Detail
Title: Thus Spoke Zarathustra ISBN:Published March 30th 1978 by Penguin Books (first published 1883) · Paperback 327 pages
Genre: Philosophy, Classics, Nonfiction, European Literature, German Literature, Literature, Religion, 19th Century, Psychology, Poetry, Unfinished
Must be read
User Reviews
GD
It's like Jesus, but cooler.
Shawn
Horror movies never frightened me in the same way certain works of literature and film did. Reading through Zarathustra as a teenager was a singularly powerful experience; the work defies categorization or genre, time or place. I was warned that Nietzsche was dangerous for young readers (like Machiavelli) because he went insane. This I HAD to read. It was my first encounter with existential thought, a stinging critique of the very nature of values and belief. The events in the book are more like Biblical parables than a plot unfolding, except that the lesson is not, "Thou Shalt" but "Why should I?" I wish I could read German well enough to understand the nuances of Nietzsche's original narrative. Full of surreal visions, Zarathustra is a challenge to interpret but at the same time, lacks the semantics of conventional philosophy that makes the field inaccessible for many young students. So many things are explored, celebrated or indicted with ambitious and sharp leaps of metaphors: Moral relativism, comparative theology and eternal recurrence, nothing short of the love of life, the will to life. Many fascinating discussions have explored what could have influenced Nietzsche: the social milieu of late 19th century Europe, the contradictions of Enlightenment thought, etc. Thus Spoke Zarathustra will forever retain its mystery and is a monument to Nietzsche's eccentricity.
Ahmad Sharabiani
Also Sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen = Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for Everyone and No One = So Zarathustra Spoke. A book for Everyone and No One. In Three Parts, Friedrich Nietzsche
The book consists of four parts. The first part appeared in 1883, the second and third in 1884, the fourth in 1885 as a private print.
In 1886 Nietzsche published the first three parts as “So Zarathustra spoke. A book for everyone and no one. In three parts.”
In contrast to Nietzsche's early works, the Zarathustra is not a non-fiction book. In hymn prose, a personal narrator reports on the work of a fictional thinker who bears the name of the Persian founder of religion, Zarathustra.
عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «چنین گفت زرتشت - کتابی برای همه کس و هیچکس»؛ «چنین گفت زرتشت»؛ اثرک فردریش نیچه؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش یکی از روزهای سال 1971میلادی
عنوان: چنین گفت زرتشت - کتابی برای همه کس و هیچکس؛ اثر فردریش نیچه؛ مترجم حمید نیرنوری؛ تهران، ابن سینا، چاپ دوم 1346؛ در436ص؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، امیرکبیر، سیمرغ، چاپ سوم 1351؛ چاپ دیگر: تهران، اهورا، 1384؛ در 597ص؛ شابک 9647316097؛ چاپهای بعدی اهورا، 1385؛ 1386؛ 1388؛ 1392؛ موضوع فلسفه فیلسوفان آلمان - سده 19م
عنوان: چنین گفت زرتشت - کتابی برای همه کس و هیچکس؛ اثر فردریش نیچه؛ مترجم داریوش آشوری؛ اسماعیل خویی؛ تهران، نیل، 1349؛ در یک جلد؛ چاپ دیگر 1352 در 488ص؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، نگاه، 1370، در 542ص؛ چاپ هشتم 1372؛ چاپ سی و پنجم 1393؛
عنوان: چنین گفت زرتشت؛ مترجم: مسعود انصاری؛ تهران، زرین، 1379؛ در 607ص؛ شابک 9789644074004؛ چاپ دیگر؛ تهران، جامی، سال 1377؛ در 384ص، چاپ دوم 1379؛ چاپ سوم 1380؛ چاپ پنجم 1382؛ چاپ هفتم 1385؛ چاپ هشتم و نهم 1386؛ در 378ص؛ شابک9645620600؛ چاپ دهم 1388؛ دوازدهم 1391؛ سیزدهم 1393؛
مترجمهای دیگر: مهرداد شاهین؛
لحن «چنین گفت زرتشت» به کتابهای باستانی همچون «انجیل» و «تورات» نزدیک است، بسیاری آن را «انجیل پنجم» نام دادهاند؛ اگرچه اثری فلسفی است، اما به عنوان شاهکار ادبی نیز شناخته میشود، این کتاب ترکیبی از نثر و شعر که در قالب گزینگویه، سرودهای پر تب و تاب (ارجاع به یونان باستان) و همچنین بخشهایی از اشعار خالص (شعری بدون پیام که مربوط به بررسی ماهیت اصلی موسیقی زبان، نه به معنای رساندن روایت و یا هدف آموزشی) است
