The Neither/nor of the Second Sex

Although Kierkegaad provided many a puzzle for his biographers, one would be wrong to assume Kierkegaard invariably lied when he claimed to be telling the truth. Tying Kierkegaard's baffling misogyny, and ultimately his misogamy, to the existence of an inner mysterium, The Neither/Nor of the Second Sex navigates between the Charybdis of an allegedly insurmountable gulf between works and biography and the Scylla of the biographical fallacy, a peril whose threat raised greater alarms in Kierkegaard. Celine Leon draws her conclusions by paying close attention to the texts and by carefully distinguishing between author and pseudonyms. She only brings works and life together when Kierkegaard ambivalently plays with the former in order to impart something of the secret lying at the core of his being, to reverse Sartre's famous formulation, to communicate at the heart of hiddenness.