Beyond doubt it is a interesting and provoking book. But if you really want to read something radical about the Christian relegion and its origin you should read a greek book called "M to the N" by the notable author Mimis Androulakis. It contains shoking information on the Christ`s private life.

just when i thought i'd found a separate publication of the antichrist, it's in spanish. i figured "antichristo/the antichrist" meant untranslated and translated versions in one... ugh. i was wrong.

IS it in english

Mr. Parkes provides us with a comprehensive view that does true justice to 'mouths that read' and 'ears that speak' without losing sight of the import of 'the author.' Out of all of the 'Nietzsche's' out there, this is one, seeming following in Lampert's footsteps, that truly brings Nietzsche's corps/e to life. A true find and a passionate, entertaining read for anyone trying to hear aright. Its density and attention to detail brings out the complexity of many of 'Nietzsche's' themes while weaving the many interconnected branches together around the complicated issue of 'composing the soul'. The brilliance of the approach, however, was that Parks allowed 'Nietzsche' to speak and, in my view, did not reduce 'Nietzsche' into a 'psychologist' but rather allowed 'Nietzsche' to be. Nor did he reduce the 'composition of the soul' into crass individualism best representing the 'last man.' A true example of how books should be composed, and out of the plethora of books on Nietzsche I have scanned over the years this may be the best I have read. A book that engages both the new and old traveler embarking on the dangerous sea of "Nietzsche".

Parkes provides a Nietzsche of radical comprehensiveness: an unriddler of the human soul that reaches the entire scope and depth of our protean multiplicity. Nietzsche is a psychologist that performs exploratory surgery upon the entire economy, the whole complexity and manifoldness of the drives, wills, energies, and personalities that make us who we are, and who we are perpetually becoming. A healer, magician, chemist, artist, farmer, midwife, philosopher and composer of wholeness: a cascade of perspectives and masks to explore the entire scope and range of personality and will. A must read and genuine delight that intoxicates with its profundity of metaphor, as well as deeply insightful and probing with its varieties of lenses.

It goes after just about every bit of psychological theory there is to be found in Nietzsche -- in the thoughts of Nietzsche the young student, in the psychological ideas from the writings of those who inspired him, in the ideas he advanced as his own psychological theories, in the images and metaphors of his texts. Parkes has put himself on the map as a Nietzsche scholar and commentator of the first rank. His is the only recent work I am aware of, besides my own earlier efforts in a book on NIETZSCHE AND PSYCHOANALYSIS, whose approach to Nietzsche is based on the principles of archetypal psychology. This approach is acknowledged in the opening reference to James Hillman, dean of archetypal psychology. Even if thereafter it is no longer explicitly mentioned, it remains actively present in every chapter. This is less a book about Nietzsche the person -- his feelings and thoughts and behaviors and other strictly personal idiosyncrasies -- than about the images and metaphors that shape and animate Nietzschean thought. We owe Mr.Parkes a debt of gratitude for the enormously rich way he has worked the archetypal material that goes by the personified name of "Nietzsche". Daniel Chapelle

I perused this book in a bookstore and found myself not being able to put the book down. I returned the next day, and read more of it, then decided that this book is well worth the ..., especially since it makes you think and begin to question things around you that you have accepted all your life. This book, in my opinion, is great for anybody interested in Nietzsche or Philosophy- not only is it entertaining, but it gives a nice overview of his life and his works- and is a great starter for anyone who doesn't know where to start with Nietzche. If you are Christian or one who associates with a religion, you may find some of Nietzche's ideas a bit offensive. But even if you are, or if you have already been questioning things like 'culture' and religion, you will smile when you read this book.

Nevertheless, it's good just to read this book- no matter what angle you're coming from, it's always good to know different views, and this is one view you don't want to miss. You will smile at how Nietzche came about gaining so much self knowledge, and by doing this, he came up with his unique and provacative ideas.

I'd highly recommend this book, as well as the others in the series. If you want to go on a journey with your mind, this is a good place to start, well worth the ... that would go towards buying some non-necessity anyways. Hopefully in the end, like Nietzche, you'll find your own philosophy and go your own way, not some way that you did not choose.

