Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Kafka

click here for more details, find new or used items	William Hubben Our price £7.19 (£8.99) New from £2.89 Used from £2.90 Pages: 192 (Paperback) ISBN: 0684825899 Pub: Simon & Schuster Ltd Pub date: 1997-12-01 Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 114786

Reader Reviews:

Very worth-while reading. (2/4 people found this helpful)

I first bought the book many years ago when I was in college - and now - in this vain and vulgar day and age I return to reread items of long ago. My comments are prelim - as I need to digest the contents a bit - but surely - it has to be one of the better c. 200 page essays available these days and presents a potent sometimes stunnig summary of Nietzsche, Kafka, etc. A bit tempered of course by Hubben's personal experiences in WWII; he sometimes seems to limit evil to the Axis powers of WWII - when in fact horrid evil is and has been present in - alas - far too many arenas of time and space. Nonetheless - in this day of banal dribble and pretentious 'academic' self-promotion this book is surely worth the time and money in question. I was impressed by every page. I found this to be a sincere and educational essay.

Lack of clarity or unified direction muddle the celebration (2/4 people found this helpful)

Some pages should have been ripped out. Mostly the ones where Hubben asserts his opinions . . . if they are his opinions; you can't always tell because he doesn't distinguish when he's talking for the writers (by way of explication), or when he's merely blowing off some personal steam about the current state of Christianity in the world. Contrary to the blurb, I found the book to be a miserable resource for expanding my knowledge on the merits of existentialist thinking. Hubben is very narrow-minded in his approach to existentialism; he's good about saying he understands where it came from, but he's not so good about addressing the possible arguments to his (basic) point that existentialism exalts the "via negativa." Also, I found his treatment of Kafka downright despicable in its oversimplification and lack of aesthetic appreciation. I gave this book 2 stars instead of 1 because it wasn't completely banal; not only did it get me to think (however angry and contrary those thoughts were), but it also actually turned me on to Nietzsche and Dostoevsky in a way that I don't believe Hubben intended. Hubben, contrary to his seeming intention, actually did a lot of work to validate the philosphical-religious musings of the 2 writers . . . the absolute best part of this is where Hubben appears to have convinced himself and then come under the hypnosis of the idea that, as Nietzsche claimed, God is dead, as he goes on to repeat this in chapter after consecutive chapter. It's like, in trying to discover and prove one thing, thinking out on paper, he came across the opposite, but out of stubborness or shame, or whatever, he continued to take his "unfortunate" (for him) discoveries to their extremes and, mostly futilely, bend them to support his thesis. So 2 stars instead of one, but 2 basically mocking stars. Big deal . . . you don't need this book; it mostly doesn't achieve what it purports to achieve.

Lack of quantity resulted in lack of quality. (2/2 people found this helpful)

The grouping of these select individuals is what originally caught my eye and why I decided to purchase the book. I was thoroughly disappointed with the text. The only thorough chapter is over Kierkergaard and that is because it is the longest in the work. Hubben got too caught up in wanting a short overview of these individuals and sacrificed qualitiy for lack of quanitity. Please refer to other texts over existential philosophers any every cost.

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