Thus Spoke Zarathustra Paperback – January 4, 2019

I cannot think of one book that has more influence on me than Thus Spoke Zarathustra. It is a book that I once read at least once a year and it never failed to fill my mind with hope and ideas. I totally disagree with those who consider Nietzsche to be hard, stern, and without hope. I find nothing but hope in the works of Nietzsche. He deepest desire was to see humans remove the yoke of any oppressive ideologies which hindered thoughts and imagination. My initial reading of Zarathustra was very disappointing. I was not ready for the very stylized language he used but subsequent reading made me look beyond the style and see the thoughts behind them and then yielded the wisdom beneath. I make no claims to entirely understand Nietzsche but someone who dropped out before reaching high school I believe I have a fairly good grasp of his overall principles. His ideas are not so abstract that only scholars can understand them. I have now read most of his major works and consider him the single greatest influence on my own life and the perceptions of various institutions. As an atheist I was naturally drawn to his hostility towards most forms of organized religions---the exception for Nietzsche being Buddhism--but he was not grim or dour about this and always championed the "yay-saying" and discouraged the "nay-saing". His words can come across as a bit hard and cold but he felt he was in a desperate battle with a force that was robbing humanity of it's humanity and there was no sense mincing words about the consequences. He would have hated the Nazis. They were everything he despised about the regressive nature of humanity. The were devoid of all hope and their perverse use of the philosophy would have sickened him. This is a book that is still very valid and vital to the health of humanity. It should be read and reread.

Thus Spoke Zarathrustra was a great read . In my very humble opinion , Nietzche is one of the great modern philosophers . The book feels like an allegorical search by Nietzche for the meaning of his own life ; as it was for me . At an age now , beginning retirement , my life has become an existential quest of sorts and Thus Spoke Zarathrustra is certainly a guide vocal for me , on the same plane as Voltaire’s Candide or Hesse’s Siddhartha .

Imma be honest its a tough read... like old english, another language tough read. The points that come across tho. Mmmmmwuahhhh!!

First and foremost: this is not a review of the literary quality of Nietzsche's work, but rather of this particular publication.I've read this book several times- as I imagine is true of many of you, at various noteworthy phases of my life where it took on new and different meanings. As a result, I've read at least three distinct versions of this work, including the original German (which is a second language to me).To begin with, this is the first that included a truly comprehensive foreword regarding Nietzsche's relationship to his works along a timeline- someone coming upon "Zarathustra" as a first Nietzsche read, or as a student, will find a lot of very helpful contextualization before they even begin reading the text itself.Moving on to the text itself, I regard it as a much-needed modern interpretation of "Zarathustra." As much as Nietzsche's goal may well have been to parody religious and mystical trappings, the outdated language of the German-English translation is to many distracting and off-putting. This translation preserves the spirit of the work in modern, straightforward English without any liberties taken with the cultural nuances of the German or the overall storytelling style that was characteristic of Nietzsche at this point in his career.Overall, the best "Zarathustra" you can read. The Kindle edition is quite nicely formatted, too.

This is one of the most interesting philosophical books one can read. It isn't one of those self-loving, nurturing self-help books one will find in the modern day bookstore, and it certainly isn't for the faint of heart. The approach used is more one of harsh self-reflection and a stark view of the world and the people in, than anything else. Yet, it isn't exactly abusive in its language, so much as, "This is how the world is. The sooner you see that, the sooner you can move one with life living it the way you ought to." Of course, the language itself is more akin to something one would read in a bible, or medieval text, using words like "thou, thy, & thine," instead of "you, your, & you're."In each chapter Zarathustra speaks to his so-called disciples/ brethren, and deals with certain issues or occurrences in the world and breaks them down in the coldest, starkest light to show us the futility of many of mankind's pursuits and endless cycles of self-destruction and world-destruction. But there is hope, he says. In between all the apparently hopeless berating and dissecting of the human spirit, he lays down little nuggets of wisdom to help us find our way out of this self-induced darkness of the human soul. It isn't easy to hear, and he by no means sugarcoats it, but if one can set aside their ego long enough to get through this book, they might learn a thing or two about humility and find the desire within themselves to approach life a little differently than their human brethren.

A very good and dense book. I don't know if it was the prose, the translation, or the age of language in the text, but I found myself reading a few passages multiple times to really understand it. But all-and-all, a great read.People have spent decades writing long explanations and commentary on the book, so I'll simply say that much of it I could relate to my own challenges and experiences in life and that its message resonated with me.

Mirrored with the Jungian individuation process, I found the book to be most fruitful. I loved it! I recommend for a fairly experienced reader, both subjunctively and objectively.