read_all_nite 's review for:

The Sickness unto Death by Søren Kierkegaard

1.0

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Soren Kierkegaard, the quintessential Depressed Dane, spent all of his free time pining for/stalking some poor woman who absolutely despised him. To cheer himself up, he wrote ponderous philosophical tomes like this one. To be fair, some of Kierkegaard's works are actually funny, if you happen to have a philosophy professor standing over your shoulder while you're reading to help you get the joke. This isn't one of his thigh-slappers. Basically, Kierkegaard writes about "man's" utter existential solitude before his "God." It's a premise that I just don't buy, because we are socio-historical animals who swim in relationships and in cultures built on generations upon generations of relationships, and even the Christian faith that he parses, analyzes and ascribes would be nothing without its social fabric. Well written, but I dislike Kierkegaard just as much as I dislike Proust.