Category Archives: Nietzsche in Turin

Roger Scruton – A Personal Memoir

Roger Scruton – A Personal Memoir Roger Scruton, the foremost English conservative of his generation, was a brilliant man who would have wished to be a genius. This tension, and ambition, which he felt fiercely, kept him writing and publishing … Continue reading

Posted in Britain Today, British politics, Cold War, Current Affairs, Nietzsche in Turin, which I published in 1990, Who are you?, Writing | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Letter to Nietzsche

The letter below was commissioned as part of an initiative this year to mark 175 years since the writer and philosopher, classicist and composer Friedrich Nietzsche was born in Röcken, in the German province of Saxony. The editors, Elmar Schenkel … Continue reading

Posted in German Literature, Nietzsche in Turin, Philosophy and Philosophers, Who are you?, Writing | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Thomas Mann, Freud and Music

Thomas Mann’s reputation as a writer rests on three or four great achievements. One was to have achieved the consummate novel of ideas.[1] In the quarter century after his death in 1955 this view prevailed.  The Magic Mountain  (1924) was … Continue reading

Posted in Europe, German Literature, Nietzsche in Turin, Philosophy and Philosophers, The Secret Artist A Close Reading of Sigmund Freud, Things German | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Did Nietzsche want Success?

                             Did Nietzsche want Success? Success is a judgement about how we relate to our own times. It is a synonym for victory over circumstances and other people, and in extremis other countries, those forces which might otherwise make us … Continue reading

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The Bad Boys of Philosophy

Here’s a passage I so admired in a review in the Times Literary Supplement, my weekly reading, five years ago, that I’ve kept it earmarked ever since. It sums up what philosophy means to many of us who take it … Continue reading

Posted in A Shoe Story, Nietzsche in Turin, Philosophy and Philosophers, The Secret Artist A Close Reading of Sigmund Freud | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The Year to Come for a European-minded writer who lives in England

I’m a European-minded writer who lives in England and writes in English, which is my native tongue. I’m not monoglot. French, German, Russian, Italian and Spanish are all available to me, but I’ll never now make the step of trying … Continue reading

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Nietzsche on Brahms plus Hegel looks forward to A German Requiem

It’s odd to look into a book on Brahms and the German Spirit and not find either Nietzsche or Hegel represented there. I like much of what Daniel Beller-McKenna has to say and his careful examination  of Wilhelm Furtwängler’s 1933 … Continue reading

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