Here, Pletsch (Intellectual History/Miami Univ., Ohio) describes both how Nietzsche consciously chose to become a genius and the cultural conditions that allowed him to do so—the cult of genius itself, its 18th-century secular origins, its function in a period of progress, and Nietzsche's redefinition of it. Pletsch offers little personal information about Nietzsche aside from his military service, his nearsightedness, his inability to relate to women. Born in a society that worshipped genius and in a family of intellectually gifted Lutheran ministers, Nietzsche, orphaned at age five and industrious, introverted, bright, and ambitious, modeled himself after a series of father-surrogates and became a distinguished if dissatisfied professor of classical philosophy. In his discipleship to Wagner (whom he later repudiated as a ``disease'' to be overcome), he found his voice as a philosopher and his status as a genius, which he considered a critical as well as a creative role. As Pletsch uses it, the term ``genius'' is a vocation, not a description; a calling, not a gift; a choice, not a destiny. Its relationship to performance, excellence, originality, and comprehensive knowledge is marginal. But if Nietzsche were not born with exceptional gifts, when did he become a genius and who ratified his status? And how can one reconcile this culturally based theory of genius with the psychological one Pletsch also introduces, a modified Freudian family romance? As Thomas Kuhn has argued in science and Harold Bloom in literature, creative achievements are often the result of choosing strong ``fathers,'' predecessors, to be overcome—success itself being a combination of the struggle with the father and serendipity. In spite of its decisive tone, Pletsch's intriguing study is speculative and needs to be seen in relation to other studies of creativity.
Pub Date: July 22, 1991
ISBN: 0-02-925041-2
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1991
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
SEEN & HEARD
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