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One can't say how life is ... except by telling the tale. (p.252)

This comfortable (font & paper) edition was lent to me by my friend Lyndal Jones who has long been interested in Hannah Arendt as an exemplary alternative to the male thinkers. I knew nothing about Arendt before reading this extended and thoughtful essay. Now, after enjoying the way the essay used Arendt's life events to examine ideas, I still have little or no idea about who Arendt was, i.e. her character. Heberlein's offering is meagre:

If I had to describe Hannah's character in one word I would say she was responsible. (p.203)

This is not a biography or survey of Arendt's thinking. It is more of an encounter with two powerful interweaving forces (love and tyranny) and how they play out in the author's perception of this woman's intellectual life. How tyranny can even extend its power through love; as in her enduring relationship with the nazi apologist, Martin Heidegger.

It wasn't until I reached Heberlein's discussion of the possibility, or impossibility, of forgiveness, that, I realised how careful she (Heberlein) had assembled her essay and how almost incidental Hannah Arendt was to its thesis. Nevertheless, the book points me towards Arendt's writings because, as I reflect on the thoughts this work prompted, I want to note those that spoke to me but as I must give the book back this morning, this one will have to do:

Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. Violence appears where power is in jeopardy but left to its own course it ends in power's disappearance. (p.103)

As I finished, Heberlein, I opened Arendt's [b:On Revolution|127232|On Revolution|Hannah Arendt|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1309200849l/127232._SY75_.jpg|1660484]. Heberlein had not prepared me for the assurance in Arendt's voice.
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A warm, succinct and clear telling of the life of political theorist Hannah Arendt. Following her on her exile from Germany to Paris, and post-WWII to the US. I felt the author could almost have known Arendt, and made me want to be in the room with her and her milieu, listening to their conversation. I will certainly try and do so via some of the available volumes of letters later this year (what are biographers and historians going to do in this letter-less world we now live in?). I will also be lowering myself into some of her writings, starting with [The Life of the Mind] which has been on the shelf far too long.

There were many references to the writing of others, including her friends, so I was glad to see a substantial bibliography. ( )