I am dynamite! A life of Nietzsche

Review by New York Times Review

A secret congregation of politicians, religious officials and scientists gathered near midnight on April 14, 2014, in the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw to exhume the heart of Chopin. No press was invited and word of the event did not filter out until five months late. The visitors did not open the crystal jar contained in a coffin inscribed with the composer'sname. But they examined and photographed the enlarged organ inside, which had been pickled, probably in cognac. Later, experts would say a whitish film coating the heart pointed to a death from tu- berculosis with complications from pericarditis. The archbishop of Warsaw blessed the organ before it was reinterred in a stone pillar bearing a verse from Matthew: "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." The posthumous reputation of Frederic Chopin (1810-49) stands in stark contrast to his music. A lifelong agnostic, he - or at least his heart - is venerated like a relic in Poland. He never wrote an opera, but in his afterlife he continues to throw up scenes of high drama. In his works - almost all for piano - he dispensed with the programmatic titles that many 19th-century composers used to evoke fairy-tale landscapes and picaresque quests. Yet almost from the moment Chopin died, in Paris, legends attached themselves to his name like ivy. There was the handful of Polish soil Chopin was supposed to have hoarded so it could be scattered over his coffin. A forged diary made the rounds. Priapic letters, addressed to a licentious countess, inflamed scholarly minds until Polish criminologists debunked them as fabrications. Even while alive he became a thinly fictionalized character in a novel by George Sand, his partner of nine years. For a biographer, there's a lot to untangle. Alan Walker does so brilliantly in "Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times," a magisterial portrait of a composer who fascinated and puzzled contemporaries and whose music came to define the Romantic piano. (Walker uses the Polish variant of the first name.) Drawing on a wealth of letters and fresh scholarship, Walker creates a polyphonic work that elegantly interweaves multiple strands. He sketches key events in the history of Poland and portrays the burgeoning society of Polish exiles in Paris in a way that lends depth to Chopin's oft-cited patriotism. Chopin left Poland just before the Warsaw Uprising in 1830. The bittersweet pathos that would infuse so many of his compositions based on Polish dances - the mazurkas and polonaises - here appears as the musical expression of survivor's guilt. Another thread that runs brightly through the book concerns virtuosity, and Chopin's place in a music scene dominated by stage animals. This was, after all, the age of the devilishly gifted violinist Paganini and of piano wizards with outsize egos that divided critics and fans. With the exception of Liszt their names - Alkan, Dreyschock, Kalkbrenner, Thalberg and many others - have long been forgotten. But it was in opposition to these acrobats of the keyboard that contemporaries experienced Chopin's playing. Although gifted with prodigious techñique, Chopin stood outside the "flying trapeze school" of pianism. "1 really don't know whether any place contains more pianists than Paris, or whether you can find anywhere more asses and virtuosos," he wrote in a letter that makes his views on the matter clear. "Is there a difference?" Illness is a recurring motif that shaped Chopin's career before cutting it short. Squeamish readers may blanch at the amount of blood-flecked sputum the tubercular Chopin coughs up on the page, and at the procession of doctors with their leeches and milk diets. Unintentional damage came from well-meaning women, ft was Sand who organized the creative retreat on an unexpectedly rain-sodden Majorca that weakened Chopin. Years later in 1848, a wealthy amateur pianist, Jane Stirling, led Chopin on a tour of England and Scotland that so exhausted the composer - ill and weighing some 95 pounds - that servants had to carry him from room to room. There's romance, too - or at least the suggestion of it. Curiously it is here that Walker seems the least confident. The problem begins early, with teenage letters Chopin wrote to a male friend who had been a boarder at the school Chopin's father ran in Warsaw. "Give me your lips, dearest lover. I'm convinced you still love me, and 1 am as scared of you as ever," one missive reads. And: "Today you will dream that you are embracing me! You have to pay for the nightmare you caused me last night!" This episode brings on a bout of handwringing in Walker, who allows for the possibility of a "passing homosexual affair" between the two men but considers it "far more likely" that Chopin's fervent letters were the result of "psychological confusion." Around the same time Chopin had fallen under the spell of the mezzo-soprano Konstancja Gladkowska - feelings that Walker thinks Chopin transferred onto his best friend. Chopin would be romantically linked with other women but his only lasting relationship was with the trouser-wearing, cigar-smoking George Sand. For most of its nine years their relationship was conducted in separate bedrooms, their lack of relations an open secret. Walker is probably right when he speculates that the gaunt Chopin, who erupted in coughing fits at the slightest exertion, wasn't much fun in bed. But it surely seems plausible, too, that his relationship with Sand devolved into platonic companionship because Chopin just wasn't wired that way. Whatever its physical foundation, the odd symbiosis between Sand and Chopin makes for some of the most novelistic and colorful chapters in the book. Much of the time the two artists were like ships passing in the night, Sand emerging from her writing vigils "like a bat coming out of its cave blinking in the sunlight," as Balzac put it, just as Chopin had his morning cup of chocolate and prepared to get down to work. It seems as if many of their most meaningful interactions occurred in her salon in front of an audience of gossipmongers. Fastidious, aloof and touchy, Chopin kept even friends at arm's length. But he was also capable of reducing them to tears with comic impersonations at the piano and his letters show up his caustic wit. Walker offers insightful comments on some of his most important compositions with their pianistic innovations and expressive elegance. But while Chopin's music opens up emotional worlds it spells out nothing. THE ENDURING FASCINATION of Chopinian relics is also the subject of a shorter book by Paul Kildea. In his highly readable if disjointed CHOPIN'S PIANO: In Search of the Instrument That Transformed Music (Norton, $27.95), Kiidea, a conductor and writer, takes on the fate of a humble upright piano on which Chopin composed many of his groundbreaking Preludes during his fateful sojourn on Majorca. As Walker shows in his biography, Chopin cared deeply about instruments to the point of identifying with them. (In a despondent letter from Scotland he compared himself to an old cembalo.) This piano, built by a Majorcan craftsman, gave Chopin "more vexation than consolation," according to George Sand. But it drew some of the most forwardlooking music from him. In 1911 the brilliant harpsichord pioneer Wanda Landowska discovered the piano languishing in the same drafty monastery where Chopin and Sand had stayed. Her effort to bring it to Berlin, its seizure by Nazi officers during World War II and its subsequent odyssey once again show the uncanny ability of Chopin to write operas - posthumously. Chopin was capable of reducing friends to tears with comic impersonations at the piano. CORINNA DA FONSECA-WOLLHEIM is a contributing music critic for The Times.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [June 30, 2019]

