I Am Dynamite! summary

Nietzsche was thrilled by this appointment – particularly as Basel was near Lucerne, where Wagner lived. Once settled, he took the train down to the lake, made his way to the Wagner residence, and knocked on the door.

Wagner’s home in Lucerne, called Tribschen, was a paradise for Nietzsche. The ornate villa became a second home – complete with his own room – as his friendship with both Richard and his wife, Cosima Wagner, flourished.

After The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche’s stellar academic career swiftly plummeted. Bizarrely out of step with the times, the book garnered almost no attention from Nietzsche’s friends and fellow scholars. His former teacher, Professor Ritschl, wrote a polite letter to the author but scribbled damning judgments in his personal copy. Burckhardt was likewise polite, but unimpressed.

Nietzsche also sought critique on a musical work he had composed, but even the Wagners remained tight-lipped. The conductor Hans von Bülow eventually gave him feedback – but it was cruel. “Is this all some awful joke?” he asked. 

Despite recent humiliations, Nietzsche charted a bold, new intellectual course in 1876. Human, All Too Human was his first book written in aphoristic style, terse and epigrammatic. He dedicated it to Voltaire – despite the disapproval of Wagner.

Nietzsche was carving his own path, and it became clear that his future did not lie in philology. In 1879, he resigned from Basel, blaming poor health. While not untrue, it was far from the full picture.

The same year that Nietzsche entangled himself between Rée and Salomé, 1882, he penned the infamous words: “God is dead.”

They first appear in his book The Gay Science. Nietzsche tells the story of a madman running through a marketplace, yelling: “God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him.” 

Reeling from Lou’s departure, Nietzsche’s health suffered gravely during the winter of 1882–83. His choice of medication didn’t help – he began taking opium, which he confirmed in a series of alarming letters sent from his temporary home in Rapallo, a coastal town near Genoa.

On Christmas Day, however, he began writing what would become one of his most remarkable and influential works: the philosophical novel, Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

While the third part of Zarathustra was Nietzsche’s eleventh published book, none of his works had sold well – not even a hundred copies in most cases. Unsurprisingly, his publisher Schmeitzner withdrew support. Although he was glad to sever ties with Schmeitzner, an anti-Semite, this was still a blow for Nietzsche.

Another concern was his pension from Basel. Due to expire in 1885, the university kindly decided to renew it for an additional year. Even so, Nietzsche was running out of money.

Nietzsche’s career received a rare boost In 1887. He sent copies of his books to Georg Brandes in Denmark, one of the most renowned literary critics of the day. Brandes was impressed by what he read and wrote to Nietzsche in praise of his “aristocratic radicalism” – a phrase Nietzsche adored.

Despite receiving an excoriating letter from his sister Elisabeth in Paraguay – Brandes was Jewish – Nietzsche knew he was on the path to true recognition. Thus encouraged, he continued writing.

By Christmas of 1888, Nietzsche had written yet another brief book, Nietzsche contra Wagner, and read through his published work to date. It was all superb, he realized. What a powerful, visionary writer he was – Ecce Homo in particular. “There is no parallel to it even in nature herself,” he wrote.

In this ecstatic state, he penned a series of bizarre Christmas letters, vastly exaggerating his status. He signed a baffling letter to the playwright August Strindberg as “Nietzsche Caesar” and others as “The Crucified.” A letter to Cosima Wagner read simply, “Ariadne, I love you. Dionysus.”

Nietzsche never knew true success as a philosopher, though his reputation soared long before his death. Widespread recognition flourished during his decade of madness.

A well-connected young count, Harry Kessler, discovered Nietzsche’s work in 1891. Inspired, he worked tirelessly to promote Nietzsche in his influential circle. Nietzsche, to Kessler and others, was a free spirit and a champion of individualism. The idea of the superman in place of God was particularly resonant. Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in particular, became a fashionable text.