I Am Dynamite!: A Life of Nietzsche

In 1888, Nietzsche was at the height of his powers. He wrote five books – The Case of Wagner, Twilight of the Idols, The Antichrist, Nietzsche contra Wagner, and Ecce Homo. Georg Brandes, in Copenhagen, had just began a series of lectures on Nietzsche’s work which would kindle an explosion of interest in Nietzsche. Nevertheless, in January 1889 – at the age of 44 – Nietzsche collapsed into dementia, from which he never recovered. He died eleven years later.Dementia at age 44 is unusual. What was the cause of Nietzsche’s dementia?Throughout his life, beginning in childhood, Nietzsche had severe, often disabling migraines, accompanied by nausea and vomiting. He was blind in the right eye beginning in early adulthood, with extreme myopia of the right eye documented in childhood. What caused the blindness in his right eye – which is visibly bulging out in some photographs – and what caused his migraines, which were usually worse on the right side of his head? Why was the right pupil larger than the left, throughout his life – as documented by his earliest examinations in childhood?Over the past 20 years, a series of medical scholars have tried to answer each of the questions above, using modern medical insights to evaluate the rich data trove we have with regard to Nietzsche’s various ailments. Nietzsche’s medical history is remarkably well documented, beginning in childhood. We have the medical records of the many doctors who evaluated Nietzsche over the course of his life. There is one point on which the new generation of scholars agree: the diagnosis of “syphilis”, which was popular in the 20th century, cannot be sustained. For example, a trio of German and American neurosurgeons concluded that the evidence appears “to directly contradict the diagnosis of syphilis” (see Owen, Schaller, and Binder, 2007). They make a prediction regarding the correct diagnosis - meningioma - which could be tested and confirmed, or refuted, by exhuming and testing Nietzsche’s remains.Nietzsche’s various medical problems – in particular, his visual problems and his headaches – were central to his lived experience, leading to his retirement on disability at age 35. Remarkably, Prideaux shows little curiosity regarding the cause of those problems. On the contrary, she blithely asserts that the question of whether or not Nietzsche had syphilis “is unverifiable one way or the other” (p. 81). Such a broad claim might be admissible if she showed some familiarity with the conclusions reached by neurosurgeons such as Owen, Schaller, and Binder (2007). She could then explain to the reader why she believes that her judgment regarding Nietzsche’s neurological signs is more trustworthy than the judgment of the neurosurgeons and other physicians cited below. But, astonishingly, she seems not even to have read any of the papers listed below. All of these papers were published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals and all are readily available online. She never mentions any of them. Instead, she cites a 2001 work by Richard Schain, the least-persuasive of the new works questioning the diagnosis of syphilis.Nietzsche himself wrote that “the degree and kind of a man’s sexuality reach up into the highest pinnacle of his spirit” (Beyond Good and Evil, section 75). Prideaux asserts that Nietzsche had gonorrhea, again without showing any awareness of the controversy surrounding this question. How would he have contracted gonorrhea? Prideaux reports that Nietzsche’s friend Paul Rée once implied that Nietzsche had slept with prostitutes (p. 165), although she does not provide the source. Nietzsche denied having slept with prostitutes. Does Prideaux thinks Nietzsche is lying? Nietzsche laughed at bourgeois morality; why would he lie about sleeping with a prostitute? As Walter Kaufmann observed: we know of several women whom Nietzsche loved, but we know of no woman who loved Nietzsche. He may have died a virgin. In which case, how did he contract gonorrhea? Doesn’t this question merit some attention?A glance at Prideaux’s bibliography reveals very little scholarly research. She has read Nietzsche’s books and a few of his letters, as well as some of the most popular books about Nietzsche such as Sander Gilman’s Begegnungen mit Nietzsche – a book which she cites, peculiarly enough, only in the abridged and condensed English translation, not in the unabridged German original. She seems largely uninterested in what anybody else has said about Nietzsche.Nietzsche’s complete letters are available in German, in an eight-volume critical edition available at amazon.de, published in 2003. Prideaux apparently has not read them; she does not cite them. Instead, she cites the 1969 “selected letters” translated into English by Christopher Middleton. Walter Kaufmann – the dean of Nietzsche scholars – reviewed this book for the New York Times and noted that Middleton’s slim volume included only a tiny fraction of Nietzsche’s letters, and that Middleton’s translations were marred by both “errors in translation and scholarship” which “perpetuate some old errors.” Nietzsche wrote 34 letters to his friend Paul Rée; the Middleton translation includes only two of those letters. And yet this slender 1969 book is the collection of letters on which Prideaux relies. Here is the link to Kaufmann’s 1969 review: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/11/30/89151274.pdf. Although Prideaux refers to Kaufmann as a “great scholar” (p. 128), she seems to have read very little of Kaufmann’s work.The five papers cited below offer four different explanations for Nietzsche’s dementia. Two suggest a meningioma with onset in childhood. The other three suggest three other conditions. The one point on which all five agree is that syphilis is the least likely explanation. Prideaux shows no awareness of any of this published research.If this book were a thesis submitted for a master’s degree in philosophy, I would give it a passing mark, although I would note that it is derivative and unoriginal.Citations:Hemelsoet, Hemelsoet and Devreese (2008). The neurological illness of Friedrich Nietzsche. Acta neurologica Belgica, 108:9-16.Koszka (2009). Friedrich Nietzsche: A classical case of mitochondrial encephalomyopathy with lactic acidosis and stroke-like episodes (MELAS) syndrome? Journal of Medical Biography 17:161-164.Orth & Trimble (2006). Friedrich Nietzsche’s mental illness – general paralysis of the insane vs. frontotemporal dementia. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 114:439-444.Owen, Schaller, and Binder (2007). The madness of Dionysus: a neurosurgical perspective on Friedrich Nietzsche. Neurosurgery 61:626-632.Sax (2003). What was the cause of Nietzsche’s dementia? Journal of Medical Biography. 2003:47-54.