I am a fan of all the books in the Introducing series, but this was one of my favourites. Very clear and easy to understand. This is a good place to start if you are interested in Nietzsche but overwhelmed by the amount of material available. Includes an excellent concise list of further reading. The illustrations in this selection are not as helpful as in the other intro books but are still amusing and add entertainment to the text. I read this book in one sitting because I couln't bring myself to put it down.

A concise overview of Nietzsche's life and work, and his influence on later thinkers. Even though I am not familiar with the technical language of philosophy, I found it very clear and easy to read, and finished it in one sitting. It also put to rest my concern about possible connections to the Nazis. Cute illustrations.

Since the only other review is fairly obtuse about this book, it seems necessary to write another. If you consider yourself a creative entity, an artist, a musician, a filmmaker, a writer; then this book should be required reading. It describes two opposing "forces", Apollo and Dionysus, who are in perpetual conflict. From this conflict, all great art is born.

It is a dialectic, Thesis meets Antithesis to beget Synthesis.

The real point is though, after reading the book, you look for these opposing forces in everyday life and find them everywhere. Man and woman, religion and science, good and evil (for rudimentary examples). After reading the book it was apparent how much of this world is constructed out of, and centered on, opposition. It's like Matt Modine's helmet in Full Metal Jacket, man is a creature with inherent duality.

The Birth of Tragedy touches on something so essential and instinctually true to our existence that it can only vaguely be explained in words. Nietszche knows this and presents the concept as eloquently and clearly as it allows. It is up to the reader to take this knowledge as a starting point and explore deeper into their own individual experience and perspective.

Any westerner (occidental man),will tell you if asked that knowledge must contain reason in order to qualify as such.Science will testify to that.Shall it be added that dialectic consists of the method to achieve this conclusive perfection.Presocratic thinkers were on a different track.The chaotic and fulgurent rythms of the Dyonisan asiatic music merge with the stern powerful measured,proportionated art of the Appolonian god gave their true followers inspired knowledge.Try it and you will know.Let fear have no part in it.

This book is an examination of the interplay between Nietzsche's Apollinian and Dionysian elements in The Birth of Tragedy. Sallis's book, an extension of his earlier article "Apollo's Mimesis", is one of the most detailed readings of Nietzsche's early and lesser-known book. His exploration of the concept of mimesis and the metaphysical aspects of the Apollinian and the Dionysian are particularly interesting and discuss an area of the book that others have too often overlooked.

A rare gem of a work of close reading that transcends the academic toward a repetition of Nietzsche's original achievement of disclosing the essence of Greek tragedy. Nietzsche's book is a seminal work despite its youthfulness. Sallis fills out its lacunae from Nietzsche's notes, lectures and other contemporaneous works. Especially impressive are his demonstrations of Nietzsche's differences with Schopenhauer and his assimilation of Nietzsche's Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks into his demonstrations. He is one of the few Heideggarians who does not seem as though he is walking in his father's over-big shoes.

Could Friedrich Nietzsche actually have a hero? For those familiar with his works, the answer to this question would not be an easy one, for the reason that Nietzsche's writings are so honest as to be almost obscure. It is not common in literature or philosophy to find an author so willingly an exhibitionist. It is as though Nietzsche were himself trying to figure out who he was in his writings, and he never hesitates to reveal his thoughts. But maybe exhibitionist is not the right term to describe Nietzsche, as such a characterization would imply that he needed another's look to justify himself. But it seems as though Nietzsche was not writing for another, but for himself, feeling perhaps that his self-analysis was best done on paper.

The author addresses this book to the readers of Nietzsche's works who are "victims" and have swallowed the bait, and consequently "carried along by the flights of his thought". She makes sure immediately to caution the reader that the expression "heroic individualism" is not found in any of Nietzsche's writings. But the equation "individual = hero" holds throughout his works. The author does a fine job of extracting this mathematics of individuation from the the writings of Nietzsche. One finishing the book, one carries away a deeper appreciation of the playful seriousness of Nietzsche's philosophy and his admonition to do philosophy while always looking in the mirror, and seeing one's own reflection, not someone else's.

Nietzsche was always celebrating, according to the author, the death of gods, and his project was to inspire a passion for greatness in a world without gods. But idols are to be smashed, and the grandeur of man is not to be found in a divine origin. It is making use of the dynamism of the flux, and the achieving of fame, and not its achievement, that is true heroism. The hero is a "dragon-slayer" who must achieve in life the highest value, and it (life) is never to be squandered. Caution though must be ever present, lest one use heroism not as a stimulus to self-development but as a means of avoiding it. "Sentimental dirge" and Wagnerian romanticism must be rejected.

