THE VISIONARIES, Wolfram Eilenberger

After all, one did not write a book for other people. Any more than one wrote it for an already existing self. One wrote it, in fact, to renew one’s own self in the process of writing, and creatively go beyond its previous limits. Or in other words: to transcend oneself. Thus it is not for others that each person transcends himself; one writes books and invents machines that were demanded nowhere. I’ve resigned myself to the idea that I will read fewer books this year, because the ones in my stack are generally long and difficult. It took me several weeks to get through THE VISIONARIES by Wolfram Eilenberger, which is not as well-written as the other book by him I’ve read, TIME OF THE MAGICIANS, and since both books have the same translator, the busted sentences, tangled syntaxes and wild tonal inconsistencies are all on Eilenberger and his original editor. It is, despite that, full of good stuff. It follows the lives of four female philosophers – Simone de Beauvoir, Hannah Arendt,…