⋙ Download Either/Or A Fragment of Life Penguin Classics Soren Kierkegaard Victor Eremita Alastair Hannay 9780140445770 Books

Either/Or A Fragment of Life Penguin Classics Soren Kierkegaard Victor Eremita Alastair Hannay 9780140445770 Books

Download As PDF : Either/Or A Fragment of Life Penguin Classics Soren Kierkegaard Victor Eremita Alastair Hannay 9780140445770 Books

Either/Or A Fragment of Life Penguin Classics Soren Kierkegaard Victor Eremita Alastair Hannay 9780140445770 Books

Note: This review concerns the abridged Penguin paperback edition translated by Alastair Hannay.

Now, a prefatory note to every reviewer who described this book as a "difficult" or "challenging" or "dense" read: You are all guilty of scaring me away from this book (and Kierkegaard in general) for over ten years. Sometimes I think there exists a very widely represented personality so jealous, stuffy, covetous, and academic that they sort of enjoy making a book appear too difficult for a general audience just so they can feel superior to everyone around them. I hate these little scholastic gremlins and I hope you suffer all the fates eternal of Prometheus, Tantalus, and Sisyphus combined.*

A note to anyone worried this book is too hard to read: IT IS NOT DIFFICULT! It is all those adjectives I used in my review's title: "Lucid, Pithy, Wise, Engrossing, Accessible, Universal, Witty, Beautiful, Immediate, Personal, and Important." (That list comprises my definition of real art; therefore, Either/Or is real art.)

I think Either/Or has been misfiled in bookstores and libraries: This is a work of literature, not philosophy. Like all great literature (and music and paintings and sculpture) Either/Or is innately philosophical but it is written in a kind of lyric, poetical narration that sets it far away from, say, Hegel or Kant. It reads a lot more like a Platonic dialogue or a classical invective. Kierkegaard is both Proust and Aurelius; Either/Or is both A Search for Lost Time and The Meditations.

The book is also very clever and variegated: It's at times cynical, at times sorrowful, at times nihilistic, at times optimistic, and very often it is comedic to the degree that I burst out laughing (we laugh because a mirror has been held up to our eyes).

Either/Or seems to be a book about everything, like Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy or Hugo's Les Miserables: it is what Allan Bloom would have called "a total book." Kierkegaard has a talent for packing the contents of ten books into the clause of a single sentence. And when he is not being utterly concise Kierkegaard can do as good a job as Proust in teasing a whole universe out of fleeting and otherwise commonplace moments: He can slow the camera down to a halt and, to borrow a modern simile, like Morpheus pausing the Agent Training simulation in "The Matrix", walk about the scene commenting with nuance, grace, and an often wholly refreshing acerbity. I promise you will be rereading and quoting paragraph after paragraph--it's that good.

To those worried readers I comfort you with this: You will fall in love with this book on page 43. That's the first page of the Diapsalmata section (the book is divided in two parts; this is the first). The Diapsalmata starts with a series of concise observations in a style similar to the Maxims of La Rochefoucauld, the Analects of Confucious, or the Pensees of Pascal; however, Kierkegaard renders his lines with a style eclipsing, at times, any other writer. This quality alone proves Kierkegaard a genius. (It also proves, one should add, the genius of the translator Alastair Hannay.)

All Kierkegaard's more obscure allusions and metaphors are explained in a very complete notes section at the back of the book.

To conclude: Either/Or is one of the best books I've ever read, full stop.

Good luck!

*Prometheus was tied to the side of a cliff and had his liver eaten every day; Tantalus was doomed to stand in a pool just out of reach of both water and food; Sisyphus was made to roll a boulder up a hill every day only to have it kicked back down the hill once it reached the top. Those Greeks sure knew how to punish didn't they?


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Either/Or A Fragment of Life Penguin Classics Soren Kierkegaard Victor Eremita Alastair Hannay 9780140445770 Books Reviews

It was a Christmas present, thank you.
This book is brutally abridged and there's no indication of this on the site. It also has no page numbers and an inadequate table of contents, so you can't jump ahead to the passages you need.
Ever felt ennui so intense that you don't know how to carry on? If so, read this.
I should have known what I was buying and that is my mistake for not seeking out the proper edition but this was a huge disappointment recieving the book to find out it was abridged. At the time of writing, there is no mention of abridgement on the page.
Dude this book is awesome. "Either" is an easy fun read. "Or" is a little tougher but will give you a lot to think about. Even though Kierkegaard wrote this so long ago, it's the most relatable philosophical book I've ever read! He's like eloquently describing things that I've experienced but never was able to understand or put into words. Real good! Read this!
This review is of the version of the Hannay translation of Either/Or, a pioneering work of phenomenology and religious existentialism. It appears that the full edition (Hong translation)is about 800 pages (the main text) whereas the Hannay is about 600 pages. Even this abridged version was extremely taxing and took an enormous amount of time and concentration. For example, readers need to have at least - or quickly acquire! - the necessary background, such as the aesthetic theories of Aristotle and Hegel, Antigone and other Greek tragedies, the ethical theories of Kant and Descartes philosophy. Without these and others, which Kierkegaard doesn't always identify I certainly, and I'm sure others, would be unable to follow what's going on. I have found Stephen Evans introduction to Kierkegaard useful to this difficult work.