The great man does not seek the admiration of the many, as the author again characterizes Nietzschean heroism: "go silently through the world and out of the world". The temptation for recognition must be avoided; one must not succoumb to the illusion of fame. The golden calf is not to replace the true self as the object of worship. Glory is always self-administered.

So how rare or common today is the hero of the Nietzschean type? Well, quite common...thousands...maybe hundreds of thousands. They are to be found in dance, in science, in literature, on the battlefield, behind the counter, sitting in the classroom and also standing in front of it, in the laboratory....indeed everywhere....the 21st century has no paucity of heroism.

This short book from Princeton University Press (only about 200 pages) is popular scholarship at its best. Thiele cuts through the many difficulties of Nietzsche's work to present, in prose accessible to any bright undergraduate, the essence of Nietzsche's project: the creation of a self that gives a noble and passionate answer to the question what it means to be fully conscious, fully human, fully engaged in creating one's values and one's life. I've been reading Nietzsche for some ten years now, and had lately begun writing about what makes him so fascinating--when Thiele's book made my own effort unnecessary. If you want to know (1) why Nietzsche looms large in the modern mind and (2) whether you want to read him yourself, this is the place to start

To truly understand a philosopher/philosophy, one must understand the context within which that philosopher developed.
Rudiger Safranski does an excellent job of both describing Nietzsche's environments as well as distilling the esentials of his philosophy. Way too many people have mis-stated the Nietzsche message - this is an excellent source to determine what the 'valuable' message is for you.

Since it is impossible to separate Nietzsche's life from his philosophy, Safranski doesn't even try.
This is the best book on Nietzsche and his philosophy I've ever read.
Why? Because instead of trying to explain N's complicated philosophical ideas all by themselves (which invariably leads to many footnotes about N's life to try and clarify them), Safranski explains the evolution of N's philosophy along with his life. You cannot help but understand it in this way.

'What meaning would our whole being have if it were not that in us that will to truth has become conscious of itself _as a problem_ within us?' --*On the Genealogy of Morals*

Nietzsche lived the life of an ascetic priest who tried to pull Dionysus *inward*, internalizing the Graeco-Gnostic night journey of transformative self-enhancement, lifelong psychic combat at the frontiers of metaphor and expression. There is so much rebellious kicking and thrashing in N.'s collected works, a witch's wind of wild conjecture emanating from a chthonic whirlpool, that a long, embattled tradition of miscomprehension, accusation, and resentment was bound to ferment in its wake.... In the final year before his breakdown, N.'s landlady heard strange noises coming from his room, and sneaked upstairs to peek through the keyhole. The sight of N. dancing naked like the Hindu god Shiva, teetering on a ground-swell of hysteria, is a popular image (second only to that of a stonefaced, embittered loner pouring scorn on 'the herd' from the separatist darkness of his cold rented room) that Rudiger Safranski aims to dignify, flesh out, qualify, and redact. In this regard, *Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography* is a boon and a delight, a sure-handed trump to all who doubt the centrality of N.'s thought (most American philosophy departments, monopolized by logicians of the 'analytical' school, do not offer a course on Nietzsche).

Safranski's biography hits hermeneutic pay-dirt, delivers all the important playlets and dramas of N.'s strange and embittered life, the byzantine reversals, the ascetic hardships, the wild years of thought-experiment and self-overcoming as this great thinker pioneered the course of non-analytic philosophy in the 20th century. N.'s passion for conjecture inspired him to structure his life so as to yield Dramatis Personae for thought, a vast cosmological theater of monstrous forces and sibylline potency blazing trails through psychology, aesthetics, philosophy of science, moral theory, and (most disastrously) politics. All philosophical thinking that measures its worth against the great Tolstoyan question 'How should one live?' will ultimately circle back to Nietzsche.

Tactfully, Safranski skimps on the details, focusing on N.'s intellectual development, bringing anecdotal data to bear at strategic moments to help qualify the radical contradictions (and/or developmental reversals) of N.'s ever-flowing deluge of path-breaking insights. When the biographer gets his blood up, his pages glimmer with concise, penetrating analogies, quicksilver correspondences, and (most importantly) stark, evenhanded censure whenever N.'s blazing hubris gets ahead of itself, as in the notorious dogmatic triptych of Ubermensch, Eternal Recurrence, and Will to Power -- a thunderous, fulminating triad of doom-eager pomposity, the fulcrum of N.'s last-ditch hysterics and tragic mental collapse.

