A review by skitch41
The Essential Kierkegaard by Howard Vincent Hong, Søren Kierkegaard, Edna Hatlestad Hong

3.0

I had heard about the philosopher Kierkegaard some time ago and had this book on my list of things to read for some time. Now that I have finally finished reading it, I can say that his works are very interesting, but also very difficult to grasp at times. Since this book is made with philosophy students in mind, this is not a book for the uninitiated to tread lightly into. Some of the excerpted works are excellent and I will definitely be looking to read them in their entirety in the future (Fear and Trembling, The Sickness Unto Death, and his more religious works written in his later years come to mind), but not all of his works are interesting. In fact, one of my biggest problems with this book is that the least interesting works of Kierkegaard seemed to get more pages than the more interesting works. It's frustrating to read 10 pages of something really good only to have to plod through 20-50 pages of something incredibly boring afterwards. The other problem I had with this book was the editors' notes at the beginning of each excerpted work. They are interesting for those who want a little biography and background information on Kierkegaard, but they do almost nothing to help the reader to understand what they are reading. Some more in-depth notes to explain the works' main ideas either at the beginning of the excerpts or interspersed as editors' footnotes throughout would have done much to aid my understanding and enjoyment of this book. I will definitely be looking for that in the next book of Kierkegaard I find the time to read.