رمان پس از ده سال عزلت «زرتشت (پیامبر ایرانزمین)» آغاز میشود، او از کنج عزلت و پس از سالها اندیشه، از کوه سرازیر شده و به شهر میآید؛ هدفی دارد و میخواهد به بشریت پیامی بدهد، او سه دگردیسی از «شتر» به «شیر» و کودک را بازگو میکند و میگوید: «انسان فقط پلی میان حیوان و ابرانسان است.» حال که خدا مرده است، ابرانسان کسی است که از تمامی پیشداوریها و اخلاقیات جامعه انسانی آزاد و ارزش و هدف خود را آشکار سازد؛ مردمان به سخنان «زرتشت» واکنش نشان نمیدهند؛ در پایان نخستین روز در میان مردمان، «زرتشت» از ناتوانی خود برای رساندن پیام انقلابی خویش به مردم در بازار ناراحت است؛ او تصمیم میگیرد که دیگر در تغییر گله مردم سعی و تلاش نکند، بلکه باید با افرادی که مایل به جدا شدن از گله هستند، سخن بگوید؛ بخش نخست از سه بخش کتاب «چنین گفت زرتشت» شامل آموزههای فردی و خطبههای «زرتشت» هستند و بیشتر موضوعات کلی فلسفه ی «فریدریش نیچه» را پوشش میدهند، گرچه بیشتر در قالب بسیار نمادین و مبهم بیان میگردند، او مبارزه را ارزش میبخشد، زیرا مسیر برای ابرانسان دشوار است، و به قربانیهای بسیار نیاز دارد؛ رسیدن به آن راه بیشتر به صورت نمادین، و با بالا رفتن از کوه و روح آزاد و با خندههای شادکامانه و رقص نمایان میشود، «زرتشت» از همه گونه حرکتهای توده ای بیزار است؛ «زرتشت پیامبر»، کسانی را که به اندازه کافی توانمند (از لحاظ روحی) هستند را، به مبارزه میطلبد، و از کسانی که چنان نیستند، دوری میکند؛ «فریدریش نیچه» با اندیشه ی درخشان خود، زندگی را به چالش کشیده، و از نو بنا میکنند، هدف ایشان ساختن انسانی نو، با ارزشهای نوین است، تا بتواند از پیله ی رکود، رخوت و تاریکی، بیرون آید، و رهسپار دریای خویش گردد، او انسانهای میانمایه، متافیزیکی، ثروت پرست، مذهبی، اخلاق منش، فرهنگ دوست، زنان، خانواده، و بسیاری زمینههای دیگر را به جنگ میطلبد؛ رزم افزارش تنها قلم و اندیشه است، چه کسی یارای برابری با او را دارد
نقل از متن: (هنگامی که «زرتشت»، شهر گاو خالدار را که مورد علاقهاش بود را ترک میگفت، بسیاری کسان که خود را پیروان او میخواندند به دنبال او به راه افتاده و با او بودند تا به چهار راهی رسیدند، در اینجا «زرتشت» روی خود را بدانها نموده و گفت: «اکنون مایل است آنها را ترک گوید زیرا او از تنهایی لذت میبرد.» پیروانش در هنگام مفارقت از او عصایی بدو هدیه کردند، که دسته ای زرین داشت و ماری را نشان میداد که به دور خورشید چنبره زده است؛ «زرتشت» از آن هدیه بیاندازه شاد شد، و بر آن تکیه کرد و آنگاه روی به اصحاب خود نموده، و چنین گفت: آیا میدانید چرا زر از هر چیز دیگری پر بهاتر است؟ زیرا کمیاب است و درخشندگی ملایم و مطبوعی دارد؛ زر همواره خود را میبخشد؛ تنها به صورت تصویر بزرگترین فضیلتهاست که زر، بزرگترین ارزشها را یافته است؛ نظر شخص کریم، زرین است؛ زر درخشان بین ما و خورشید صلح برقرار میکند؛ بزرگترین فضیلتها کمیاب و بیمنفعت است، و درخشندگی ملایم و مطبوعی دارد؛ فضیلت بخشنده، بزرگترین فضیلتهاست؛ به راستی که من شما را شناختهام؛ شما نیز مانند من در پی آن فضیلتی هستید که میبخشد؛ شما چه فصلی مشترکی با گربهها و گرگها دارید؟ به راستی که چنین عشق بخشندهای باید دزد همه ارزشها شود، ولی چنین خودخواهی را من، پاک و مقدس میشمارم؛ فساد نامریی و مرض در این نوع اشتیاق نهفته است؛ تمنای دزدانه این خودپرستی دلالت بر یک جسم بیمار دارد؛ ای براداران، بگویید: آیا فساد، بدترین چیز برای ما نیست؟ در هر جا روح دهندهای نیست، بوی فساد به مشام میرسد؛ ما از بین انواع به سوی انواع عالیتر صعود میکنیم ولی ما فکر فاسدی را که میگوید: «همه چیز برای خودم» از خود میرانیم.)؛ پایان نقل
نقل دیگری از متن: (ای انسان! هشدار! نیم شب ژرف چه میگوید؟ خفته بودم، خفته بودم، از خواب ژرف برخاسته ام؛ جهان ژرف است، ژرفتر از آن که روز گمان کرده است؛ رنج آن ژرف است، لذت، ژرفتر از محنت؛ رنج میگوید گم شو! اما هر لذتی جاودانگی میخواهد، جاودانگی ژرف ژرف را! ترجیع بند زرتشت)؛ پایان نقل
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 29/07/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 12/06/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
Catherine
The best way that I can describe this book is as a religious experience, which is kind of paradoxical because the main idea of the book is that “God is dead.” When Zarathustra, the ancient Persian prophet, emerges from his 10-year solitude and exclaims that God has died, he doesn’t mean that literally. Rather, he means that the concept of God as a gateway to finding meaning in life is dead and that the meaning of life should be found not in religious worship but within the self as an exemplar of true humanity–the ‘Superman’.
