Customer Reviews

Parables of Kierkegaard (Kierkegaard's Writings)

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Ah, Parables. There are few other ways to set the mind spinning than a good parable. It's similar to a great mystery case, and the satissfaction derived from figuring out what it means more than makes up for the mental effort.

That was Johannes Climacus speaking. Some people will find the book enjoyable purely on that level.

I like the book because it has the potential to change the way I live. Don't be decieved by the slimness of the volume and the short sections. A sensetive reader could take a year reading this book. Because of the need to enjoy, understand, evaluate, and apply each parable, I can only read a few each night before sleeping.

However, don't let that seriousness delay you: Oden has collected some of the pieces that best bring out Soren and his authors' wit and humor. Truly, an indispensable book whether you are just discovering Kierkegaard or are an old friend of his.

For beginners, I reccomend reading this with "Kierkegaard for Beginners." Some high-minded people might be shocked that I say that, but I'm not too proud to admit that I find that to be the most compelling introduction to Kierkegaard that I have read. The illustrations are appropriate and also outrageous. This book is similar, but more mystifying, which is why I reccommend the "for beginners" book.

While I look with horror at the whole Philosophy in 90 minutes series, if you had to do it for SK this is how you could best do it. A wonderful little book for dipping into, full of short witty aphorisms taken from SK's works. Of course everything is out of context, but then SK tended to set these witty little stories in very intimidating tomes. In any case, this book provides a nice place to start and the references allow you to find the parables in the context of the works themselves.

Soren was a brilliant surveyor of the human soul. Collected in this volume are what amounts to a greatest hits of parables highlighting the discoveries he made along the way that compel the reader to get off the philosophical phence when it comes to life's decisions. Don't sweat the small stuff? More like, Think, Choose, and the small stuff never surfaces. Perhaps the greatest of all his parables is "The Jewel on Thin Ice", and its inclusion here is worth the purcahse price all by itself.

If you are familiar with Kierkegaard, you know what a brilliant reference tome this will be. If you are not, this is a great way to begin your examination of a man who was justifiably the Danish Dalai Lhama. His spirituality is immersed in being present in the moment, and would lay the foundation for all existentialist (i.e., Buddhist thinkers in Western trappings) thought in the 20th Century from Husserl and Sartre to Heidegger and Neil Young.
Well done, well worth keeping by your reading lamp. It is a jewel on thin ice well worth risking one's immersion.

Kierkegaard's thought was a thought of paradox and complication, irony , insight and humor. Like Kafka he could take a well- known myth and remake it as his own .And always he will do this in such a way as to move the reader into a new level of question and involvement in his thought.
Kierkegaard challenges questions and delights us. He too may contradict us and our sense of things but most often in such a way as to lead us to rethink our own assumptions and ideas.
He is a thinker who helps make us think.
And this anthology of extraordinary passages from his work does just that.

hmm, well i am not too into philosophy. it tends to blow my mind, but in "Parables of Kierkergaard", its only mind blowing factor is that it is so understandable and interesting. i can honestly say "ooh" and "ahhh" and "hmmm?" its a good book, and it will really make you think about life and it's irony.

Ah, Parables. There are few other ways to set the mind spinning than a good parable. It's similar to a great mystery case, and the satisfaction derived from figuring out what it means more than makes up for the mental effort.

That was Johannes Climacus speaking. Some people will find the book enjoyable purely on that level.

I like the book because it has the potential to change the way I live. Don't be decieved by the slimness of the volume and the short sections. A sensetive reader could take a year reading this book. Because of the need to enjoy, understand, evaluate, and apply each parable, I can only read a few each night before sleeping.

However, don't let that seriousness delay you: Oden has collected some of the pieces that best bring out Soren and his authors' wit and humor. Truly, an indispensable book whether you are just discovering Kierkegaard or are an old friend of his.

For those new to SK, I reccomend reading this with "Kierkegaard for Beginners." Some high-minded people might be shocked that I say that, but I'm not too proud to admit that I find that to be the most compelling introduction to Kierkegaard that I have read. The illustrations are appropriate and also outrageous. This book is similar, but more mystifying, which is why I reccommend the "for beginners" book.

