26 April 2006
The Four Horsemen
One more from the active ‘to read’ shelf picked up at a now forgotten bookstore outing, Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, & Kafka
is a short analysis of a fun bunch of guys. The book treats each writer in turn, with short biographies and a treatment of their work, but for the most part the author assumes a certain level of familiarity. The meat of this short paperback comes in two short closing essays. The Four Apocalyptic Horsemen draws them together as a group, noting their many similarities such as lack of success, loneliness, woman problems, and the like. The most striking comparison is that each felt they were at the end of a great tradition, screaming into an uncaring or complacent wilderness, and each presaged the coming apocalypse of 20th Century Europe. The copyright on the inside cover of this book is 1952, but I have no idea when the original essays were written. The Angel’s Finger calls into clear sight the existential crises present at the outset of the Cold War, and is a great sense of the European pulse at that time. The essay also sorts the 19th Century writers into helpful roles for a present that is now over fifty years past. This little book was a great read on several levels.
is a short analysis of a fun bunch of guys. The book treats each writer in turn, with short biographies and a treatment of their work, but for the most part the author assumes a certain level of familiarity. The meat of this short paperback comes in two short closing essays. The Four Apocalyptic Horsemen draws them together as a group, noting their many similarities such as lack of success, loneliness, woman problems, and the like. The most striking comparison is that each felt they were at the end of a great tradition, screaming into an uncaring or complacent wilderness, and each presaged the coming apocalypse of 20th Century Europe. The copyright on the inside cover of this book is 1952, but I have no idea when the original essays were written. The Angel’s Finger calls into clear sight the existential crises present at the outset of the Cold War, and is a great sense of the European pulse at that time. The essay also sorts the 19th Century writers into helpful roles for a present that is now over fifty years past. This little book was a great read on several levels.