The Superman represents the highest state of man in which he creates his own values and is therefore a powerful master of himself. According to Zarathustra, this version of man has yet to exist, but he speaks of how it can be bred in future generations. The book follows Zarathustra not only as he preaches to his disciples ways in which to reach the Superman state, but also his journey in reaching it himself.
The most interesting part of this was Zarathustra’s discourse of the phases of spiritual metamorphosis represented by the camel, the lion, and the child. The first stage, the camel, represents the carrying of burdens of human existence that are necessary for a person to accept in order to strengthen them for the next phase—it is the weight bearing spirit that pushes itself beyond every limit possible. Upon bearing the weight of existence and in essence outcasting themselves in the desert, the camel realizes that it wants freedom from the traditional virtues it has known; this is where the lion phase comes into play. At this point, the camel has two choices. It can either take the path of nihilism, or the path of creating its own values and meaning in life now that is has rejected traditional values of religion. In order to reach the Superman state, the individual must reject nihilism and in doing so, the lion is realized. In the last phase, the child, the spirt is truly free. This occurs when the lion has elected to start a new life as the master of himself—thus the Superman is attained. I thought that whole analogy was so interesting, and it serves as the basis of the entire story.
Although very dense, the allegorical nature is what really drew me in. I liked that this was something extremely different from anything else I have ever read and it allowed me to see certain ideas in a new light, regardless of whether or not I agreed with them all. I would definitely give other Nietzsche works a read, but I'm sure until then I will be pondering about this one for a very long time.
Sean Barrs
This is so many things at once: it is wise and intelligent; it is funny and perceptive; it is creative and playful, but it is also nonsensical and impenetrable.
Simply put, I am not quite sure if I am ready for this book. I consider myself relatively well-read, but I do not feel well-read enough to take this one on. There are parts that I do not understand or cannot interpret. I became lost in much of the writing as the allusions went over my head and meant extraordinarily little to me.
This is how I felt the first time I read Ulysses. I read it many years later and managed to trudge through it. The Satanic Verses also had a similar effect on me. All three books left me a little bewildered. And I don't think it is right to criticise such books on this basis.
So, I am putting this one on hold for several years. I will read it again when I am a little older and more educated. For now, though, it was simply okay but too profound for me at this point in my life.
We will speak again Zarathustra, in time.
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Szplug
How you liking them apples, Jede-fucking-diah?!
Thus spoke Barnaby Jones.
I read this book back around 2001 or 2002. I wasn't much concerned with writing reviews back then—and how weird is that?—but, deeming Nietzsche a pretty smart guy, I scribbled down a bunch of notes and quotes. Since I've not a single review by Friedrich N. at this place, I thought, in lieu of anything more insightful or intelligent, to copy those notes out below, verbatim. And after having done so, I'm not quite sure what I had hoped to accomplish with such a meager collection of peanut shells. [Shrug]. But what are you going to do? Perhaps someone, somewhere, somehow, will find something in 'em that makes Zarathustra more appealing than it might otherwise have been, and that would be just bully for me.
*Notes written on shit-brown paper and awfully damn hard to transcribe, 'cause I'm a southpaw and I write like I was being severely and cruelly electrocuted whilst running about and shaking.
The Overman: That which man must become in order to overcome himself and/or nature.
The Creator is also an annihilator—he must be cruel to break old values and create new ones.
The Last Man is promised happiness—but who will lead and who will obey? Everyone is the same, and those who are different are mad. The Last Man invented happiness.
