What. A. Book!!
Dr. Alexander Dru's introduction and selection (I cannot imagine reading through the whole thing-- this 500 pages long beast was an abridged version!) was crafty and insightful, drawing upon elements of Kierkegaard's life to provide a fair look at his philosophy and theology. I can find very little on Dr. Dru online, and I do not have too much time to find out much more, but his work here was amazing.
And Kierkegaard's journals are even better. I am no existentialist myself, far from it, but one can see why a personality like Kierkegaard's would come up with such a system (particularly in front of such a cold and dead State church as the XIX century Danish one). Having encountered his philosophical corpus before, meeting the author "face to face" through his most personal and private memories is an incomparable pleasure. The breadth of topics and the bumpy feeling that a journal has are perhaps its only drawbacks, but the immense amount of wisdom and critical "wit", as he would put it, makes up for it. A couple of amazing quotes, relating to politics and/or theology, which I particularly liked:
"There is great difficulty in the way of my becoming a priest [he never did-- scary, as I am in this same situation!]. If I undertook it I should certainly runt he danger of coming to grief as I did over my engagement On the other hand it has been made difficult for me to live entirely and peacefully withdrawn in the country, for I am the same somewhat embittered and as a result I need the enchantment of literary composition in order to be able to forget all the crude trivialities of life.
It becomes more and more clear to me that, constituted as I am, I am never successful in fulfilling my ideals whilst in another sense I become, humanly speaking, more than those ideals. Most people's ideals are great and extraordinary which they never achieve. I am altogether too melancholy to have such ideals. Other people would laugh at my ideals. For example it is perfectly true to say that my ideal was to marry and simply live for the marriage [!]. Then, by despairing of being able to achieve so much, I became an author, and perhaps an author of importance. My other ideal is to be a country parson [!!], to live quietly in the country and devote my life to the little circle of those around me-- and then, because I despair of success, it is quite possible that I shall achieve something which seems much greater."
"Almost everything that flourishes now under the name of science (particularly natural science) is not science at all but curiosity. --in the end all corruption will come from the natural sciences--. Many of its admirers will believe that if an examination is conducted microscopically then it is serious science. A foolish, superstitious belief in the microscope; microscopic observation only makes curiosity more absurd than ever.
That a man should simply and profoundly say that he cannot understand how consciousness comes into existence is perfectly natural. But that a man should glue his eye to a microscope and stare and stare and stare, still not being able to see how it happens, is ridiculous, and particularly so when it is supposed to be serious... even the art of printing is an almost satirical invention, for since when, oh God, have there been so many people with something to say!".
Many more, but I would not want to ruin anyone's experience of encountering these pearls on their own!