It has been said that Thus Spoke Zarathustra is best read in high school because it is the only time a reader can tolerate such transparent exposition. This is probably accurate. I would recommend The Gay Science to a new reader of Nietzsche, but Thus Spoke Zarathustra is shorter and more popular. ( )

The one line I really like is "When the truth has triumphed for once, he has asked what great lie has fought for it." ( )

Please see review on my blog: Underground Man:

http://undergroundmangeomatt.blogspot... ( )

This book, writ from the perspective of Zarathustra serves to introduce Nietzsche's concept of the Übermensch, the "superman". The basic idea is that "Man is something that is to be surpassed" ((3)) that instead of letting oneself be limited by religious and social conventions one should make for themselves a new paradigm, rather than simply believing in external forces and validation that one should "dare only to believe in yourselves." ((83))

I find it in someways daunting trying to write up what I felt about this book, the first full work by Nietzsche I've ever read. I did greatly enjoy the book, and found a lot of comfort in Nietzsche's philosophy. I found great resonance in lines like "I am a law only for mine own; I am not a law for all." ((203)) as well as other points that reflected a sense of social relativity.

My main complaint toward Nietzsche was simply that I felt the book became fairly repetitive for the last third of the text. Rather than expanding or exploring the ideals of the Übermensch, their role and creation, I felt like it was repeating what was said, drilling it into your head, though perhaps this makes sense with Nietzsche's view on simple people.

I found this translation a bit cumbersome compared to others I've browsed, as the translator, Thomas Common, strove to keep the Biblical language intact, which mean a lexicon fairly similar to the King James Bible.

I greatly enjoyed finally reading some Nietzsche, and feel a drive to read more from the taste Thus Spake Zarathustra has given me. ( )

Although Professor Alderman credits his own interpretation of Nietzsche as a derivation of Heidegger's, Alderman takes Zarathustra as the paradigm of the philosopher, leaving Heidegger to his Will to Power notebook. But Heidegger is wrong-- about philosophy and about Nietzsche and about Zarathustra...

Zarathustra is NOT a proponent of objectivist nihilism. He is explicitly, explicitly and songfully, and beingfully trying to FREE humankind from metaphysics and its thin-lipped sour Schopenhauer bower. It is Socratic! The opposite of a Will with a need to be UBER.

[do the love dance] ( )

Zarathustra arrives to make way fur die Ubermensch. Eternal return as optimystic destiny. A startling rejection of wagnerian pessimism and his own earlier teaching.

No book has influenced me as much as 'Zarathustra' did. Before the last pages were read, I already knew: "I will not read any comparable book ever again in my entire life" - because there probably isn't one. Nietzsche just steals the show with this book. The power that every single sentence contains cannot be described, therefore you just have to read it. ( )

One of those books that, at the time, changes your whole world view... ( )

Classic

German

A classical work of filosophical significance. A treasure for the interested 'few'. ( )

Love it! Translators seem to be enjoying something of a bitchfest contra Walter Kaufmann's earlier beautiful English translation, which doubles the fun really. Incorrigibly weird and deliriously funny - woe to anyone who teaches this as philosophy! No no no! No ( )

Imaginative ramblings of a passionate man. Shouldn't be taken too seriously. ( )

This book is meant to be an anchor for Nietzsche's philosophical system. With that in mind it makes a great place for anyone interested in his works or of existentialism in general to begin. The exercise (read 'incredible difficulty') to tease Nietzsche's meaning out from the complex metaphors and puns that he employs is greatly alleviated by the translator's notes provided by Walter Kaufmann. These are helpful both to crystallize the function of each section and also to explain Nietzsche's elaborate plays on words, which often translate incompletely or not at all. This added guidance is often the difference between a successful or failed read of Zarathustra.

The book is written largely as a series of sermons and parables by the teacher Zarathustra, a vehicle meant to lampoon the biblical teachings of Christ. The joke lies in the fact that Nietzsche is employing the stylistic trappings of Christianity to deliver an individualist message which was meant not just to criticize the traditional morality of the time, but to charge each individual with crafting their own replacement. It represents a major break with all preceding philosophies in that it abhors the metaphysical and divine as foundations of human morality and announces the need for valuations which acknowledge the relative and subjective nature of human life. Thus the teachings in Zarathustra are not just a rewriting of older moral systems with new objects of authority with differences only in ritual or mythical basis, but a radical shift in the relation of those moral systems in relation to the people who develop and practice them. Nietzsche's Zarathustra is one of the formative works of existential philosophy as well as one of the first works of what could be called modern philosophies. ( )

so, then, why? ( )

I am always hopeful that a philosophy will confirm my beliefs and put them better than I can put them myself. I am always dissapointed that what I read fails to meet my expectations. I enjoyed this book a little more than most because of the way it was written. There were parts of the book where I did feel that Nietzsche did confirm my beliefs, and put things well. Much of the book either missed my expectation, or I simply couldn't see things the way they were intended. Interestingly enough, immediately after this I read Ibsen's "An Enemy of the People" where Ibsen outlines "the strongest man in the world". Contrasting that with Nietzsche's superman helped me get more out of each book. ( )

a perfect puberty book. ( )

I find a lot that is admirable in Nietzsche's philosophy... and there's some that i think Nietzsche was a bit naieve about. I found this book to be incredibly hard going, despite its easy 350 pages, it probably took me two weeks or more to finish. Mostly, i suppose, because the book is almost entirely composed of sermons by Nietzsche's Zarathustra with almost no motion or narration apart from his speaking. Also, Nietzsche seems to have written this book in almost a sort of prose-poetry, relying heavily on metaphor, his meaning is not always clear. I might have had an easier time of it if i were more familiar with some of his other works, so i could readily identify what he was refering to.

In any case, this is a famous, important book for Western thought, arts, culture etc. You should read it, even if its hard. Some things that are worthwhile are. ( )

This is the most tedious book I have ever read. I usually like philosophy, but this is incredibly dull and unispirational. ( )

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nie...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedric... ( )

Amazon Book Description
A 19th-century literary masterpiece, tremendously influential in the arts and in philosophy, uses the Persian religious leader Zarathustra to voice the author’s views, including the introduction of the controversial doctrine of the Übermensch, or "superman," a term later perverted by Nazi propagandists. A passionate, quasi-biblical style is employed to inspire readers to become more than they have been and to transcend the limitations of conventional morality. A provocative work that remains a fixture of college reading lists.

Nietzsche was brilliant and insane. In fact, whatever disease that killed him 8 years after writing this book had already started by this time. His evolution of the "overman" (ubermensch) is created through the travels and musings of Zarathustra. The best conceivable description of the style is that of a negative version of Kahlil Gibran. It's earthy, it's about the earth, but it's a violent form of passion based on the least desirable creatures, both human and animal -- when you can tell the difference. During the 4 books, Zarathustra first learns not to talk to the common man (in the "marketplace"), then learns to conquer his nausea, and finally conquers his pity. His loyal companions -- a variety of animals but primarily a snake and an eagle -- crowd about him during his repeated returns to his cave, wherein he contemplates and discovers more meaning about the overman. The evolution of the overman would require three stages: that of a camel (carrying the load), that of the lion (fighting the dragon), and that of the child (asking the obvious questions?). ( )