Man created God in order to look away from everything. God suffers too, and is thus imperfect like his creators. Man hated the body, and so created spirit. Man hated the Earth, and so created Heaven. Doubt was sin. Knowledge shunned. The Ego will reclaim man for the Earth.
You say to me "Life is hard to bear." But why would you have pride in the morning and your resignation in the evening? Life is hard to bear; but do not act so tenderly! We are all of us fair beasts of burden, male and female asses. What do we have in common with the rosebud, which trembles because a drop of dew lies on it?Warriors of the Mind: Those with the courage to fight for their beliefs have helped mankind far more than priests who meekly accept the ideas of others.
True, we love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving. There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.
You invite a witness when you want to speak well of yourselves; and when you have seduced him to think well of you, then you think well of yourselves.Using other people as a prop to make them feel virtuous. Groups of virtuous people feeling very good can do great evil to strangers whom they should love too.
Thus speaks the fool: "Association with other people corrupts one's character—especially if one has none."
One man goes to his neighbor because he seeks himself; another because he would lose himself. Your bad love of yourselves turns your solitude into a prison. It is those farther away who must pay for your love of your neighbor; and even if five of you are together, there is always a sixth who must die.
Those who truly love are creators—and thus annihilators and givers and esteemers.
Do not let virtues, good and evil, limit your fulfillment as a creator. Remain of the Earth and do not get lost in the heavens seeking away from yourself and the body.
Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws.Nietzsche says God is dead but he constantly refers to angels and magic creatures: is he creating a new religion of the Overman? Of becoming?
Nietzsche's Zarathustra has doubts about the future—he is worried about learning for learning's sake; education imparting a love of collecting other people's creations.
At bottom, these simpletons want a single thing most of all: that nobody should hurt them. Thus they try to please and gratify everybody. This, however, is cowardice, even if it be called virtue...Virtue to them is that which makes modest and tame: with that they have turned the wolf into a dog and man himself into man's domestic animal.Nietzsche also frequently mentions his nausea, which chokes him like a snake. It's always the ejection of that which sustains life brought about by life's own unsettling essence and energies.
"We have placed our chair in the middle," your smirking says to me; "and exactly as far from dying fighters as from amused sows." That, however, is mediocrity, though it be called moderation.
Small virtues: Do not be more concerned with morals than with being men. Perfect safety and happiness makes for small minds and petty pursuits.
The old gods laughed themselves to death when the Grimbeard God proclaimed one god only. Laughter and prankishness are very important to Nietzsche—it keeps him from acting out of revenge.
The creator is not bound by the limits imposed by others. Their evil is so small: from small men with small virtues.
The great enemy of man is the Spirit of Gravity, which from birth holds men down with Good and Evil and Virtues. Man must soar his own way, making his own values. There is no correct one way or path for all men: that this is so is one of Gravity's lies.
The Spirit of Gravity is the old devil, and Zarathustra's enemy, for he brings constraint–statute–necessity–consequence, purpose and will, good and evil.
Good men never speak the truth. They give in—those who heed commands do not heed themselves.
The warring of despots and of democracy. The despot will distort the past to make it lead to him. The rabble with drown the past in shallow waters: forget the past after a pair of generations.
The Good and the Just must be pharisees. The good are always the beginning of the end. They want to crucify all creators; to the breakers of tablets, the Good sacrifice the future for themselves.
Zarathustra continues to be assailed by episodes of choking on the snake of nausea. All men, even the creator, must fight their nausea of the world.
For man is the cruelest animal. At tragedies, bullfights and crucifixions he has so far felt best on earth; and when he invented hell for himself, behold, that was his heaven on earth. Man is the cruelest animal against himself; and whenever he calls himself 'sinner' and 'cross-bearer' and 'penitent', do not fail to hear the voluptuous delight that is in all such lamentation and accusation.Zarathustra, through love of nature, has accepted his love of eternity and the eternal re-occurrence. Now in Part IV, as he has overcome his nausea of the eternal re-occurrence, he faces his final trial: pity.
All great lovers are great despisers. All creators are hard, all great love is over and beyond pity. All great success has gone to the well-persecuted. All those who persecute well learn readily how to follow.
The small men ask only: How is man to be preserved best, longest and most agreeably? They are concerned solely with small virtues. The Overman wants not to preserve man, but to overcome man.
Nietzsche constantly stresses the need for laughter and to laugh at one self: to dance on light feet. The archenemy is always the Spirit of Gravity.
The greater the creator, the greater the evil. But wash off the stain after you have created. Birth is never pleasant.
Whosoever would kill most thoroughly, laughs—not by wrath does one kill, but by laughter.