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Review by Booklist Review

*Starred Review* When the Viennese scholar Julius Paneth met Nietzsche in 1884, he marveled at the cheerful amiability of the philosopher advancing ideas so explosive that they threatened the foundations of European thought. Carefully examining both human drama and conceptual argument, Prideaux plumbs the turbulent depths of spirit hidden behind Nietzsche's sunny affability. Readers learn how tangled personal relationships decisively affected Nietzsche's perspective. A long (though finally fractured) friendship with Wagner, composer of the magisterial Ring operatic cycle, impressed upon Nietzsche a conception of life as ceaseless recurrence. A series of frustrated romances with volatile women incubated a strain of misogyny. But beyond the impactful personal experiences, readers discern the restless intellectual voyaging that carried the German philologist out of the harbor of religious faith, beyond even the systemic clarity of Cartesian rationalism. With laudable lucidity, Prideaux explicates why Nietzsche hailed the emergence of the fearless Superman, who jettisons all metaphysical credos and scientific frameworks, discards established moral codes, to ecstatically affirm life's joyous meaning in a spontaneous dance of self-expression. Lamentably, the concluding chapters chronicle a double tragedy: Nietzsche descends into insanity, and a distorted caricature of his philosophy becomes a propaganda prop for Nazism. Compelling treatment of both the enigmatic man and his iconoclastic thought.--Bryce Christensen Copyright 2018 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

This scintillating biography of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche illuminates a man struggling constantly to reshape accepted ideas about society, morality, and religion. Drawing on close readings of his writings and on archival research, Prideaux (Strindberg: A Life) traces the outline of the philosopher's life, from his father's death when Nietzsche was four years old and his early education at his mother's knee, through his days at gymnasium, where he excelled in languages, to his early and pivotal friendship with Wagner, his romance with the writer Lou Salome, and his slow and lonely descent into dementia. Even as a teenager, Prideaux shows, Nietzsche was developing his knack for striking language, and by the time he met Wagner, Nietzsche had developed his own style-one centered around the struggles between reason and instinct and "between life and art." Given that ideas from Nietzsche's later work-the need to overcome, the will to power, and the Aobermensch-were later appropriated by Nazis, Prideaux is at pains to show that his philosophy focused on the "need to overcome ourselves," not others. Nietzsche often compared his writing to dancing, and Prideaux's invigorating study captures the joyous and often ebullient character of this writer's deeply influential work. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

Much has been written about German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), and you might wonder if another biography is necessary. But Prideaux (Edvard Munch) takes a new approach by analyzing personal letters, specific life events, and individuals close to him to create an account that reads more like a thoughtful study of the man than an analysis of his philosophical theories. Through examining his life events, readers discover how Nietzsche's thought was shaped by his experiences and those around him. Prideaux also does a fantastic job of showing the complexity of Nietzsche's philosophy and his loneliness, madness, and independent spirit. Prideaux's skill at writing an entertaining biography that also delves into its subject's writings makes this an engaging read. VERDICT Anyone seeking an introduction to Nietzsche's life and how it shaped his work will enjoy this book. [See Prepub Alert, 4/23/18.]-Scott Duimstra, -Capital Area Dist. Lib., Lansing, MI © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