I think a somewhat more expanded explanatory notes would have been useful. Part II has an entire section which appears to be a commentary on Kantian ethics without mentioning any sources so some more help would have guided the reader better, without having to go to the secondary literature. The table of contents had a few bad links but generally no problems.

A word about reading a difficult "philosophical" text on . This was one the first times I tried it. For me, in retrospect, the costs outweighed the benefits. Unlike a work of fiction or an easier work which can be read more or less straight through, I found that a work that requires going back to previous sections and comparing passages and so on, difficult on kindle.
I didn't realize it was abridged when I bought it. However the reason I bought this edition was to have it all in a single copy, so I did get what I ordered.

Some 'Diapsalmata' were removed from part one. I enjoyed these passages and was slightly disappointed by this. One essay from part one is missing, as are later passages that make reference to it ('First Love, Comedy in One Act by Scribe, translated by J.L. Heiberg'). Other passages are truncated in various places, which hasn't bothered me so far (most omissions are in part two, and I haven't gotten there yet). I also suspect that combining the two parts into one volume also forced the translator to keep his annotations brief.
Note This review concerns the abridged Penguin paperback edition translated by Alastair Hannay.

Now, a prefatory note to every reviewer who described this book as a "difficult" or "challenging" or "dense" read You are all guilty of scaring me away from this book (and Kierkegaard in general) for over ten years. Sometimes I think there exists a very widely represented personality so jealous, stuffy, covetous, and academic that they sort of enjoy making a book appear too difficult for a general audience just so they can feel superior to everyone around them. I hate these little scholastic gremlins and I hope you suffer all the fates eternal of Prometheus, Tantalus, and Sisyphus combined.*

A note to anyone worried this book is too hard to read IT IS NOT DIFFICULT! It is all those adjectives I used in my review's title "Lucid, Pithy, Wise, Engrossing, Accessible, Universal, Witty, Beautiful, Immediate, Personal, and Important." (That list comprises my definition of real art; therefore, Either/Or is real art.)

I think Either/Or has been misfiled in bookstores and libraries This is a work of literature, not philosophy. Like all great literature (and music and paintings and sculpture) Either/Or is innately philosophical but it is written in a kind of lyric, poetical narration that sets it far away from, say, Hegel or Kant. It reads a lot more like a Platonic dialogue or a classical invective. Kierkegaard is both Proust and Aurelius; Either/Or is both A Search for Lost Time and The Meditations.

The book is also very clever and variegated It's at times cynical, at times sorrowful, at times nihilistic, at times optimistic, and very often it is comedic to the degree that I burst out laughing (we laugh because a mirror has been held up to our eyes).

Either/Or seems to be a book about everything, like Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy or Hugo's Les Miserables it is what Allan Bloom would have called "a total book." Kierkegaard has a talent for packing the contents of ten books into the clause of a single sentence. And when he is not being utterly concise Kierkegaard can do as good a job as Proust in teasing a whole universe out of fleeting and otherwise commonplace moments He can slow the camera down to a halt and, to borrow a modern simile, like Morpheus pausing the Agent Training simulation in "The Matrix", walk about the scene commenting with nuance, grace, and an often wholly refreshing acerbity. I promise you will be rereading and quoting paragraph after paragraph--it's that good.

To those worried readers I comfort you with this You will fall in love with this book on page 43. That's the first page of the Diapsalmata section (the book is divided in two parts; this is the first). The Diapsalmata starts with a series of concise observations in a style similar to the Maxims of La Rochefoucauld, the Analects of Confucious, or the Pensees of Pascal; however, Kierkegaard renders his lines with a style eclipsing, at times, any other writer. This quality alone proves Kierkegaard a genius. (It also proves, one should add, the genius of the translator Alastair Hannay.)

All Kierkegaard's more obscure allusions and metaphors are explained in a very complete notes section at the back of the book.

To conclude Either/Or is one of the best books I've ever read, full stop.

Good luck!

*Prometheus was tied to the side of a cliff and had his liver eaten every day; Tantalus was doomed to stand in a pool just out of reach of both water and food; Sisyphus was made to roll a boulder up a hill every day only to have it kicked back down the hill once it reached the top. Those Greeks sure knew how to punish didn't they?