What moves this reader most (apart from Safranski's sparkling analytic concordance) is the story of N.'s transformative self-dramatizing putting him further and further outside the loop of human relatedness (even as he penetrated deeper into the chthonic underside of morality, desire, and the historical formation of contingent knowledge-structures). The Nietzsche Syndrome has become an occupational hazard for all lonely, dejected, ego-intensive scholars -- a millstone of toxic self-importance contaminating interpersonal nuance and making the most routine human contact an act of heavy lifting. 'I feel as though I am condemned to silence or tactful hypocrisy in my dealings with everybody.' The chapter focusing on N.'s anguished courtship of Lou Andreas-Salome' is powerfully instructive. Here we see the proud egomaniac so befuddled by his philosophic fantasies (and their ruthless misapplication) that the lonely human being fulminating at their center can no longer break bread with the rest of the species. 'My soul was missing its skin, so to speak, and all natural protections.' N.'s failure to heed Zarathustra's doctrine that disciples should abandon their teachers as soon as they have 'found' their teachings brought N. 'to the brink of insanity'(253) in his yearning for Salome', who, once she understood him, left N.'s side for new intellectual horizons. (In an unsent letter, anguished love-trauma turns to squalid, adolescent rancor: 'This scrawny dirty smelly monkey with her fake breasts -- a disaster!') N. had put so much of himself into speculative thought that the intricate eroto-politicking of courtship and love had become flat-out culture-shock, a strange netherworld of alien ritual and occult formality (exacerbated by a string of spontaneous marriage-proposals to various women during periods of depression and self-doubt).

N.'s corpus of thought became, in many respects, a resentful war-machine geared to take imaginary revenge on the European culture that ignored his writings (while he lived), rebuffed his passion for radical redirection and reform, and refused to validate his Ubermenschian self-image as apocalyptic cultural messiah. We all know the story of N.'s betrayal of his earlier anti-essentialism for 'the will to power,' his grasping for the brass ring of Metaphysics, for the Type A theoretical entity that would circumnavigate and contain the Universe in its pan-relational sightlines. As Safranski notes, Heidegger would condemn the Nietzschean will-to-power as the last metaphysical gasp of a resentful philosophic priest (an allegation that would close the karmic circle via Derrida's critique of Heidegger's *own* late theorizing). N. was a new Prometheus who sought to reclaim the religious creativity of the Graeco-Christian world and restructure the soul of humanity with a renewed spiritual vigor (played against a neo-Darwinist backdrop of cold-water atheism to keep thinking 'grounded' in a steely empirical pragmatism). Safranski's text conflates every major biographical and critical analysis into a compact, razorbacked, 400-page monster head-trip written to challenge, delight, amuse, and inspire all comers. His suspenseful and compelling portrait reminds us all of why we got into philosophy in the first place.

This is a restorative text, a ritual reminder of philosophy's manifold glories and fallibilities, and a meal served in flames.

This is Nietzsche's first, and in some ways the best, philosophy book. Prior to Human All-Too Human, he penned The Birth of Tragedy and Untimely Meditations. But it is only in this book that Nietzsche comes into his own as a philosopher. The book was written soon after his retirement from teaching, due to ill health, and Nietzsche suffered a lot from physical pain, while writing the book, having to take hashish to relieve it. The book contains opinions on almost everything under the Sun. Although it is clearly broken down into distinct chapters, the thoughts within chapters are not arranged systematically. This is intentional and represents Nietzsche mistrust of grand theorizing and excessively systematic thinking. He retained this aphoristic writing style till the last days of his productive life. Thus in his approach, Nietzsche anticipates both existentialism and post-modernism. He views life personally, passionately, and with distrust to grand system(narrative) building. Thoughts slither through the labyrinth of human life, revealing strartling insights and forcing us to reconsider received opinions and conventional wisdoms.

