MY SISTER, MY SPOUSE"": A Biography of Lou Andreas-Salome

More like a force of nature than a human being"", Lou Andreas-Salome whirled through a life of intellect and passion--a cyclonic goddess irresistible to each man in her wide path. Philosopher Nietzsche spoke his Zarathustra out of despair at Lou's refusal of marriage; poet Rilke was awakened to love and lyric by this woman whom he called, until his death, ""My sister, my spouse""; psychoanalyst Freud found in Lou the zeal and insight of a devoted friend and interpreter. From her birth in Czarist Russia in 1861 to her death in Nazi Germany in 1957, Lou held freedom as her guide, self- realization as her credo. As an author of twenty books (among them important studies of Ibsen, Nietzsche and Freud) and over a hundred essays and articles, as an indefatigable scholar of philosophy and human life, as a practising psychoanalyst, Lou pursued life in all its creative and human guises, never losing her incredible gift-a brilliant, almost masculine, intelligence sheathed in a woman's most passionate and sensuous nature. Married to Professor Andreas in name only, she knew, loved, inspired, and often devastated the men in her dynamic cultural milieu. Her own turbulent tale is fascinating enough, and her influence on her famed lovers and friends makes this able, well-researched biography an exciting vignette of the too human natures behind intellectual history.