A Vexing Gadfly provides a portrait of Kierkegaard as an economic radical, whose opposition to Danish Lutheranism involved conspicuously criticising a wealthy church inattentive to the needs of the poor. Besides the introduction, conclusion and appendices, the book is divided into three chapters. The first situates Kierkegaard in ‘Golden Age Denmark’. Unfortunately, because it attempts to treat too many figures and aspects of the historical milieu, it remains of limited scholarly value. The second chapter considers Kierkegaard during the years 1846–52. Pérez-Álvarez contends that, during this time, Kierkegaard's political views were developing from a relatively conservative position into the full-fledged, left-wing stance that the author detects during Kierkegaard's final years (1852–5). This last period frames the final chapter of the book. Its brief conclusion is easily the most powerful and effective section of the work – which leaves the reader wondering why the themes and problems mentioned there were not articulated with such cogency and clarity earlier.
Sadly, this book is marred by numerous grammatical infelicities. Such blemishes hobble the coherent unfolding of its argument. To make matters worse, historical details are often marshalled elliptically; and extensive quotes from secondary sources sometimes stand in for the author's own analysis. In conjunction, these flaws place an undue demand on the reader's patience, attention and inferential powers.
Although Pérez-Álvarez clearly intends to apply historical scholarship to the contemporary situation, nearly his entire book is dedicated to historical exposition. No serious effort is made to clarify the complex economic transformations which have occurred since the mid-nineteenth century. Curiously, this lacuna coincides with a significant question in contemporary Marxist political theory: how should a critique of industrial capital be reconfigured for post-industrial economies? It is a pity that Pérez-Álvarez ignores this intriguing question – as well as the formally parallel problem of how transformations in the life of the church might inflect Kierkegaard's message to Christians today. Surprisingly, there is no sustained attempt here to suggest how Kierkegaard's theological criticism of state Lutheranism in his provincial European homeland might apply to the global twenty-first-century church. Instead – after receiving assurances that Kierkegaard's ideas are redolent of well-worn slogans borrowed from liberation theology – the reader is left to apply Kierkegaard's critique to the contemporary ecclesio-political situation on her own.
For those interested in Kierkegaard as a perceptive economic observer and agent, Vexing Gadfly does offer a rich cornucopia of primary source references, which merit historical examination. The author's effort to collect and (in some cases) translate many thematically organised excerpts is a real service to the scholarly community – especially insofar as these passages mark neglected dimensions of Kierkegaard's authorship. However, the way in which Pérez-Álvarez remains focused on his chosen theme suggests the danger of exegetical myopia and the inability to fully appreciate how Kierkegaard's economic remarks and actions might fit into a broader horizon.
Socrates, that archetype of philosophical provocation, was both a gadfly and a midwife. Ultimately, the former role supported the latter. Socrates vexed his interlocutors so that they might bear fruit ‘in the presence of beauty’ (Symposium 206b). Pérez-Álvarez presents us with a vexing Kierkegaard, scourge of the Danish church. But he neglects to seriously countenance Kierkegaard as a maieutic philosopher of the infinite. There is no deep intimation here of how the horizon of the divine good might give the desire for economic justice its ultimate end. Lacking this, whatever power the book has to chasten contemporaries through creative historical retrieval is gravely undermined. The reader is left with a portrait of Kierkegaard more frustrating than fertile.