A great collection of parables. Many of them only a few lines short. Thomas C. Oden has done a good job collecting the best and most relevant parables from the extensive work of Kierkegaard.

Let's be honest, SK is not the easiest of all reads. This collection makes it not only bearbale but enjoyable to wade through. Any person could read what SK is saying and in a lot quicker time than reading his works.

I initially purchased this book to try and explain to my then girlfriend my reasoning for certain things in life. The parables that Kierkegaard exemplifies here are easy for others to understand. I think this is a good point to start if you are interestesed in existentialism as he is more than likely one of the first. If you break the confines of the religious zealousy that crush all of us then this is the first chain for your new armor.

"A Possibility" (from Stage's on Lifes Way)
starting on Page 104, I found to be particularly
poignant and impressive among the parables presented.

I liked this book and still do. :)

Very accessible, and interesting even
apart from the whole of his writing,
therefore more digestable to the average person.

The other parable mentioned in another review
as most notable is unseemly to note without
mentioning any other, but that is opinion.

"A Possibility" is widely regarded
as profound and noteworthy. :)

The introduction well describes the purpose and intent
of this book, and of SK's parables, to the readers.

Many short parable presented that are witty or amusing.

A few longer ones such as "A Possibility."

Not definitive as a representative of his thought or writing
if you are looking for anything like a synopsis or condensed
representation of his authorship/ideas/"philosophy"/thought.

Enjoyable light(er) reading than trying to delve
into his actual titles, per se, however. :)

Soren Kierkegaard's authorship has always
been not commonly well understood, in part
due to his "unique 'method/mode of authorship'",
but more than that, and is somewhat out of
the range of most readers, unfortunately,
however highly regarded by some of intellect
to comprehend his work properly, he has
been represented foolishly at times,
by those who quote him, as in the old
playboy interview style of photo's
and obscure references to SK, taken by many
in the intelligentsia in the 20th cent.
as the "father" of existentialism,
and fashionable to be seen as one familiar
with im and his work, but also rightly viewed
as being influential upon modern ideas,
his take on things however to those who don't
even know his name would find very similar
to their own, and not just some silly obscure
neurotic rambling as obscure dense complex
literature is usually perceived and represented as.

In some ways his authorship could be summed up
in an extremely oversimplified way as an
exhaustive exposition of the term "subjectivity",
which is the term as buzzword often employed
in attempts at explaining or representing his
thought and ideas/"philosophy", which he was not
regarded as contemporaneously as a "philosopher",
but as a writer, actually quite ridiculed in his lifetime,
after his upbringing and training in seminary (churchdom),
to be a pastor himself, and wrote along multi-level
world views at differing times.
His life is almost always presented when discussing him
or his writings. His father Michael Pederson (melancholy),
and the impact upon his life from childhood and family life,
his dissapointed relationship with Regine his onetime
fiance whom he broke relations deliberately in a caddish way,
becasue he felt it incongruent with his chosen path in life,
and that he was unworthy of her, insultingly, so as to hope he would not break her heart, with before marrying,
in a decision to do so which would haunt his entire life,
and probaly regretted later on, as well.
The affair with "The Corsair" a popular publication
there in Copenhagen which was basically a tabliod,
and that publishers smear campaign maligning
SK over an extended period of time, mocking and ridiculing
him, putting him up for scorn shallowly because the public
this, like a dog barking at someone, mailman, beggar, or king.

His sharp and keenly critising mind was often
and substantially and notably directed toward
the church & "christendom" itself, and here
is "your sign" why he was not well
taken then, or ever will be, and why he is
misperceived, misunderstood, misrepresented, or ignored.

His ideas are anathema, heretical, undermining
or subversive to christianity to the average christian
who tries to be as such and wants to beieve all, etc.

He (Kierkegaard) basically tells us that
Christians aren't real christains, at least most.

That most want to be in that category and be taken
and included as such for societal reasons i.e "pretend".

Christianity is demanding and harsh, people go to
church sing, pray, etc. but still live as normal people, with all the associated faults and foibles and are not "better."

It was more important to put on that face then.

He was saying there are very few real and true Christains.

Something people do not want to hear.

Kierkegaard by and large is not for everyone,
(literacy level, etc.) in this world of declining
lterary standards, but this book is.

Lawrence Connor