Also sprach Zarathustra Book 1 to 4 By Friedrich Nietzsche

Also sprach Zarathustra(Thus spake Zarathustra)- Book 1 to 4 by Friedrich Nietzsche

…Every day I count wasted in which there has been no dancing.

Nietzsche’s magnum opus Also sprach Zarathustra is definitely one of the obscurest and most magnificent literary works that I’ve read. It is one of those things in life that one grows to love and loathe at the same time.

The work’s meta-satirical plot revolves around its protagonist ‘Zarathustra’ who preaches people as solemn saints do and yet his enunciations mock themselves. In this way, Nietzsche has given much depth and humor to his work and adorned it with unique metaphors and characters that, at least superficially, seem to be saying something to the reader. Through these characters Nietzsche explores his theories and maxims of eternal recurrence, importance of courage, laughter and dancing, and a benign-playful malice. He condemns prolonged peace, gift giving and pity. Even before the chapters on pity turn up, his hatred for it is betrayed when Zarathustra whispers to himself the words that are oft-found in pop culture- ‘God is dead’ and ‘he died of man’s pity’. He then goes on to exposit his idea of the Ubermensch (Overman) and builds on this idea as the work advances. Zarathustra then embellishes the concept of Overman with several ideas that Nietzsche himself stood for.

This work is broken down into four books and around twenty chapters in each book. The reader should not hope for these books or chapters to give structure or a storyline to this work because the work is not linear or tree like syntactically. It is rather a dimensionless poetic meta-sarcastic overflowing biased harsh honey filled raw hodgepodge of ideas, insults, and verses.

Reading about Nietzsche’s life and one of his works (such as the twilight of the idols) before reading this work would help the reader dig out the latent ideas of Nietszche from this work.

Thus spake Zarathustra is recommended only to those who can appreciate the brilliance of chaos and non-sense in literature. It is truly A Book for All and None.