THIS reviewer has read every page of every book, honest. Until now, presented with an 892-page biography of the 19th-century great Dane, author and self-described genius Søren Kierkegaard.
Named for the proximity of his grandfather’s farm to the churchyard, born as the surprise late-life son of a self-made merchant and his erstwhile serving maid, brought up shuttling between the state church and the theologically radical Moravian Brethren, Kierkegaard became the scourge of “official” Christianity and bane of bishops. His writings, including his 1841 master of theology thesis The Concept of Irony, then Either/Or and Repetition in 1843, prefigured…