Luís
Friedrich Nietzsche establishes the bridge between a man and his primary nature in his best-known work. More than a parody of the metaphysical imagery, the book states that man has undergone an abstract force, invisible. Zarathustra reveals to man that life had ruled by chance and that the decline of human nature comes in the expectation that there will be something or someone directing it in life.
The teachings of Socrates fought here because life for Nietzsche is a force, not an objective. The revelation of Zarathustra is precisely this: power, vigour and transit. Movements bring back to human nature the desire that everything be sacred, revolves in a complete circle, and must be a blessing. This book, poetic, brings us an enthusiastic Nietzsche, taken by his favourite god: art.
Riku Sayuj
Verily have I overshot myself in my vanity into thinking that I was ready to attempt this book. Humbled am I now.
I probably got less than one-third of what Nietzsche was fulminating on. Maybe in another two reading or so... maybe with a different translation... ?
Can anyone who has read this help me out? Is the second half of the book just plain abstruse or was it just me?
Ross Blocher
Thus Spoke Zarathustra is a messy, self-serious heap of obscure references and ungracious philosophy wrapped in a mountain of bad allegory. And yet, there are moments of brilliance hidden in the midden pile of Nietzsche's impenetrable poetry and prose that almost make it worth the effort. This may be the longest short book I've ever read. Granted, the original was in German, and I read an English translation. Apparently it was already arcane and replete with wordplay and personal references in its original form. There were a few moments when I encountered new, interesting words and consulted the dictionary, only to discover it was not an actual word. I'm sure the translators were doing the best they could. Also granted, this was published in 1883, and I came along a good 100 years later. You can only blame a book so much for being a product of its time, though. I don't see much of value here for a modern audience.
The main message of the book is to prepare the way for the superman. "Übermensch" in the original, the term has been translated as "Overman" and a variety of similar coinages (all with men in mind; we'll talk about the misogyny in a minute). The idea is that mankind is only a transitional form, building toward a higher, better race. All efforts should be made to hasten his arrival and to stop mollycoddling weak, needy degenerates. What will this superman accomplish? What makes him so super? Why is his coming so important that all the ugly and inferior denizens of Earth must needs be eradicated? These questions are never raised, let alone answered.
Zarathustra (aka Zoroaster, the ancient founder of Zoroastrianism) was chosen as the protagonist for a cloud of reasons: his name sounds cool, he's Persian (Nietzsche considered them early individualists), and he was all about truth. Nietzsche has him walk up and down mountains to talk to the people he meets and shout (he is always shouting or exclaiming - there are many exclamation marks) his philosophy. Along the way he encounters various real and allegorical animals (all of whom represent someone important in Nietzsche's life or some group of people) as well as a small cast of other humans. At times he disappears for a while. Other times he gets really worked up. Eventually Zarathustra gathers some "higher men" in his cave and talks to them there. That's the extent of this skeletal plot, and it's even more boring and threadbare than that sounds. The structure reminded me a lot of Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet, until I looked them up and saw that Gibran was a huge fan of Nietzsche's. Go figure.
There are long, long passages devoid of content. Screed and mumbo jumbo, really. A few examples:
Life is a well of delight; but where the rabble also drink, there all fountains are poisoned. To everything cleanly am I well disposed; but I hate to see the grinning mouths and the thirst of the unclean.
Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings, who think themselves good because they have crippled paws!
The stupidity of the good is unfathomably wise.
O my soul, I have given thee new names and gay-coloured playthings, I have called thee "Fate" and "the Circuit of circuits" and "the Navel-string of time" and "the Azure bell."
Let your love to life be love to your highest hope; and let your highest hope be the highest thought of life!
Do those last two even mean anything? I don't know. I tried reading them four times and then just had to move on. There's a lot of that. Oh, and I mentioned misogyny!
As yet woman is not capable of friendship: women are still cats, and birds. Or at the best, cows.
Everything in woman is a riddle, and everything in woman hath one solution - it is pregnancy.
The happiness of man is, "I will." The happiness of woman is, "He will."
Surface, is woman's soul, a mobile, stormy film on shallow water. Man's soul, however, is deep, its current gusheth in subterranean caverns: woman surmiseth its force, but comprehendeth it not.
These aren't just selective quotes out of context - this is pervasive. Nietzsche even has a character exclaim, "Strange! Zarathustra knoweth little about woman, and yet he is right about them!" Eyeroll.
There are mixed messages, and you never know when Zarathustra is supposed to be taken seriously. Nietzsche seems to have no concept of what makes some people great and others not, and is oblivious to the roles of circumstance and environment. Somehow, to him, some people are just inherently lesser, and his disgust is apparent. As though he were such a model human being himself: Nietzsche was frequently sick, out of work, unable to write, and suffering from dementia. He has a weird, limited understanding of evolution, and borrows from religion frequently. Nietzsche proclaims God dead and the church corrupt, but also makes a display of his religious inculcation in his language and poetry. Spake Zarathustra: "Man doth not live by bread alone", "do this in remembrance of me", and the psalmic punctuation "Selah".
