Alex’s Reviews > I Am Dynamite > Status Update

Nietzsche had already encountered the Jena clinic before, when he was fifteen years old. He had seen and noted the vast institution on a summer holiday trip in 1859 when its sharp, grim outline caused him to write melancholy and gruesome thoughts in his diary.

Long years of war had blown great holes and chasms in the few stone buildings. The president's palace and the custom house had taken on the contours and convexities of delirium. Tall trees sprang from ballroom floors. Tentacular vines ate ornamental plasterwork.

When the book was finished, he found himself astonished at how autobiographical the text was. It took him by surprise to see how his own blood dripped from the pages, but he felt certain that only he would be able to see it. In his next book he was to pursue the idea that all philosophy (not only his own) was autobiography.

Psychological observation must be the basis of free thought. Mankind cannot be spared the horrible sight of itself on the psychological operating table, with its knives and forceps.

Grandmother Erdmuthe had given their mother Franziska no adult role, no responsibility, nothing to be or to become, but to follow the pietistic habit of viewing herself as a helpless child in the matter of free will. Everything that befell, whether good or evil, was the Will of the Heavenly Father Above.

What privilege beyond compare to overhear the strange stop-start compositional process floating up the stairwell on the scented air: the Master's footsteps calm and agitated as he paced the room, his raspy voice singing a snatch, followed by a short silence as he darted to the piano to try out the notes. Silence once more as he wrote them down.

Short and ordinary in appearance, he was saved from nonentity by peculiarly arresting eyes.

Short and ordinary in appearance, he was saved from nonentity by peculiarly arresting eyes.