I Am Dynamite!: A Life of Nietzsche

Front Cover
Tim Duggan Books, 2018 - Biography & Autobiography - 452 pages
NEW YORK TIMES Editors' Choice * THE TIMES BIOGRAPHY OF THE YEAR * WINNER OF THE HAWTHORNDEN PRIZE

A groundbreaking new biography of philosophy's greatest iconoclast

Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the most enigmatic figures in philosophy, and his concepts--the Übermensch, the will to power, slave morality--have fundamentally reshaped our understanding of the human condition. But what do most people really know of Nietzsche--beyond the mustache, the scowl, and the lingering association with nihilism and fascism? Where do we place a thinker who was equally beloved by Albert Camus, Ayn Rand, Martin Buber, and Adolf Hitler?

Nietzsche wrote that all philosophy is autobiographical, and in this vividly compelling, myth-shattering biography, Sue Prideaux brings readers into the world of this brilliant, eccentric, and deeply troubled man, illuminating the events and people that shaped his life and work. From his placid, devoutly Christian upbringing--overshadowed by the mysterious death of his father--through his teaching career, lonely philosophizing on high mountains, and heart-breaking descent into madness, Prideaux documents Nietzsche's intellectual and emotional life with a novelist's insight and sensitivity.

She also produces unforgettable portraits of the people who were most important to him, including Richard and Cosima Wagner, Lou Salomé, the femme fatale who broke his heart; and his sister Elizabeth, a rabid German nationalist and anti-Semite who manipulated his texts and turned the Nietzsche archive into a destination for Nazi ideologues.

I Am Dynamite!
is the essential biography for anyone seeking to understand history's most misunderstood philosopher.

From inside the book

Contents

OUR GERMAN ATHENS
2
BECOME WHAT YOU ARE
40
NAXOS
61
THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY
88
POISON COTTAGE
113
CONCEPTQUAKE
126
THE LAST DISCIPLE AND THE FIRST DISCIPLE
143
FREE AND NOT SO FREE SPIRITS
157
THE PHILOSOPHERS APPRENTICE
211
MY FATHER WAGNER IS DEAD MY SON ZARATHUSTRA IS BORN
227
ONLY WHERE THERE ARE GRAVES ARE THERE RESURRECTIONS
239
HE AMBUSHED ME
255
DECLAIMING INTO THE VOID
267
LLAMALAND
281
Aphorisms
383
Photography Credits Insert
397

HUMAN ALL TOO HUMAN
171
THE WANDERER AND HIS SHADOW
182
PHILOSOPHY AND EROS
198
Notes
407
Select Bibliography
429
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2018)

Sue Prideaux is a novelist and biographer. Her books include Edvard Munch: Behind the Scream, which was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and Strindberg: A Life, which received the Duff Cooper Prize and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize.

Bibliographic information