intrusions
It is the rare biography of a philosopher that reads like a novel. By this I mean not that it is as readable as a novel or presents a novelette-ish narrative, but rather that it must be read as a collection of literary devices, not all of which are successful. Walter Lowrie’s short biography of Kierkegaard is, however, one such biography. 1 The most trying aspect of this (as well as the most obvious) is Lowrie’s insistence on the limitations of space (and, it is implied, the intellectual capacity of the popular reader) that prevent him from doing justice to the life and character of the philosopher; these claims, caveats, and quibbles easily take up nearly a quarter of the text, and even the most caviling reader, the veriest stickler for precision, could not help but feel that if Lowrie had used the space he spent bemoaning the lack of space, he might have added a good deal of the material he felt obliged to leave out. 2
No, more troubling, however, are Lowrie’s intrusions into the text like some erstwhile Serenus Zeitblom, enraptured with both his subject and any possible (if implausible) intimations of evangelical existentialism. Thus, in a short biography, with its much-lamented limitations of space, Lowrie still found room to express his fervent enthusiasm in perhaps ill-advised rhapsodizing:
Having been so indiscreet as to admit that I am a lover of Kierkegaard, I would have it known that this is the Kierkegaard I love—not the dissolute and despairing youth, nor the returning prodigal, nor the unhappy lover, not the genius who created the pseudonyms, but the frail man, utterly unfitted to cope with the world, who nevertheless was able to confront the real danger of penury as well as the vain terrors his imagination conjured up, and in fear and trembling, fighting with fabulous monsters, ventured as a lone swimmer far out upon the deep, where no human hand could be stretched out to save him, and there, with 70,000 fathoms of water under him, for three years held out, waiting for his orders, and then said distinctly that definite thing he was bidden to say, and died with a hallelujah on his lips. I could not love him as I do unless I could venerate him, and I learned to venerate him only when I saw that he had the courage to die as a witness for truth.
This is, if one is in the humor for it, moving, and it suggests a profound sympathy with Kierkegaard’s turmoil in and after 1848. However. Whether it should have a place in something that aims to be a biography rather than a hagiography, which Lowrie’s little book certainly isn’t, remains open to dispute. Owing to the limitations of space, time, and my own inclinations, I will not here dispute it openly. 3 I think, though, that I will rummage the shelves for a biography with a more reliable (and less intrusive) narrator.
- I have no opinion on Lowrie’s longer biography of Kierkegaard, as I have not read it nor am I likely to do so.[↩]
- This is the danger of the author addressing the acquiring editor in his text, rather than the intended final consumer of his book.[↩]
- Being quite ignorant, I also will not attempt any critique of the accuracy of Lowrie’s narrative, which does seem well-grounded in the source material – although it is sometimes difficult to tell when he is quoting and when he is gushing.[↩]