By Nietzsche's standards, the perspectives presented in the book are fairly measured, and the author's voice is not nearly as shrill as it would become ten years later, in his last books. Because Nietzsche settles at a high level of generalization, some opinions do sound narrow-minded and prejudiced. In this, Nietzsche was also a victim of his time and culture: his comments on women and "the youthful Jew of the stock exchange" are not intellectuals gems, to put it very mildly. Some of his other opinions, on marriage, for example, also strike me as strange. Overall, this is a book by an all-too-human philosopher, yet it is a path-breaking work, a precursor to existentialism and post-modernism, written in a style that can appeal to the reader sheerly as good literature.

In this book, actually an anthology of three books, Nietzsche anticipates and comments upon social, cultural, political and psychological issues most of which are still current and troubling. A central theme is the human tendency to look for comfort, stability, and easy answers. He seemed to foresee that this tendency would become even more maladaptive as the pace of change increased, than it was in his own time. He offers an analysis of its causes, and a treatment, in the form of a relentless series of verbal shock-treatments, delivered in one-half to one page essays. The reader is constantly stimulated to take another look at issues that he thought he had settled.

Another issue for Nietzsche is the examination of the appropriate roles for science and art in human development. Anticipating contemporary thinking,he proposes that the brain has two competing/complementary functions. One, whose main product is science, brings an immediate sense of power to be able to understand what was not understood before, and what is not understood by many others. As an after-effect, however, it brings a sense of despair and depression, that previously-held illusions have been destroyed. The other half of the brain, the artistic sense, which he also calls the will to falsehood (not in a negative sense)presents possibilities, creative syntheses, or holistic images.

For Nietszche,human evolution proceeds by each individual maximizing the potential of each part of his brain, constantly generating new creative ideas, and then subjecting them to relentless analysis and criticism. This is the method Nietszche himself uses. He warns, however, that it requires incredible energy and strength to constantly be aware of and examine one's basic assumptions. Many who try will fall, (as Nietszche himself did) but, anticipating Darwin, he describes a process whereby the strongest, those most capable of enduring physical and psychological adversity, are the ones who survive and pass on the benefits of their growth.

Read this book if you are feeling depressed, read it if you are feeling strong, read it if you are feeling bored, read it if you are feeling overstressed, read it if you want a really good time, read it one page per day, read it all at once, read it in your own way, but my recommendation is READ IT.

This book is good for all of those who have read other of Nietzsche's works, as well as those who wish to start reading him. Nietzsche's ideas behind the concept of free spirits talk about an intellectual elitism which is only to be understood by those who have lived it. A book trully for free spirits, but recommendable for everyone who wishes to reach such a status, or become knowledgeable on Nietzsches ideology.

Most of the ideas on this book prevail up to his latest works, unlike previous essays which are later diminished by Nietzsche himslef. If you like this book read "The day Nietzsche Wept", if you liked that one, read this one. Let us face the truth: Nietzsche is a great thinker, specially for his time.

Hollingdale's biography/analysis of Nietzsche and his philosophy was an unexpected delight. I had already read Walter Kaufmann's translations of Nietzsche's major works when I came upon Hollingdale's volume; expecting little, I was amazed at the additional insights the author offered into Nietzsche's thought and world outlook. I would recommend this book to anyone who is new to Nietzsche - who would like to learn something of his philosophy, but who has held back because they feel Nietzsche, and perhaps, philosophy in general, is too remote or difficult.
Believe me, Hollingdale's volume will usher you, gently, into Nietzsche's world, and make you hungry for more. Nietzsche, himself, in "Thus Spake Zarathustra" had his protaganist announce, "I am the railing by the rushing torrent - grasp me if you can; your crutch I am not!" Like Nietzsche, Hollingdale does not seek disciples -- he explains the basic concepts of Nietzsche's philosophy with cool detachment, and offers them to the reader as a launchpad from which the reader can, if he/she wishes, soar, exploring Nietzsche's world for themselves, drawing their own conclusions. Nietzsche, the enemy of blind adherence, would have heartily approved such an approach. This is the man who said, "if you wish to strive after peace of soul and happiness, then believe; if you wish to be a disciple of truth, then inquire!" Enjoy the Journey!

