The Essential Kierkegaard

The Essential Kierkegaard, edited by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. 524 pp., $29.95.

Kierkegaard is not light reading, nor is he easy to summarize or even paraphrase.  I am not a philosopher by training, and I fully admit to being out of my league here. There is a fair amount that I do not understand, despite having a fair grasp on Danish and after having taken a class on the author. But there are so many exquisite essays in this collection that I cannot fail to be impressed with this man's mind. Kierkegaard forces me to think and think hard. His writings force me to confront my assumptions and my religious beliefs. He forces me to dig a little deeper than is comfortable. And for all that I am grateful.

This abridged collection of Kierkegaard's work follows the author chronologically, with large selections from his most famous works, including Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Works of Love, and The Sickness Unto Death.  I fear I cannot begin to summarize these works but only cite of my favorite lines. From The Concept of Anxiety (p. 153):

This is an adventure that every human being must go through--to learn to be anxious in order that he may not perish either by never having been in anxiety or by succumbing in anxiety. Whoever has learned to be anxious in the right way has learned the ultimate....Anxiety is freedom's possibility, and only such anxiety is through faith absolutely educative, because it consumes all finite ends and discovers all their deceptiveness. 

From Concluding Unscientific Postscript (p. 207):

Truth is precisely the daring venture of choosing the objective uncertainty with the passion of the infinite....But the definition of truth stated above is a paraphrasing of faith. Without risk, no faith. Faith is the contradiction between the infinite passion of inwardness and the objective uncertainty.

From The Sickness Unto Death (p. 361):

Sin is: before God, or with the conception of God, in despair not to will to be oneself or in despair to will to be oneself. Thus sin is intensified weakness or intensified defiance: sin is the intensification of despair.

I could go on, as this book is replete with underlined and starred passages along with my own thoughts in the margins. I think the passages above highlight, however, part of why I love Kierkegaard's writings so much: he deals with the ambiguities and complexities of a Christian life. Living a life of faith or striving for something better while recognizing one's faults is challenging and subject to each individual's experiences. Generally considered the father of existentialism, Kierkegaard is able to combine the importance of the individual experience with the Christian narrative, something subsequent existentialists were unable or unwilling to do.

The Hongs have dedicated their career to compiling, translating, and reinterpreting the works of Soren Kierkegaard. Their scholarly dedication is quite clear in this compilation. Footnotes are very helpful, the summaries at the beginning of each chapter provide valuable context, and references to the original books are clear but unobtrusive. I found the font a bit small, which became somewhat discouraging through some of the larger and more obscure works. But after nearly two years ago, three moves, a new job, a new son, and living in a new country, I was able to make it through the whole book. The journey was well worth it.

The Alliance

The Alliance by Gerald N. Lund. Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1983. 329 pp., $18.99.

This is my wife's favorite book of all time, and comes in pretty high on my own list as well. Just prior to departing on our epic vacation to Salt Lake City and Honolulu, I sat down one Sunday in December to reread this classic. (Again, as noted before, I was avoiding Kierkegaard at all costs.) As always, the novel did not disappoint. Fast-paced, imaginative, and containing all the necessary components of a well-thought out dystopia, this novel is the best science fiction novel I have read.

Unlike most dystopias, in Lund's novel the nuclear war has already occurred. World War III has wiped out most of the United States, and only pockets of survivors are found in areas that were not directly hit by nuclear and biological weapons. The novel starts with the world in the early phases of trying to rebuild itself, with a group of survivors in Star Valley, Wyoming quietly living as their pioneer ancestors did. Their pseudo-Eden is quickly shattered however when they are forcibly relocated to the Alliance, a growing society intent on rebuilding civilization without the horrors of war or violence. The method for removing these ills of society is an implant in the brain which conditions individuals to avoid incorrect thoughts and behavior.

Eric Lloyd, the protagonist of the novel, quickly sees through the pernicious effects of such a false utopia. The implants rob citizens in the Alliance of their ability to make choices themselves and ultimately undermines the good intentions behind the society. Thwarting the implant system is no easy task, however, and Lloyd goes to great lengths to free himself, his family, and ultimately the society from their electronic shackles.

The focus on free agency is a familiar track for many dystopias; but Lund is particularly adept in this realm because of his well-envisioned world and cogent dialogue between the characters regarding the positives and negatives of personal choice. I  am often frustrated by the lack of honest consideration of the very real downsides of agency in dystopic novels: the protagonist is without moral flaws and a post-dystopic society flourishes with no downsides. The Alliance does a decent job of reminding the reader why we so often seek to build utopias in the first place. A world of choices is a world of ambiguity, uncertainty, and--frequently--failure. Human beings are always striving to better the world; Lund reminds us there is no quick shortcuts in this path however. And there very well may be limits to just how much we can improve society. The truth is, without a higher source of inspiration, human society will be unable to rise above our "nasty, petty, and cruel" state.

But I don't read The Alliance for a moral lesson really. The action, fast pace, and intriguing world are the real draw of this book. Lund places the action in a world that is similar enough to this one I can relate but far enough removed in time and events that I can still get lost in the fiction thereof. The first time I read this book, I started it at 8pm and read all night. Every time I said I would read just one more chapter, there was something new and exciting waiting that I just had to check out. Even now, I find it difficult to put down. That is the true mark of a good science fiction novel.