I had avoided Nietzsche for years, largely because I'd encountered him as the target of Christian apologist arguments (along with Freud), and I didn't want him to be part of my own atheism. After this, I still don't. Fans of his assure me that I'd do better to read one of his less obscurantist works, such as The Antichrist. Maybe I will. The best that can be gleaned here is encouragement to soar above and be the best person you can be, but I hope you don't do that at the expense of others. I can see why this book so often appeals to young men. There are indeed some deep insights and beautiful phrasings to be had here, but they are virtually lost in a sea of boring and spiteful blather.
Aubrey
I have at all times written my writings with my whole heart and soul: I do not know what purely intellectual problems are.There is a great deal of Nietzsche that I agree with, and hoards with which I vehemently do not. I've been accumulating quotes of his for five years now, quotes whose inherent lack of context made me like him more than I do now. I still love many of his phrases as much as I did before, but if we ever met, we would not like each other at all.
Despite that muddle, I am grateful that I came across his words while I was younger and in the full throes of depression, cynicism, and a frighteningly homicidal brand of solipsism. I didn't know the definition of that last word back then, but I was in desperate need of something both horribly dismal and blindingly bright, a joy that did not require avoidance of despair but looked it full in the face. The often contextualized and paraphrased Nietzsche with atheism, nihilism, and yet fierce and glorious fervor for the future seemed perfect back then.
To some extent, he's still perfect, but only in bits and pieces. The call for solitude and individualism is as refreshing as ever, the atheism is still in line with my sensibilities, and the breathtaking vaults and shuddering descents carried my heart along with them. However. While I did indeed run across his cry for the Superman, even going so far as to take to heart his 'Man is something that shall be over come,' I paid as much mind to his Superman as concerned my younger self's view of the world and the people in it as utterly worthless. Not until this reading did I fully realize Nietzsche's meaning; being as interested in social justice and, well, female as I am, there was little chance of me passing up all that elitism (and classism?) and condemnation of empathy and rapier dashes of virulent misogyny.
It's strange, though. Perhaps it is a sign of just how much time I spent mooning after Nietzsche, back when I took him in small doses, but I am especially conscious of the time period in which he wrote this. His decrying of the "mob" echoes my own views regarding oppressive ideologies, and I have to wonder how much of his rampant condemnation of popular mentality fell upon the people rather than the ideas they lived by. As for his abysmal portrayal of women, who knows what a healthy dose of feminism and exposure to such awesome thinkers as Simone de Beauvoir, Hannah Arendt, and so many others would have accomplished. Probably gotten rid of his 'creator's pregnancy' conceit (if you're going to slander, Nietzsche, back off from the ridiculously disproportionate appropriation please), if nothing else. Also, there is the matter of his one serious attempt at heterosexual love having been rejected right around the time of composition of this piece. It doesn't excuse him at all, but it does explain his vitriol some.
All of that above is wishful thinking, of course, but seeing as this is the enigmatic rhapsodizer on the subject of wishful thinking, it's more than merited. For all of Nietzsche's aggravating inegalitarianism, he captured the rapid fire oscillation between top of the world and descent into hell so perfectly, so utterly, and then crafted with it a raison d'être both deathly serious and blissfully rapturous. There's no small amount of nihilism in his dismissal of everything solid, everyone stationary, everything decrepit and outdated and finally after long last proved false, but there's a spitfire life to it that laughs at self-serving pandering and loves chaotic progress that I myself cannot forbear from adoring and making my own.
'This - is now my way: where is yours?' Thus I answered those who asked me 'the way'. For the way - does not exist!I shall keep this in mind, Nietzsche, if nothing else. Not all of what your Zarathustra spoke rings true to me, but you are one of the few who favored freedom over advice. For that, I am in your debt.
I am of today and of the has-been (he said then); but there is something in me that is of tomorrow and of the day-after-tomorrow and of the shall-be.
P.S. This particular edition was great. I have no clue about the quality of the translation, but the introduction and endnotes, endnotes that included all those untranslateable bits with as much explanation as possible, were indispensable.
Miquixote
Incredibly interesting ideas. For sure you will be thinking about what is said here for a long, long time.
