Kaosets inträngande: Nihilismens metamorfoser i Nikanor Teratologens Att hata allt mänskligt liv (2009)

Abstract

This paper examines how various aspects of Friedrich Nietzsche’s notorious concept of nihilism can be identified in Nikanor Teratologen’s novel Att hata allt mänskligt liv (2009). Based on the theories formulated in French philosopher Gilles Deleuze’s seminal monograph Nietzsche and the Philosophy (1962), the study incorporates analyses of the novel’s relationship between the British empire and its colonial subject, India; its protagonist, Alexander Cunningham, and his affinities to Nietzsche’s predecessor, and in many regards coming-to-be antipode, Arthur Schopenhauer; its monstrous (im)moral center Bhairava, and the ways he can be interpreted as a personification of Nietzsche’s will to power itself; and, finally, the epitomizing reflections conveyed in its two concluding chapters. The results of these investigations show that Nietzsche and nihilism are unmistakable and frequently recurring elements in Att hata allt mänskligt liv, proposing the novel to fulfill the epistemologically pessimistic Nietzschean theme that has been intimated in the author’s previous work.