A comprehensive biography of the philosopher who famously wrote that "God is dead!...And we have killed him."Novelist and biographer Prideaux (Strindberg: A Life, 2012, etc.) portrays the German author Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) as a writer desperately in search of an audience. His father was a Lutheran pastor, and Nietzsche believed he would become one, too. He was "unusually sensitive to music" and composed throughout his life. By the age of 12, he said, he started to "philosophise," and he went on to become one of the youngest to receive a professorship at Basel University. Schopenhauer's work was an early influence, but Richard Wagner, whom he first met in 1868, and his wife, Cosimawhom Nietzsche had a crush oninspired him greatly. His closest female friend was his sister, Elisabeth. Prideaux chronicles in detail their often rocky relationship and how, after Nietzsche's death, she rewrote his works, infusing them with her anti-Semitism, garnering Hitler's enthusiastic approval. In 1872, Nietzsche published his first book, The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music, which Prideaux describes as an "impassioned attack on the cultural degeneration of his day." She does a fine job of explaining how Nietzsche's nihilistic philosophy developed, book after bookmost self-publishedwhile the texts grew briefer and more aphoristic. She dramatically reveals a man obsessed with writing. After finishing Twilight of the Idols, he began The Will to Power the next morning. Prideaux also describes in detail his lifelong battles with severe headaches and eye problems. Finally, there's her sad figure of an itinerant man still writing and dejectedly carrying around with him his entire wardrobe of personal possessions. Prideaux notes that Nietzsche has appealed to an odd assortment of followers, from Thomas Mann, Albert Schweitzer, and James Joyce to Eugene O'Neill, Jack London, and Mussolini. What an irony, she writes, since Nietzsche "expressed his horror at the idea of having disciples."Although a bit dry in places, this is a rich, nuanced guide to a complex and tortured man. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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On November 9, 1868, the twenty-four-year-old Nietzsche recounted a comedy to Erwin Rohde, his friend and fellow-student at Leipzig University. "The acts," he wrote, "in my comedy are headed: 1. An evening meeting of the society, or the sub professor. 2. The Ejected Tailor. 3. A rendezvous with X. "The cast includes a few old women. "On Thursday evening Romundt took me to the theatre, for which my feelings are growing very cool . . . we sat in the gods like enthroned Olympians sitting in judgement on a potboiler called Graf Essex. Naturally I grumbled at my abductor . . . "The first Classical Society lecture of the semester had been arranged for the following evening and I had been very courteously asked if I would take this on. I needed to lay in a stock of academic weapons but soon I had prepared myself, and I had the pleasure to find, on entering the room at Zaspel's, a black mass of forty listeners . . . I spoke quite freely, helped only by notes on a slip of paper . . . I think it will be all right, this academic career. When I arrived home I found a note addressed to me, with the few words: 'If you want to meet Richard Wagner, come at 3:45 p.m. to the Café Théâtre. Windisch.' "This surprise put my mind in somewhat of a whirl . . . naturally I ran out to find our honorable friend Windisch, who gave me more information. Wagner was strictly incognito in Leipzig. The Press knew nothing and the servants had been instructed to stay as quiet as liveried graves. Now, Wagner's sister, Frau Professor Brockhaus, that intelligent woman whom we both know, had introduced her good friend, Frau Professor Ritschl to her brother. In Frau Ritschl's presence, Wagner plays the Meisterlied [Walther's Prize Song from Wagner's most recent opera, Die Meistersinger , premiered a few months earlier] and the good woman tells him that this song is al- ready well known to her. [She had already heard it played and sung by Nietzsche, though its musical score had been published only very recently.] Joy and amazement on Wagner's part! Announces his supreme will, to meet me incognito; I am to be invited for Sunday evening . . . "During the intervening days my mood was like something in a novel: believe me, the preliminaries to this acquaintance, considering how unapproachable this eccentric man is, verged on the realm of fairy tale. Thinking there were many people to be invited, I decided to dress very smartly, and was glad that my tailor had promised my new evening suit for that very Sunday. It was a terrible day of rain and snow. I shuddered at the thought of going out, and so I was content when Roscher visited me in the afternoon to tell me a few things about the Eleatics [an early Greek philosophical school, probably sixth-century BC] and about God in philosophy. Eventually the day was darkening, the tailor had not come and it was time for Roscher to leave. I accompanied him so as to continue to visit the tailor in person. There I found his slaves hectically occupied with my suit; they promised to send it in three-quarters of an hour. I left contentedly, dropped in at Kintschy's [a Leipzig restaurant much frequented by students] and read Kladderadatsch [a satirical illustrated magazine] and found to my pleasure a notice that Wagner was in Switzerland. All the time I knew that I would see him that same evening. I also knew that he had yesterday received a letter from the little king [Ludwig II of Bavaria] bearing the address: 'To the great German composer Richard