Readers of Nietzsche and/or Jung face the serious challenge of deciding which of their books to read and in what order, as well as deciding which commentaries are worthwhile. Both of these great thinkers left fascinating, sprawling, highly personal essays that trace the gradual evolution of their ideas, but both of them are much too complex to identify a specific work that provides a good summary.

I decided to read Nietzsche's works in chronological sequence, dipping into various commentaries along the way, and that went just wonderfully until I reached Zarathustra. You don't just read Zarathustra, you examine it from every direction. So I was very excited to discover the enormous 2 volume set that records Jung's seminar on Zarathustra in the 1930's. This seminar started out as a nearly line-by-line analysis of Zarathustra, with many interesting diversions along the way into the kind of things we expect from Jung. However, there is a disturbing tendency, which gets worse in the later seminars, for Jung to be more interested in analyzing Nietzsche the person, frequently in a hostile, dismissive manner, rather than really understanding the substance of what Nietzsche was trying to say. At the end of 1500 pages I had the very unpleasant feeling that, in spite of all the fascinating discussions, this seminar had veered way off course and really missed the essence of Nietzsche's thought.

So it was with considerable interest that I picked up Lucy Huskinson's work on Nietzsche and Jung. Dr. Huskinson has organized her material brilliantly, and makes her discussions especially interesting and useful by introducing her own proto-theory regarding the Union of Opposites. The proto-theory supports an intellectually stimulating philosophical discussion in its own right, and provides an excellent framework for organizing some of the more interesting similarities and differences between Nietzsche and Jung. Her analysis and comparison of the Nietzschean Ubermensch and the Jungian Self is fascinating, and she does this with meticulous attention to detail that organizes the many little fragments available into a coherent picture. We also get a nice explanation of the contrast of Nietzsche's empahsis on "creation" as opposed to Jung's emphasis on "discovery" in the realm of creativity. There are pertinent references to many of the works by both writers, and it is very satisfying to follow the various arguments in Huskinson's crystal-clear prose. She drills down tenaciously into some of the more contentious areas, such as Jung's assertion that Nietzsche's major mistake was his dismissal of God, and she treats each viewpoint with respect and understanding.

The book also draws some fascinating parallels regarding the influences of various philosophers on both Nietzsche and Jung, and provides excellent information about the ideas of Heraclitus, Plato, Kant, and Schopenhauer.

The unexpected surprise in the book is a section devoted to a discussion of Jung's negative and highly emotional remarks about Nietzsche, and what seem to be willful distortions or misinterpretations, especially since the influence of Nietzsche on Jung is so significant. It would appear that Jung was working through some serious personal issues, much as Nietzsche was doing for himself in Zarathustra, and there were some aspects of Zarathustra that were too close to home. As an admirer of Jung, I was very glad to read an informed analysis of this rather strange seminar, since I had found it to be such a perplexing mixture of psychology, theology, and mythology, with very uneven philosophical content.

In summary, this is a remarkable philosophical work, and is an astonishing achievement in consideration of the way Huskinson presents a satisfying structure for understanding an enormous wealth of material.