I Am Dynamite! cover art

I Am Dynamite!

A Life of Nietzsche

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I Am Dynamite!

By: Sue Prideaux
Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith
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About this listen

A groundbreaking and hypnotic biography of philosophy's greatest iconoclast.

Friedrich Nietzsche's work blasted the foundation of Western thinking. The death of God, the Übermensch and the slave morality permeate our culture, high and low, and yet he is one of history's most misunderstood philosophers.

Nietzsche himself thought that all philosophy was autobiographical, and in this myth-shattering book Sue Prideaux brings listeners into the world of a brilliant, eccentric and deeply troubled man, illuminating the events and people that shaped his life and work.

From his placid, devoutly Christian upbringing, overshadowed by the mysterious death of his father, through his lonely philosophising on high mountains, to the horror and pathos of his final descent into madness, Prideaux explores Nietzsche's intellectual, emotional and spiritual life with insight and sensitivity.

The audiobook is studded with unforgettable portraits of the people who were most important to him, including Richard and Cosima Wagner, Lou Salomé - the femme fatale who broke his heart - and his rabidly nationalist and anti-Semitic sister Elizabeth, who betrayed him by manipulating his texts and putting them to infinite misuse at the hands of the Nazis. Today, Nietzsche's ideas continue to be adopted by both the left and the right. I Am Dynamite! is the essential biography for anyone seeking to understand the philosopher who foresaw - and sought solutions to - our own troubled times.

©2018 Sue Prideaux (P)2018 Random House Audiobooks
Historical Philosophers Professionals & Academics Heartfelt Biography Thought-Provoking Metaphysical

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All stars
Most relevant
My two heroes in this life are Valentino Rossi and FN. This book does a fantastic job of painting the backdrop for understanding the bravest thinker of all time.

This is a beautiful book.

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By far the best biography of Nietzsche I’ve read and very well read with English accent.

Brilliant

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Sue Prideaux's welcome biography of Nietzsche is a masterclass in how to write a plausible, compelling, readable biography of an iconic global figure who has already been the subject of so many more scholarly accounts. As you would expect of the author of Edvard Munch, the text of Nietzsche I am Dynamite! breathes eloquence and insight and reveals Prideaux's natural propensity for harvesting scrupulous research in order to gainfully articulate the linkages between persons and events in her story. Prideaux also tends to focus on Nietzsche's physical malaise and its weird dichotomy, demonstrating how it both handicapped him and inspired him to greater heights of intellectual rigour. However, Prideaux really excels in the relationship with Richard and Cosima Wagner, it blossoming and decay, alerting the reader to the fact that along with loyal friend Franz Overbeck, the Wagners were the most crucial human connection in Nietzsche's life. Prideaux is also strong on the perennial pernicious influence of Nietzsche's resentful sister Elizabeth Forster Nietzsche, whom the embarrassed 'aeronaut of the spirit' has to carry around like a withered limb and who posthumously manipulated his legacy. The hideous reality of the gulf between these eventually estranged siblings which serves as a symbol for the toxic division of the European spirit between pluralism and nationalism, openness and intolerance, dictatorship and freedom, is compellingly told. The wretched story of the colonising antics of Elizabeth and her Jew hating husband in a Paraguayan wilderness are ghoulishly fascinating if peripheral to the Nietzsche story, Other players in the drama such as Lou Salomé, Peter Gast, Malwida von Mysenberg, Paul Ree and Nietzsche's mother are all persuasively portrayed. Prideaux has been criticised for not concentrating enough on the philosophy, but this is rather unfair, that is not what this biography is about, it is an in depth introduction to the philosopher's life and relationships, the spiritual ramifications of his abysmal state of health, rather than a treatise on his philosophy, but having said this Prideaux does spend a good deal of time discussing the main areas of the key books, from the Birth of Tragedy onwards... the Apollonian and Dionysian, the eternal recurrence, ressentiment and the rest are all there. Nietzsche's final breakdown and rapid descent into irretrievable insanity is harrowingly and movingly recited and Prideaux hammers home the shocking state of maniacal delusion of her subject by quoting increasingly unhinged passages from the Antichrist 's final letters to aghast recipients. So in conclusion Five stars for the book, but sadly not for the reading performance. This audiobook was frustratingly marred by the poor quality of the reading which was not fit for purpose given the quality of the text. How on earth can a life of Nietzsche, the great European who spent his life travelling between countries and languages be delivered by someone who cannot pronounce basic French or German names accurately? Many instances of mispronunciation proved potholes on a route which halfway through had begun to wear out this reviewer's bearings. But this failure of pronunciation is endemic throughout Audible and I think any prospective reader of a text should have to prove they can at least pronounce names of authors, cities and books correctly. It is basic stuff. A writer of Sue Prideaux's pedigree deserves far better.

The Good European

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Absolutely stunning biography - fantastically evocative prose and deft handling of Nietzsche’s oftentimes complex thought. Highly recommended!

Awesome

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A good place to start with Nietzsche. Brilliantly performed, I enjoyed this as a human story, as historical record, and as development of a philosophy. It is full of psychological insights and illuminating prose. Life really is stranger than fiction.

Brilliant biography with prose to match Nietzsche

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