Wagner.' "At home I found no tailor. Read in a leisurely fashion the dissertation on the Eudocia, and was disturbed now and then by a loud but distant ringing. Finally I grew certain that somebody was waiting at the patriarchal wrought-iron gate; it was locked, and so was the front door of the house. I shouted across the garden to the man and told him to come in by the back. It was impossible to make oneself understood through the rain. The whole house was astir. Finally, the gate was opened and a little old man with a package came up to my room. It was six thirty, time to put on my things and get myself ready, for I live rather far out. The man has my things. I try them on; they t. An ominous moment: he presents the bill. I take it politely; he wants to be paid on receipt of the goods. I am amazed and explain that I will not deal with him, an employee, but only with the tailor himself. The man presses. Time presses. I seize the things and begin to put them on. He seizes the things, stops me from put- ting them on--force from my side; force from his side. Scene: I am fighting in my shirttails, endeavouring to put on my new trousers. "A show of dignity, a solemn threat. Cursing my tailor and his assistant, I swear revenge. Meanwhile he is moving off with my things. End of second Act. I brood on my sofa in my shirttails and consider black velvet, whether it is good enough for Richard. "Outside the rain is pouring down. A quarter to eight. At seven thirty we are to meet in the Café Théâtre. I rush out into the windy, wet night, a little man in black without a dinner jacket. "We enter the very comfortable drawing room of the Brockhauses; nobody is there apart from the family circle, Richard and the two of us. I am introduced to Richard and address him in a few respectful words. He wants to know exact details of how I became familiar with his music, curses all performances of his operas and makes fun of the conductors who call to their orchestras in a bland voice; 'Gentlemen, make it passionate here. My good fellows, a little more passionate!' . . . "Before and after dinner, Wagner played all the important parts of the Meistersinger , imitating each voice and with great exuberance. He is indeed a fabulously lively and fiery man, who speaks very rapidly, is very witty and makes a very private party like this one an extremely gay affair. In between, I had a longish conversation with him about Schopenhauer; you will understand how much I enjoyed hearing him speak of Schopenhauer with indescribable warmth, what he owed to him, how he is the only philosopher who has understood the essence of music." Schopenhauer's writings were at that time little known and less valued. Universities were highly reluctant to recognize him as a philosopher at all, but Nietzsche was swept up in a whirlwind enthusiasm for Schopenhauer, having recently discovered The World as Will and Representation by chance, the same chance or, as he preferred to put it, the same chain of fateful coincidences seemingly arranged by the unerring hand of destiny that had led up to this meeting with Wagner in the Brockhauses' salon. The first link in the chain had been forged a month before the meeting, when Nietzsche heard the preludes to Wagner's two latest operas, Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. "Every fiber, every nerve in my body quivered," he wrote the same day, and he set himself to learning the piano arrangements. Next, Ottilie Brockhaus had heard him play and relayed the news to her brother Wagner. Now the third link: Wagner's deep attachment to the obscure philosopher whose writings had been Nietzsche's com- fort when he had first arrived in Leipzig, rootless and unhappy, three years previously. "I [Nietzsche] lived then in a state of helpless indecision, alone with certain painful experiences and disappointments, without fundamental principles, without hope and without a single pleas- ant memory . . . One day I found this book in a second-hand book- shop, picked it up as something quite unknown to me and turned the pages. I do not know what demon whispered to me 'Take this book home with you.' It was contrary to my usual practice of hesitating over the purchase of books. Once at home, I threw myself onto the sofa with the newly-won treasure and began to let that energetic and gloomy genius operate upon me . . . Here I saw a mirror in which I beheld the world, life and my own nature in a terrifying grandeur . . . here I saw sickness and health, exile and refuge, Hell and Heaven." But there was no time, that evening in the Brockhauses' salon, to speak further of Schopenhauer, for what Nietzsche described as Wagner's spirals of language, his genius for shaping clouds, his whirling, hurling and twirling through the air, his everywhere and nowhere, were hurtling on. The letter continues: "After [dinner] he [Wagner] read an extract from his autobiography which he is now writing, an utterly delightful scene from his Leipzig student days, of which he still cannot think without laughing; he writes too with extraordinary skill and intelligence. Finally, when we were both getting ready to leave, he warmly shook my hand and invited me with great friendliness to visit him, in order to make music and talk philosophy; also, he entrusted to me the task of familiarising his sister and his kinsmen with his music, which I have now solemnly undertaken to do. You will hear more when I can see this evening somewhat more objectively and from a distance. For today, a warm farewell and best wishes for your health. F.N." Excerpted from I Am Dynamite!: A Life of Nietzsche by Sue Prideaux All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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