Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Philosophical Novel by Friedrich Nietzsche (Dover Thrift Editions)

Sachin RatnakarSachin Ratnakar: The media could not be loaded.  Product quality is perfect!

India on Nov 14, 2023

Michael C.: Arrived on time. nothing to complaint

Australia on Oct 29, 2023

AsfghhkshshhzbzAsfghhkshshhzbz: It's effing Nietzsche, dude. Haven't completed it yet, but I'm gonna look so intellectual while reading it.

India on Oct 21, 2023

Kindle Customer: I feel like Nietzsche and his characters need no introduction, but you should look them up anyways. His philosophy is life affirming and empowering. Stop waiting on God to save, God's gone. Create your own path.

United States on Sep 14, 2023

Tanisha P.Tanisha P.: The book's overall condition and print quality are satisfactory. However, there is a minor issue where a miniscule portion of the cover's edge shows signs of wear with the underlying white layer becoming slightly visible. While that's not a significant concern for me, I would have appreciated if the book came with a paper wrap or some form of temporary protective cover.

India on Sep 03, 2023

Mr. M. A. Gordon: Not an easy book to get through from beginning to end, but still a monumental contribution to continental and critical philosophy, and indeed western literature. This isn't necessarily the first (or only) book you should read by Nietzsche (that would be Genealogy of Morals and Birth of Tragedy), but certainly not the last.
Once acquainted with the revolutionary, psychological and discourse based method of Nietzsche, this work is the perfect example of that method as applied to Christianity, western philosophy and ethics. It certainly laid the groundwork for Freud, Foucault and others - and here above all he is the true 'master of suspicion' in revealing the bitterness, bad faith and hypocrisy of standard, bourgeois moral reasoning. In that sense, Nietzsche is right when he claims in other work to be the successor to Voltaire and that Zarathustra is the successor of Candide. However, what skills he has in lyricism, he generally lacks in satire and humour. Nietzsche tries, he really tries, but is not a funny man - maybe it's the old translation?
However, as a master of suspicion, it's only right to turn that suspicion back on the author. Of course, he was a sick and unloved...

United Kingdom on May 28, 2019

Martin Asiner: When Friedrich Nietzsche published THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA in 1883, his readers did not know exactly what to make of it. It seemed to be a hybrid of philosophy and literature, both of which were presented in a further hybrid of prose fiction, biblical parody, and even poetry. It did not sell well--at least at first, but before too many years had passed his readers acknowledged it as his masterpiece. Its influence on future writers and intellectuals--like Shaw, Mencken, Dreiser, London, Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, Derrida and others--has been unmistakable. Its basic plot--if one may call it that--relates to a man called Zarathustra who has spent the last ten years in seclusion meditating atop a mountain. He descends so that he may impart his accumulated wisdom to the world of ordinary folk. It is the content and mode of his interactions with his listeners that form the structure of the book.

In the book's four sections, Nietzsche through Zarathustra discusses, relates, and enlarges upon such diverse topics as the death of God, the Will to Power, the Ubermensch ("Superman" or Overman), the revaluation of values, and the doctrine of eternal recurrence. In Nietzsche's mind, these...

United States on Jul 25, 2011

guy: To start off with, the Walter Kaufmann translation is by now well known to be probably the authoritative edition of Zarathustra (although the excerpts I've read from the Del Caro Cambridge Texts edition seems to be perhaps a more beautiful style). One of the reasons I originally picked up this edition was because the only translations available over the web were the droning and pedantic Thomas Common versions which are not only dull but muddled. Walter Kaufmann's translation gives a degree of clarity that far surpasses the Common translation, cannot speak to all the differences (however large or small) between it and the Del Caro version.

The book isn't particularly long, but Nietzsche fills it with metaphors and parables in addition to simple narrative and merriment. This is one of the challenges of the book: you're forced to figure out what is meaningful from what isn't and on top of that what each metaphor means. Nietzsche has never been in the habit of going into intricate detail or clarifying what he's saying to the same degree as some other thinkers, and although the book is a stylistic masterpiece (with narrative deliberately done in a biblical style and herein lies...

United States on Feb 08, 2007