Kierkegaardians can have a mysterious sort of appeal, especially when you see some fifty of them gathered atop a windy hill on the southern Minnesota prairie. That was the situation a few weeks back, when a group of the world’s top scholars of the nineteenth-century philosopher converged to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the nearby Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong Kierkegaard Library. Known as the father of existentialism, Søren Kierkegaard, a hunchbacked, crooked-legged Danish aristocrat, wrote more than thirty books during his life (1813-1855) on topics ranging from faith to seduction. That’s a lot of ink for a man whose favorite thinkers, Socrates and Jesus, never penned a word.
Tucked deep in the bowels of St. Olaf College’s Rolvaag Memorial Library in Northfield, the Kierkegaard Library houses all of the philosopher’s works, as well as a host of texts by related thinkers. What began as the Hongs’ personal collection—they’re known for their acclaimed English translations of the bulk of Kierkegaard’s oeuvre—has become the greatest center for studying the philosopher’s ruminations on this side of the Atlantic. At any given time, an international cadre of Kierkegaardians makes Northfield its home. Recent resident scholars hailed from Argentina, Australia, India, Japan, Norway, and Winona. Bill McDonald, the Australian, was laboring over Kierkegaard’s constellation of concepts, compiling a dictionary bit by bit while preparing for a sojourn into war-torn Tibet. Toshi Hachiya, from Japan, had recently published his German-language dissertation—a ten-year project—and had just begun another project, in English, on Kierkegaard’s social ethics. He estimated that this one, too, would take about ten years to complete. Narve Strand, a full-blooded Norwegian night owl, was known to haunt both the library and the Contented Cow, a nearby pub, into the small hours. His mission was to figure out how to apply some of Kierkegaard’s precepts to contemporary politics.
Johannes de Silentio, one of the names Kierkegaard wrote under pseudonymously, liked to hint that the Kierkegaardian looks like anyone else on the street; these living, breathing followers of the philosopher, however, proved otherwise. Though outward signs like facial hair (one gentleman wore a salt-and-pepper mustache, Narve, a rocker’s goatee) and style of slacks (jeans, mostly) varied by nationality and personality, they all seemed to share a relaxed and even good-humored sort of inwardness.
Joining the Kierkegaardians was Friis Arne Petersen, the Danish ambassador to the United States, who had flown in for the occasion. After his address, everyone consumed the requisite pastries—Danishes. He later presided over a luncheon dominated by the colors of Denmark’s flag: alternating red and white napkins, a centerpiece of red roses and white snapdragons, and a dessert of red strawberries and milky white panna cotta. Rumors had been percolating that the ninety-four-year-old Professor Howard V. Hong would make an appearance, and when he did finally arrive, silver forks were put down and everyone stood up. A whiz of a wiz if ever there was one, Hong was a small man with white hair cascading to his nape, and he was as nimble a nonagenarian as you’re likely to encounter. He accepted the applause and fanfare (which surpassed that bestowed upon the venerable ambassador) with neither pride nor overdone attempts at humility—but rather something more like genuine affection.
For the day’s crowning event, the Kierkegaardians reassembled on the lawn of St. Olaf’s Finholt House and dedicated it as a residence for Kierkegaard scholars. Comb-overs fluttered in the wind. One by one, the internationals—Maria, Bill, Gabriel, Toshi, Narve, and John—heard their names and stepped forward to shake the ambassador’s hand, and then, amid all the circumstance, Gabriel began to speak. With charming earnestness, he delivered a soliloquy of gratitude, offering up the scholars beside him as a sign of hope for human kindness in our increasingly impersonal age, as ambassadors from the Kierkegaard Library to their far-flung homes, and as humble practitioners of the Kierkegaardian magic. The conclusion of his remarks was met with the sort of spellbound silence that sometimes precedes applause.
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