that time little known and less valued. Universities were highly reluctant to recognize him as a philosopher at all, but Nietzsche was swept up in a whirlwind enthusiasm for Schopenhauer, having recently discovered The World as Will and Representation by chance, the same chance or, as he preferred to put it, the same chain of fateful coincidences seemingly arranged by the unerring hand of destiny that had led up to this meeting with Wagner in the Brockhauses’ salon.
The first link in the chain had been forged a month before the meeting, when Nietzsche heard the preludes to Wagner’s two latest operas, Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. “Every fiber, every nerve in my body quivered,” he wrote the same day, and he set himself to learning the piano arrangements. Next, Ottilie Brockhaus had heard him play and relayed the news to her brother Wagner. Now the third link: Wagner’s deep attachment to the obscure philosopher whose writings had been Nietzsche’s com- fort when he had first arrived in Leipzig, rootless and unhappy, three years previously.
“I [Nietzsche] lived then in a state of helpless indecision, alone with certain painful experiences and disappointments, without fundamental principles, without hope and without a single pleas- ant memory . . . One day I found this book in a second-hand book- shop, picked it up as something quite unknown to me and turned the pages. I do not know what demon whispered to me ‘Take this book home with you.’ It was contrary to my usual practice of hesitating over the purchase of books. Once at home, I threw myself onto the sofa with the newly-won treasure and began to let that energetic and gloomy genius operate upon me . . . Here I saw a mirror in which I beheld the world, life and my own nature in a terrifying grandeur . . . here I saw sickness and health, exile and refuge, Hell and Heaven.”
But there was no time, that evening in the Brockhauses’ salon, to speak further of Schopenhauer, for what Nietzsche described as Wagner’s spirals of language, his genius for shaping clouds, his whirling, hurling and twirling through the air, his everywhere and nowhere, were hurtling on.
The letter continues:
“After [dinner] he [Wagner] read an extract from his autobiography which he is now writing, an utterly delightful scene from his Leipzig student days, of which he still cannot think without laughing; he writes too with extraordinary skill and intelligence. Finally, when we were both getting ready to leave, he warmly shook my hand and invited me with great friendliness to visit him, in order to make music and talk philosophy; also, he entrusted to me the task of familiarising his sister and his kinsmen with his music, which I have now solemnly undertaken to do. You will hear more when I can see this evening somewhat more objectively and from a distance. For today, a warm farewell and best wishes for your health. F.N.”
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "I Am Dynamite!"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Sue Prideaux.
Excerpted by permission of Crown/Archetype.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
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