I'm to be his guide into the mountains of Kierkegaard, W. says. His sherpa. I'm to carry his things. What should he bring? His learning. His years of study of the philosophy of religion.
He'll instruct me as we climb, he says. He'll point things out, and when he gets tired, I can give him a piggy-back. Kierkegaard: in truth, I know more about him than W. There's the Danish connection, of course. My Danishness should be a help. Kierkegaard's Danishness has always bothered W. He lacks a context for him. He can't grasp his place.
Of course, this is doubly difficult for W. as a Catholic (and as a Jew). Perhaps there is something Protestant in me (through my Danishness), as well as Hindu (through my Indianness). Perhaps I have some instinct for Kierkegaard he lacks.
But then, of course, my knowledge of Kierkegaard is confined to trivialities. Gossip about his life, for example. About his relationship to Regine, or to his father. I don't understand his place in the philosophical tradition or, for that matter, the theological tradition. I have a purely regional knowledge of Kierkegaard; I don't know his place in the great chain of thinkers.
That's what W. will bring to our collaboration: his sense of the broader landscape. His grasp of the sweep of European thought.
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