The Good European: Nietzsche's Work Sites in Word and Image

by David Farrell Krell, Donald L. Bates

Through photographs and translations of Friedrich Nietzsche's evocative writings on his work sites, David Farrell Krell and Donald L. Bates explore the cities and landscapes in which Nietzsche lived and worked.

"A brilliant juxtaposition of life and thought. . . . The sympathy of this pictorial biography is rivaled by few books on Nietzsche."—Charles M. Stang, Boston Book Review

"[A] distinguished addition to the Nietzsche-friendly corpus."—Alain de Botton, Los Angeles Times Book Review

"An odd and oddly endearing record of Nietzsche's travels."—John Banville, New York Review of Books

Genres: Biography

266 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

David Farrell Krell is an American philosopher and professor emeritus at DePaul University, specializing in Continental Philosophy. He earned his Ph.D. from Duquesne University, where he focused on Heidegger and Nietzsche, two figures central to his scholarly work. Krell has taught at various universities in the United States and Europe, contributing extensively to the study of German Idealism, Romanticism, and deconstruction.
He has authored numerous books, including Daimon Life: Heidegger and Life-Philosophy (1992), Infectious Nietzsche (1996), and The Tragic Absolute: German Idealism and the Languishing of God (2005), examining themes of mortality, time, and finitude. His work also explores the intersections of philosophy, literature, and aesthetics, as seen in Lunar Voices (1995) and Archeticture: Ecstasies of Space, Time, and the Human Body (1997). Krell has been a key translator of Heidegger’s lectures on Nietzsche and edited Basic Writings (1977), a widely used collection of Heidegger’s essays.
Influenced by Jacques Derrida, Krell has engaged with deconstructive approaches to Nietzsche and Heidegger, shaping contemporary discussions on these thinkers. His later works, such as Ecstasy, Catastrophe (2015) and The Sea: A Philosophical Encounter (2018), continue his inquiries into existential and aesthetic themes, cementing his reputation as a major voice in modern Continental thought.

Reviews

[Mr. · Rating 3 out of 5]

David Krell and Donald Bates trace the major sites of Nietzsche's productive period, tracing the French and Italian Riviera, Sils Maria, Turin, and the mountains of the Engadine in an attempt to examine the role of space in the creative work of this great philosopher. The book also serves the role of a miniature biography, the authors have done a great deal of research in the primary literature, reproducing a number of letters between friends, family, and colleagues. The book does not attempt to pinpoint the exact influence of landscape on the content of Nietzsche's work per se, still one does get the impression that the atmosphere of these places contributed to the dramatic flare of Nietzsche's style. The photographs are truly beautiful, but one still feels unsatisfied by the lack of analysis of the actual philosophy itself.

[Erich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting concept. You can see elements and themes of his writing being influenced by his travels and living quarters. The author successfully emphasizes Nietzsche's love of all things colorfully Mediterranean and light (read: Greco grapes), and his dissatisfaction with all things pedantically Prussian and gloomy (read: Wilhelmian stahlhelm). Somewhat counter to the common Anglo-American perception of this (at times) misguided and naïve (pre-meatginder century) author and philosopher; that largely due to his sisters unauthorized reappropriation and editorialization post-mortem. Wonderful pictures.