Book Review-Hiking with Nietzsche: On Becoming Who You Are

I awaited the publication date of this book with great anticipation, I even pre-ordered it. I thoroughly enjoyed John Kaag’s previous book, American Philosophy: A Love Story. What drew me in was that it was a fantastic blend of the American philosophical history that I was unaware of, a very nice love story, and a story of self-discovery. It was a brave and honest narrative of Kaag’s adventures in rediscovering some American philosophers. His rediscovery was my discovery.

This book, even though the author sees it as a continuation of his self-discovery and honest revelations, was different to me. He has moved the emphasis to Europe, a more familiar philosophical ground but his focus was on Nietzsche, a profoundly difficult and intimidating writer and thinker. It takes a lot of attention from the reader to be prepared for the kind of mental gymnastics that Nietzsche presents.

This book also allows us to look at the inner turmoil within the author, his relationship with his father, his emotional fragility when he was much younger and the pilgrimage he took as a young man to the very same places he is revisiting as an older man and presumably a man who is more able to deal with the emotions and thoughts that had tortured him as a young man. I sometimes felt like a voyeur peeking into places I really should not peek into while I read the book.

The reading did not begin auspiciously, I was quite often distracted and the narrative did not grab hold of my attention as I thought it would. I struggled with the whole imposing reputation and darkness of vision that is attributed to Nietzsche. While the oscillation between Kaag’s remembrances of his past journey and his present journey served as good juxtaposition for the advancement of his story, it made my mind fatigued. I took a very long and circuitous route; I laid the book down often and I ignored it for a number of months.

I started the book while it was late Autumn, as the dark of Winter started to envelope us. The weather reflected Nietzsche’s visions, which made it difficult to mentally absorb the words. I finished the book in late April, my perspective became more enlightened and my mental state became less dark and the messages from the book became more absorbed as I made my way through it. It may also be that the initial chapters of the book reflected the dark weather, which I allowed to affect my mental moods.

In the end, I loved the book, I will be re-reading it later, in sequence with Kaag’s earlier book so that I may pursue his thought process completely.  It wasn’t just the change in weather that turned it, it was also the author’s patient and expert explanation and interpretation of Nietzsche’s ideas, his erudite unraveling of the complicated original writing and the inclusion of many other stories, those of his family and of other historical characters that ably illustrated his points and served as supporting narratives to the main ones.

The author’s inclusion of Hesse in the last portion of the book was particularly welcomed to me as I adored Hesse’s books as a young man. Explaining Nietzsche through the conduit of Hesse’ writing was meaningful to me personally and I believe that Hesse had the foresight and story telling ability to interpret Nietzsche without diminishing the impact of Nietzsche’s thoughts.

This last part of the book made clear the intent of the author’s thesis, and the second part of the book title: On Becoming Who You Are. It was inspiring and enlightening to get to the unifying thought which binds the philosophy to the narrative. The author did a magnificent job of tying up his thoughts about Nietzsche, his own life, and Nietzsche’s philosophy, it made the difficult journey worthwhile for me, even though I suspect I made the journey difficult on my own. But no matter, I understood the point and enjoyed the book in the end.