I found this book thin and unsatisfying, content-wise. Yes, it’s written in a lively way but it skips too lightly over Nietzsche’s thought, and some of the writing itself seemed to reveal a lack of critical analysis. Take this quote from the book about Wagner’s Ring cycle: “The storyline is based on the great German myth of the Nibelungen, in which the ancient Norse gods behave quite unlike the Judeo-Christian God but very much as Greek gods. They are capricious, unfair, lustful, deceitful, and entirely human.” In a bio about Nietzsche of all people to apparently unthinkingly portray the Judeo-Christian god as unlike the Greeks’ gods in not being “capricious, unfair, ...” etc. really does expose, at the very least, some seriously philosophically weak assumptions.

I was excited to pick up this biography of Nietzsche since the description made me hope that it was more than just a dry telling of facts or an analysis of his works. In that, I was not disappointed. Prideaux has done a very good job of making the biography interesting even as she includes all the facts, excerpts, letters, etc that a good biographer should consult and include in a biography. The first chapter did not strike me as the best place to start - it picks up with Nietzsche's first meeting with Wagner - and I am glad that I plugged through to the second half of the chapter where the biographer actually sets the scene with familial history, local history and politics in which the reader can then gain a better understanding of the Philosopher's beginnings.There are many misconceptions and biases against Nietzsche (During my college years, I was informed curtly by a relative that Nietzsche was a Nazi and did not deserve to be read!) and I was very glad to see this book address each and every one in a thorough fashion. Prideaux draws the man for us, with all his flaws and hopes and failures, but a man with high aspirations and great disappointments as well. His musical talent, his creativity and finally his philosophy are explored and examined clearly and in a manner that should be easily accessible to most readers.There is tragedy in what happened to Nietzsche in his final years when he descended into madness and Prideaux draws the picture for us unflinchingly in all the details of what borders on abuse and definitely tips into exploitation. The actions of his sister, Elizabeth, how his writings and his reputation were manipulated and misportrayed by Hitler and the Nazi party, how his disease was misdiagnosed and his very death explained in a fabricated lie; these are disturbing to read about anyone but made even worse by the fact that Prideaux shows us the intellect, the curiosity and the humanity behind the famous name.In short, this is an excellent examination of a Nietzsche's philosophy as well as of his growth from young aspiring musician to teacher to disillusioned philosopher. If there are any flaws in this biography, it would be that the writer occasionally slips into flowery speech and language picked up, perhaps, from her extensive research and reading the language of Nietzsche's time. However, this adds to the immediacy of the events and did not interfere with the gravity and excellence of the text.Very highly recommended!