This most famous book of Nietzsche delves into the central idea: the "eternal recurrence of the same", also the parable on the "death of God", and the "prophecy" of the Übermensch. Nietzsche himself claims it is "the deepest book ever written". (he wasn’t one prone to humility…)
A fictionalized prophet descends from his recluse to mankind, Zarathustra, and turns traditional morality on its head. Zarathustra was the first moralist (and now fictionally the first anti-moralist). This is intended as an irony, Nietzsche mimics the style of the Bible and indeed has ideas which fundamentally oppose Christian and Jewish morality and tradition. Many criticisms of Christianity can be found in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in particular Christian values of good and evil and its belief in an afterlife. Nietzsche sees the complacency of Christian values as fetters to the achievement of overman as well as on the human spirit. To Nietzsche truthfulness is the highest virtue; the self-ovecoming of the highest morality, the opposite of the cowardice of the "idealist” who flees from reality.
According to Nietzsche, the will to power is the fundamental component of human nature. Everything we do is an expression of the will to power. The will to power is a psychological analysis of all human action and is accentuated by self-overcoming and self-enhancement (please note emphasis on self). Contrasted with living for procreation, pleasure, or happiness, the will to power is the summary of all man's struggle against his surrounding environment as well as his reason for living in it. Faced with the knowledge that he would repeat every action that he has taken (the eternal recurrence), a normal man would be moved to depression. An overman however would be elated as he has no regrets and loves life.
To many it sounds like evolutionary theory. And like Darwinism his philosophy was interpreted by many into a form of Social Darwinism and extermination of races. It is still up for debate whether he really was a Social Darwinist.
Although the word ‘Uberman’(overman, superman) has been thought to have connotations of racial superiority, especially by the Nazis, there is no evidence in Thus Spake Zarathustra that Nietzsche intended it to mean anything other than a generic "higher being". (however, you may find sentences about ‘inferior and superior races’ in his previous work The Gay Science… whether he meant race literally is unclear, and problematic translations may further complicate the interpretations.)
A vulnerability of Nietzsche's style is that his nuances and shades of meaning are very easily lost — and all too easily gained — in translation. There is an ambiguity and paradoxical nature, which has helped its eventual enthusiastic reception by the reading public, but has frustrated academic attempts at analysis (as Nietzsche may have intended). Thus Spake Zarathrustra was however clearly intended to be taken as an alternative to repressive moral codes and an aversion to "nihilism" in all of its varied forms. Two things that can and should also be taken positively.
There are certainly moral issues to take up against the man though (as he intended). Most controversially and to the point that matters most for many, would he have condoned the mass extermination of Jews taken upon by Nazis? I don’t think so, but only because he was too intelligent, and there is no evidence there is such a thing as a literally ‘inferior race’. He would however condone lethal actions in ‘the will to power’ (he quite explicitly states so in the Gay Science) and he did not have a positive view of participatory democracy (because he wouldn’t agree so-called lesser-developed men, the ones he would probably define as lacking the ‘gay knowledge’, should be given equal power).
Not passe at all, his ideas are alive and well today, but his immoral approach should be considered extremely problematic. If an important challenge to repressive moral codes it should also be firmly acknowledged as too absolutist and all-encompassing of a challenge to all morals.
For those who doubt Nietzsche’s influence, and are still unclear what he represents, he is fundamental to a wide variety of ideas. Some are highly questionable as helpful against nihilism (such as anarco-individualism/anarcho-capitalism and post-modernism). And some you may or may not find helpful (such as atheism). If still in doubt, here is a short list of those he has profoundly influenced:
Adorno, Bataille, Baudrillard, Benjamin, Bloom, Allan, Buber, Butler, Camus, Deleuze, Derrida, Dreyfus, Foucault, Freud, Heidegger, Iqbal, Jaspers, Jung, Kafka, Kaufmann, Kojeve, Lovecraft, Marcuse, Mencken, Molyneux, Onfray, Robakidze, Rogers, Santayana, Sartre, Strauss, Spengler, Williams, Wittgenstein, Zapffe
Kyle Wright
Zarathustra, the character through which Nietzsche vicariously spews forth his world-view, is a pompous, narcissistic, ego maniac that is so obsessed with how right he is, he can't see just how terribly wrong he ends up being. Nietzsche constantly contradicts himself, uses poor logic and reasoning, and pushes for a social order that benefits only the elite. I'm appalled of Nietzsche's idea that the great men of the world should walk all over the little, regular people to achieve their greatness. He says that the existence of the general population is justified only by the fact that there may come out of them a greater race (Hitler was a big fan of this view as well). He says that morality and ethics are not real, but merely tools to manipulate masses and hold back the elite. This guy must have been insane! (Turns out he was, being committed to a mental institution only years after finishing this work).
I believe George Bernard Shaw put it best, when he said the following about this book: "Nietzsche is worse than shocking, he is simply awful...Nietzsche is the champion of privilege, of power, and of inequality. Never was there a deafer, blinder, socially and politically inepter academician..."
