a biography I would like to see someone write

It would be interesting for someone to write a really good biography of Heidegger only during the Marburg period. Freiburg has long been established as the official Heidegger city, but in so many ways the stay in Marburg from 1923-28 is what lifted Heidegger to greatness.

Look at what such a biography would have to offer:

*the hero begins the book as a somewhat obscure junior faculty member, and ends it five years later as an international superstar

*he still isn’t a Nazi by the end of the book, so that whole awful (and often tediously handled) story wouldn’t be there to strike a sour note

*we get the story of Sein und Zeit

*we get 10 lecture courses, some of them among his very best, and one of them destined to be shaped into his influential Kant book by the end of the decade

*we get the human interest drama with the whole Hannah Arendt story

*we get Rudolf Bultmann as an appealing and significant supporting character

This would be more than enough material to fill an interesting 700-page book.

It’s possible that I’m in the minority in finding the Heidegger of the ’20s more interesting than the Heidegger of the ’30s. But I don’t see how the conclusion can be avoided.