This biography is a revelation, rejecting many of the myths surrounding Nietzshe's life. It is an irony that the creator of macho ideas such as "Master Morality" and the Superman was, in real life, in very poor health during most of his life, ending in insanity. The biographer also makes it clear that though he was surrounded by proto-Nazis such as Richard Wagner and Bernard Forster, Nietzshe rejected their master-race obseesions and anti-Semitism (although he seemed to underestimate their danger for the future)My main criticism (and the reason I deduct 1 star ) is that the book does not explain what in his life led to his hostility to conventional Christianity. His objection was not the usual ones, that it was hypocritical or irrational, but his unusual notion that Chrisitianity represented decadent "slave morality" . What led him to this concept?

I had heard the Author on R4 and her reasons for wanting to write the book. ie get to understand the man and his ideas and disentangle his later misuse to justify all sorts of nasty things, was the same as mine. I'd struggled for years to really get a handle on what he was about. So I was pleased to read this excellent book which goes a long way to clarifying and bringing in to focus the man and his thought processes. It also paints a very clear picture of his relationships and how they shaped his ideas for good or ill or in the case of his sister rewrote them. I ended up really liking the man Nietzsche as well as sympathising with many of his insights and refusal to be dogmatic. And the account of his last days made me weep.One of the best non fiction books I've read in the last 5 years. Worth every one of its five stars !

I bought this book hoping to expand my general knowledge. All my life, I've encountered quotations from Nietzsche. I figured I should find out more about the man. The book? Printed in a tiny font, on very thin paper, too tightly bound to read comfortably, it is written in a style which might appeal to a Classics professor but decidedly not to the man in the street such as myself. If you are looking for a coffee table book you can dip in and out of, or a comfy bedtime read; this is not for you, or me, it transpires. Frankly, its a struggle, containing wordy, convoluted sentences and never before encountered vocabulary with many German names which may defeat the non German reader. I gleaned a few nuggets of information. Sufficient to realise that he was indeed a loony tune, with strange behaviour from infancy which descended into madness before his early death, attributed to 'softening of the brain', which leads me to question his privately question his stature as a 'philosopher'. There is reportedly a family history of this and which while I am no medical expert, sounds suspiciously to me like congenital syphilis.

Excellent biography of one of the most influential men of modern times. Maybe if you have found Nietzsche too difficult to get into in any meaningful way then this could be the place to start. Time and place, the small details of a life, I find often flesh out a "philosophy" that proves difficult to understand in its raw form - and the almost staccato, aphoristic style of Nietzsche's writings invite either incomprehension or, worse, misunderstanding. Sue Prideaux weaves the challenge that Nietzsche poses to us "moderns" into his life story, and does it well.I never really knew just how much Nietzsche suffered health wise, both intestinal and with his vision. Again, just how much he moved around, throughout Europe.His sister Elizabeth is presented here as the villain of the piece and undoubtedly she was, misrepresenting Nietzsche's thoughts; while he was still alive, yet mad, but more so after his death. Nietzsche as the "forerunner" of the Nazi's was the product of Elizabeth's lack of insight, deliberate misrepresentations, and simplifications. So much so that, as Sue Prideaux says:- "Ernst Krieck, a prominent Nazi ideologue, sarcastically remarked that apart from the fact that Nietzsche was not a socialist, not a nationalist and opposed to racial thinking, he could have been a leading National Socialist thinker." What came across to me was a certain fragility to the man, a vulnerability. Maybe just the way I read it. Whatever, his life and writings are a genuine challenge and this book is an excellent place to begin facing them, even if we eventually decide to discard most if not all.I shall continue to seek to relate his thought to so called "eastern" ways.Recommended.

Superb. This very well researched biography concentrates on Nietzsche”s background and private life rather than his ideas, in other words the events that went into the making of the Man. Education, home life, relationship with Wagners and others etc. anybody interested in the man will find fascination, delightful detail and insight on every page. Very revealing in showing how background events may have shaped his thinking.

I found this book a good read and lived up to its title. Although there is an outline of Nietzsche's philosophy this emerges from the life story rather than being tackled separately in itself. A good intro to his sometimes difficult to grasp ideas but you would need to choose a specifically philosophical text for more depth.I felt the book brought out clearly that Nietzsche was not a precursor to the National Socialists - this was a gross distortion arising from his sister's deep seated anti-semitism. From an historical perspective it also gave an insight into the pervasive anti-semitic attitudes which laid the groundwork for subsequent events in Germany.