This is one of the worst books I've ever read. The tale meanders all over the place as Zarathustra ejaculates ridiculous philosophy for page after page, his followers fawning after him with nary a singular thought of their own. Both they and Zarathustra are in awe of Zarathustra's own wisdom and insight, and Nietzsche never lets a page go by without reminding us of his grandiose status. If anybody in the story tries to contradict Zarathustra, he merely laughs at how stupid the person is and ridicules them. This book is, in a nutshell, just a guy trying to make himself look all powerful, knowing, and important while making everyone else look bad. I give this book an epic FAIL!
Sidharth Vardhan
Get a life, Nietzsche
Ram Alsrougi
Great, almost practical application, that it's almost possible to apply it even in today's society. Nietzsche's courage, creativity, and passion in this work make him enchant. However, while reading; I had to repeat many chapters twice because of his kind of strange and blunt language!.
P.E.
All "It was" is a fragment, a riddle, a fearful chance - until the creating Will says thereto: "But thus would I have it."
Zarathustra - Nicholas Roerich (1931)
This immense poetical/didactic work looks to me as the adding up of maxims and values already extolled in Beyond Good and Evil and On the Genealogy of Morals: self-reliance, affirmation of personal will and values, the surpassing of the self. The story of Zarathustra, the seeker of his personal truth makes this work more alluring and in the end more fleshed out and convincing to me than the previous two, sheer collections of aphorisms and thoughts.
Here again, I catch myself further entrenching that personal prejudice about philosophy, namely that novels or stories at large offer the most lively, the most unconstrained, easy-flowing and at the same time the most fleshed-out way, in short the best way, to convey an actual modicum of your philosophical notions to the reader, as he follows the subjectivity in motion of the characters, from inception to the embodiment of the values they themselves assert as the story progresses.
I have had actual, keen pleasure following Zarathustra's travels, the conversations and trials, and found myself sympathizing for the characters and the spirit inhabitating them, even smiling at some of their witticisms, their wilfulness and waywardness! In particular during the feast at Zarathustra's cave, which I've had no difficulty imagining as a scene in Alice in Wonderland or the climax of a manga series or something along these lines :D Curious, isn't it! And I'm not even that much of a manga reader! There is something so exuberant, vibrant, cheerful and fateful at the same time in these last scenes that I have came as far as to feel among their very company, in the flesh, and I've had a fantastic time with the King on the Left and the King on the Right, Zarathustra's Shadow, the Soothsayer, the Voluntary Beggar, the Magician, the Ass, the Leech scholar, the Ugliest Man and the Old Pope 'out of service'... :)
Lo! I've even found an illustration of this memorable scene;)
A bunch of quotes:
'I tell you: one must still have chaos in one, to give birth to a dancing star.'
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'But all is alike, nothing is worthwhile, no seeking is of service, there are no longer any Blessed isles!" [...] Thus sighed the soothsayer; [...]
"No! No! Three times No!" exclaimed [Zarathustra] with a strong voice, and stroked his beard- "that do I know better! There are still Blessed isles! Silence then, you sighing sorrow-sack!'
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'In that you have despised, you higher men, that makes me hope. For the great despisers are the great reverers.
In that you have despaired, there is much to honor. For you have not learned to submit yourselves, you have not learned petty policy.
For to-day have the petty people become master: they all preach submission and humility and policy and diligence and consideration and the long et cetera of petty virtues.'
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'What is the greatest thing you can experience? It is the hour of your greatest contempt. The hour in which even your happiness becomes loathsome to you, and so also your reason and virtue.'
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'And even if one have all the virtues, there is still one thing needful: to send the virtues themselves to sleep at the right time.'
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'You shall love beyond yourselves some day! So first, learn to love. And for that you have to drink the bitter cup of your love.'
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'But the worst enemy thou canst meet, wilt thou thyself always be; thou waylayeth thyself in caverns and forests.
[...]
A heretic wilt thou be to thyself, and a wizard and a soothsayer, and a fool, and a doubter, and a reprobate, and a villain.
Ready must thou be to burn thyself in thine own flame; how couldst thou become new if thou have not first become ashes!'
Also read:
Siddharta
The Manuscript Found in Saragossa
Freedom from the Known
Dieu et l'Etat
Dependance
Conan 1 - Le Cimmérien
Into the Wild
Memoires Du Large
An illustration of Nietzschean tragedy and life affirmation through the eternal joy in becoming: Berkerk, by Kentarō Miura
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Behold, while looking for an illustration of the 'Last Supper', I hath stumbled on... this! I had strong doubts something akin to this didn't exist already to be frank, ha ha!
Music:
La Femme d'Argent - Air
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