Hello, My name is Brandon

[Jonah]

Welcome to the forum, Brandon! While I am not fortunate to know German, I do read literature from German authors on occasion (mainly Nietzsche at the moment). Do you have any good suggestions for German literature?

I used to be a voracious reader of Nietzsche, and I still am interested in him and respect him. I found that I largely disagree with his conclusions on morality and epistemology, as well as his occasional disregard of the sciences. However on an existential level and as a critic of religion, he's a fantastic read. He also comes across as a social darwinist, and it's easy to see how his philosophy was manipulated by his sister for her Nazi reasons ( though, for the record, he's defended the Jews several times in his writings).

If you want more philosophy, check out Schopenhauer. He was an influence on the early Nietzsche. He's also very pessimistic. He was a peculiar man, he was paranoid and slept with a weapon under his pillow, (sadly) a misogynist ( his essay "On Women" is a pain to read). Because of his pessimistic attitude, he never had any students take his classes, so they all took Hegel's classes who taught at the same university which lead Schopenhauer to despise Hegel. He's a peculiar man to study if nothing else. His pessimistic essays will make you live up to the facts of life, and The World as Will and Representation is an improvement on Kant's philosophy, and also foreshadows many of Freud and Darwin's ideas. I suggest starting off with the book "Essays and Aphorisms".

For fiction, I already recommended Kafka. If you are into mythology, check out a translation of Das Nibelungenlied ( I have a German original with a parallel translation to the original dialect it was written in ). It inspired Richard Wagner's operas. I haven't read them myself ( but i've been meaning to ), but I have heard great things about Herman Hesse.

I've heard of Kafka, but I didn't know about Schopenhauer. Thanks for the suggestions!