Soren Kierkegaard

over-the-place production” and a “jumble.” Kierkegaard’s insistence on the
random lengthof the books parallels the indeterminableness that is precisely
the basis of dizziness. “Adler’s books are a peculiar sort of productivity, an
almost anguished sort of productivity,” explains Kierkegaard, who sensed
how Adler’s writings almost rush violently on the reader—“as it were, as-
saulting the reader with their outbursts.” And this assessment of Adler’seffect
on the reader compels Kierkegaard to revise his critical comments about
Adler’ssignificanceas an author: “What in the introduction of this book I
pointed out as Adler’s shortcoming as an author, which makes him not
essentially an author—namely, that he comes too close to actuality—is in
another respect his merit. For even though he is totally confused for the
moment, he is for that very reason quite capable of producing an effect or
an impulse, capable of moving the reader. And he actually does.” Thus
Adler has moved Kierkegaard, who at a number of points completely forgets
his objections and simply surrenders: “In his style there is... at times an
almost audible, lyrical seething, which despite being flawed from an aes-
thetic standpoint is nonetheless capable of inciting the reader. One does not
doze off when reading him, nor does one’s mind wander; rather, one is
more likely to become impatient because someone has come so close to the
all the machinery of one’s actual personality.”
Reading Adler made Kierkegaard dizzy, but why? Because the psycho-
logical ambivalence was like its aesthetic analogue,caricature—that is, the
resemblance consisted precisely both in resembling and in not resembling!
In other words, Kierkegaard recognized his own repetitions, his ecstasy in
writing, “the sensual pleasure of productivity.” He became dizzy because
in that confused man, “the stirring stick,” he saw himself, sometimes
smudged into grotesque form, sometimes with more urbane and recogniz-
able features, but most often repellent in all its likeness. And what Kierke-
gaard’s metaphors accomplish indirectly, he himself accomplishes more di-
rectly elsewhere. On the next-to-last page of the third chapter he lifts the
veil just enough to give us the insight we need. Here he reiterates that he
has made use of Adler’s writings for a quite specific purpose: “If I were to
deal with them purely aesthetically and in straightforward fashion, I would
permit myself the pleasure of acknowledging, as officially as possible, that
in my judgment one can actually learn something from them—or, to ex-
press myself entirely accurately, that I have actually learned a thing or two
from them.” What he had learned—indeed, what he had “actually”
learned—remains a secret. But Kierkegaard did write that although a re-
viewer could sometimes recommend to the public a work under review
even when he himself had not learned anything from its author, in the
present case the situation is almost the reverse of this: “Undoubtedly—