Either/Or

⚖The case for it

The Seducer’s Diary is what people come for and what they reread: a man planning the pursuit of a young woman named Cordelia with the detachment of a project schedule, cold enough that readers call it terrifying rather than romantic. Princeton sells it as a standalone, which readers treat as permission. The essay on Mozart’s Don Giovanni holds up on its own. Then Judge William’s letters arrive to argue the other side, and the readers who sit with Part II say that is where the philosophy actually was. Readers keep finding “a striking view to take in on nearly every page.”

— the honest librarian

✕The case against

Part II is where the abandonments cluster. The letter on marriage runs past a hundred pages restating one position, and readers who loved the diary describe hitting it like a wall: “too long, too often long and boring.” Part I answers 1840s Danish arguments nobody has explained to you, so the aphorisms land without their target. Twelve hundred pages in the unabridged edition. The pseudonyms mean you finish unsure what Kierkegaard himself holds, which some read as the design and others as evasion. Hong and Hong is complete and stiff; Hannay reads better and cuts.

— the honest librarian

13h

honest hours

19

sittings