If one accounts oneself a serious student of Kierkegaard, reading and studying the JOURNALS AND PAPERS is not really an option: it is a necessity. I own Kierkegaard's journals and his complete works in Danish, and side-by-side the journals dwarf the books (how anyone who died at the age of 42 could have been so prolific is an unanswerable question). But unfortunately those not willing or able to delve into the Danish are left with something of a dilemma: either read an abridged edition of Kierkegaard's Journal, or read this substantial four-volume edition. What is wrong with this edition? Well, a great deal indeed.

First, I should express appreciate to Howard Hong for having taken on the task of providing a English-language edition of this essential work. Even though it is exceedingly difficult to use, it does manage to make available the bulk of Kierkegaard's journals. Hong is a very solid translator, and one can have considerable confidence in any of the passages he translates.

So, what is wrong with the work? First, it is still incomplete. Perhaps Hong was unable to talk Indiana University Press into doing a complete translation. Final editions of works are not always reflections of what the editor/translator hoped to produce, but represents a compromise between scholar and publisher. It is not impossible that that is the case here. Still, although it is a substantial selection, it is incomplete. The more serious problem is the way that the text is presented. Instead of arranging the passages that are translated chronologically, which is the only way that really makes sense, Hong made the utterly bizarre decision to arrange the passages topically. Arranging the journals chronologically, and then providing a topical index could easily have achieved the same effect.

Still, the serious student of Kierkegaard really doesn't have a choice. This is a must-own for the Kierkegaard scholar, but because of the bizarre arrangement, I have found over the years that I spend considerably less time in these volumes than I do his other works. This is unfortunate because one often gets glimpses of a less formal Kierkegaard, finding him franker and less apt to hide behind masks. I'm grateful that these volumes exist, but I still regret they exist in the form that they do.

Addition -- September 24, 2004: Since writing this review I have learned that Princeton University Press, under the project editorship of Bruce Kirmmse, one of the world's finest Kierkegaard scholars, will be bringing out a new edition of Kierkegaard's PAPERS. Completion of this project is undoubtedly a few years off, but assuming they don't make the same mistake of this project, it will unquestionably be the edition to get in English.