Anyone interested in a lucid,fair,nonsense and distortion-free overview of Nietzsche's writings and life could do no better than to start here.Hollingdale avoids what the usual crowd of Nietzsche biographers and explainers and interpreters stumble over.Here you will not find the deconstructionist nonsense of Gilles Deleuze or the turning of Nietzsche into a contradictor of his own writings a la Heidegger.Perhaps no philosopher in history has had so many bad advocates and screeching and intentionally misleading and misinterpreting critics as Nietzsche.So much fetid,vapid and idiotic writing has enveloped Nietzsche that it threatens to destroy the philosopher altogheter.The future of Nietzsche scholarship needs many more individuals like R.J. Hollingdale if one of the most profound,original and critically important figures of the modern world is to be given proper justice.More importantly the public sorely needs to have the means to better understand why this philosopher is the axis on which all philosophy of the last century turns.Most of what Nietzsche wrote is still terribly misunderstood and reviled for no good reason.Hollingdale is one of the few,but hopefully the beginning of a flood of well thought out,accurate and sober scholars who will help integrate this most fascinating and courageous philosopher into our public discourse and common knowledge.

this book should prove useful for readers looking for a well-written, intelligent, and accessible introduction to this often very difficult and enigmatic thinker. hollingdale tackles head on many common misconceptions of nietzsche (i.e. that he was a nihilist, an anti-semite, a fascist) through the use of extensive quotes and poignant commentary. we see the development of his thought, from his youthful admiration of wagner and schopenhauer, through to his mature explications of the idea of life as will to power, and the theme of eternal recurrence. for the disciplined student this book proves to be of great value as well, offering insights into the personality of the man himself, through numerous letters and recollections from those who knew him most intimately. this is a great biography, respectful and humane, but also willing to acknowledge nietzsche's shortcomings and possible confusions as to his own state of mind and health.

This is both a review and a Kritik of the "Montreal Readers" review. I happen to love the writings of Nietzsche, in my opinion he is the most important philosophical figure ever to walk this planet. However, do not listen to the "Montreal Readers" comments, he or she does not even know the title of the orignial piece, in this persons review it states the "La Gaya Scieza" when in actuality the original title in the german is Di Froliche Wissenschaft.
This book is a masterpiece, one of Nietzsche's most beautifully written books in which he paints a picture with witty and glamorous aphorisms. Many themes such as the Eternal Reccurance and the Death of God come into plsy and we get a glimpse of Nietzsche's nihilism. My advice is to read Ecce Homo and twilight of the idols before develving into this book. Nietzsche called it his most personal of books, and from reading it and studying Nietzsche myself I believe it to be as well. But that does not mean one should start with this book. One needs to learn and get personal with Nietzsche and gather an understanding of his concepts and ideas before anyone should dive into this work.
It is a masterpiece, but a work that is substantial and one of his longer works. Take a test drive with Nietzsche and if you want to read more, go and read this work.

The Gay Science is a wonderful celebration of life. One can not make categorial statements on Nietzsche, but that he wanted his readers to accept the indifference of nature, and not pity themselves with, "Why me?" questions. After all God is dead, therefore, why even bother yourself with asking why me? If there is one Carpe Diem philosopher it is Nietzsche! "One must have liberated oneself from many things that oppress, inhibit, hold down, and make heavy precisely us Europeans [modernity in general] today." Nietzsche takes his readers into cataclysmic conversations (aphorisms), trying to undo the manacles of our spirit. Do yourself a favor and pick up this book, instead of remaining curious about the "madman with a frizzy mustache". Keep and open mind, then curse and thank Nietzsche all you want and move on with your own standards of life.

This book contains the famous description of the madman announcing the Death of God. Obviously Nietzsche sees himself as the madman, sacrificing himself to bring humanity the awful news. What's odd is that Nietzsche was certainly not the first person to proclaim God's death; in fact, as he himself notes elsewhere, many educated people had already become either agnostic or atheistic. None of them, however, found this as earthshaking as Nietzsche. The reason, I think, is that he had an essentially religious nature. The word "spiritual" recurs throught the book. In one remarkable passage he even chastises St. Augustine for being insufficiently spiritual.

The Gay Science is a pivitol book for Nietzsche because it is the first in which the tension between the spiritual seeker and the atheist becomes manifest. Gone is the skeptical pose of "Human All Too Human"; instead we have the anguish of a man torn between two conflicting ideals. The tension, while it ravaged Nietzsche, did produce some brilliant ideas and unforgettable prose, even if it did not ultimately lead to a liveable philosophy.