Soren Kierkegaard

book has attracted much attention. It has not yet been discussed publicly
b yan yone, but it surel ywill be. It is actuall ysupposed to be b ya Kirkegaard
who has adopted a pseudonym: Do you know him?” Indeed, Andersen did.
At about the same time Peter Christian wrote in his diary, “I hear today
in Sorø that Søren’s workEither/Orhas been published, but under the
pseudonym Victor Eremita.” And on February 27 the happy news went off
to Brazil; Henrik Lund wrote to Peter Wilhelm: “At m yfirst opportunit y
I will send you a book that has attracted much attention and is being read
‘b yalmost ever ycultured person.’ The title of the book isEither/Or, and
people assume that Søren is the author.” This assumption was also voiced
in the first public mention ofEither/Or, which appeared in the February
22, 1843, issue ofDagen: “Internall ythe entire work bears the stamp of a
remarkable consistenc yin spirit and outlook, and externall y, with its light
tone and linguistic mastery, it is similar to a well-known academic work
and to various articles from the hand of one of our true philosophical ge-
niuses—so much so that it has not surprised us to hear the work attributed
to him.”
With all its titillating ambivalence, the mystification of the identity of the
author succeeded grandly; sales went very briskly and word spread about
the unusual book. On April 7, Signe Læssøe was able to inform the flighty
Hans Christian Andersen, now in Paris, about the latest news from Copen-
hagen: “A new literar ycomet (I think it looks like I wrote ‘camel,’ but I
mean a comet) has soared in the heavens here—a harbinger and a bringer
of bad fortune. It is so demonic that one reads and reads it, puts it aside in
dissatisfaction, but always takes it up again, because one can neither let it
go nor hold on to it. ‘But what is it?’ I can hear you say. It isEither/Orby
Søren Kierkegaard. You have no idea what a sensation it has caused. I think
that no book has caused such a stir with the reading public since Rousseau
placed hisConfessionson the altar. After one has read it one feels disgust for
the author, but one profoundl yrecognizes his intelligence and his talent.
We women must be especiall yangr ywith him: Like the Mohammedans,
he assigns us to the realm of finitude, and he onl yvalues us because we give
birth to, amuse, andsavemenfolk. In the first part (this is a work of 838
octavo pages) he is aesthetic, that is, evil. In the second part he is ethical,
that is, a little less evil. Everyone praises the second part because it is his
alter ego, the better half, which speaks. The second part onl ymakes me the
angrier with him—it istherethat he ties women to finitude. In fact, I only
understand a small fraction of the book; it is altogether too philosophical.”
A couple of weeks later Andersen replied to Signe Læssøe, revealing his
envy: “What you have sent me about Kierkegaard’s book does not exactly
excite m ycuriosit y. It is so eas yto seem ingenious when one disregards all