Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spake Zarathustra. Schmeitzner (Germany, original in German) 1883-1885. English translation Walter Kaufmann in The Portable Nietzsche. Penguin, London, 1954.F; 6/26.

Every so often I decide to dive into some massive monument like this knowing that I’m going to be out of my depth (I was) but just to see if I can find out what all the fuss is about. It was reading The Closing of the American Mind that got me interested in Nietzsche’s ideas. Predictably I came away with more questions than answers.

It’s a famous work of philosophical fiction that has been translated many times. I started with a recent one that used pseudo-King James Bible type language (“thou hast… he giveth”) which I could do without. I switched to the above version which was much more accessible. Kaufmann was himself a philosopher and a Nietzsche expert.

In a way this is a novel because it follows the fictional Zarathustra (based on Zoroaster) through several imaginary trips, but its content through his conversations and experiences is a sometimes poetic sometimes very hard-hitting setting forth of Nietzsche’s thinking.

A bit of background. The author (1844-1900) as a philosopher is still controversial among contemporary experts. He was born in Germany but travelled to many places in Europe, holding university positions in philosophy and philology (the study of language in written historical sources). He developed physical and mental illness late in life. Nietzsche is thought of as one of the original existentialists and shared their belief that the universe doesn’t have a “design” and that people are responsible for their own existence. Most philosophers are known for establishing a system to address metaphysical questions to do with existence, knowledge, and the mind. Nietzsche is criticized for not having invented a rational system. But in Zarathustra he describes a philosophical guru coming to grips with the loss of traditional religious belief and gesturing towards a possible way of living a good life and avoiding nihilism.

During the “plot” Zarathustra travels through mythical territory including mountains, valleys and bodies of water, and a cave where he lives. During this time he meets a wide variety of characters, interacts with followers or disciples and also animals. Rather than talking about his voyage and these characters, let me try to describe what I thought were Nietzsche’s main arguments and beliefs as discussed and taught by his character.

“God is dead” is Nietzsche’s most often-quoted statement. I think this gets misunderstood as in this story it feels more like a regretted but unquestioned loss of faith held for many centuries in Western thought. Particularly Christianity.

God is a conjecture; but I desire that your conjectures should not reach beyond your creative will. Could you create a god?

‘Church?’ … That is a kind of state—the most mendacious kind. But be still, you hypocritical hound! You know your own kind best! Like you, the state is a hypocritical hound; like you, it likes to talk with smoke and bellowing—to make himself believe, like you, that he is talking out of the belly of reality. For he wants to be by all means the most important beast on earth…

To have glued this New Testament, a kind of rococo of taste in every respect, to the Old Testament to form one book—the “Bible,” the book—that is perhaps the greatest audacity and “sin against the spirit” which literary Europe has on its conscience.

People should instead try to be the best they can be. Such people would be called in German Übermensch, which sometimes gets translated as “superman” but makes more sense in our age as “better men” (or “better people”). The characteristics of these better people are not stated but gestured towards. I came away with the idea that like Zarathustra himself such wonderful humans don’t achieve some standard but by continuously approaching an ideal live the Übermensch life. Zarathustra’s description of the good life is often negative: this is how not to live. Particularly execrated are: the religious, the “rabble” or “mob”, the “good”, scholars, the overly-serious.

Especially those who call themselves “the good” I found to be the most poisonous flies: they bite in all innocence, they lie in all innocence; how could they possibly be just to me? Pity teaches all who live among the good to lie. Pity surrounds all free souls with musty air. For the stupidity of the good is unfathomable.

Beware of the scholars! They hate you, for they are sterile. They have cold, dried-up eyes; before them every bird lies unplumed.

I do not wish to be mixed up and confused with these preachers of equality. For, to me justice speaks thus: “Men are not equal.” Nor shall they become equal! What would my love of the Übermensch be if I spoke otherwise?

It’s a repeated part of Zarathustra’s personality that he loves laughter, pranks, and fun generally, maybe partly to avoid dead-seriousness of which there is more than enough. At the same time as he is viciously contemptuous of shallow hypocritical people he repeatedly praises pranksters, laughter, and a life full of action and humour.

As long as there have been men, man has felt too little joy: that alone, my brothers, is our original sin. And learning better to feel joy, we learn best not to hurt others or to plan hurts for them.

Part of achieving (ascending to) the Übermensch life is exploration of and descent into suffering and negativity. I don’t think I understood this paradox very well, but it recurs frequently. Kaufmann the translator and expert says that the praise of “so-called” evil is central to Nietzsche’s thought.

Spirit is the life that itself cuts into life: with its own agony it increases its own knowledge. Did you know that? And the happiness of the spirit is this: to be anointed and through tears to be consecrated as a sacrificial animal. Did you know that?

Deeply I love only life—and verily, most of all when I hate life.

…man needs what is most evil in him for what is best in him—that whatever is most evil is his best power and the hardest stone for the highest creator; and that man must become better and more evil.

Nietzsche was a lyrical writer there are plenty of poetic passages.

Zarathustra entered a realm of death. Black and red cliffs rose rigidly: no grass, no tree, no bird’s voice. For it was a valley that all animals avoided, even the beasts of prey; only a species of ugly fat green snakes came here to die when they grew old.

how nicely the bitch, sensuality, knows how to beg for a piece of spirit when denied a piece of meat.

Do I speak of dirty things? That is not the worst that could happen. It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters.

Toward the end of the fourth book Zarathustra praises “eternal recurrence”. I don’t understand what this means exactly, but it’s been commented that enthusiasm for recurrence is associated with the idea that you are supposed to be living a life in such a way that you wouldn’t mind having it keep repeating through eternity.

Nietzsche’s intensity and a lot of his specific beliefs are hard for someone like me to imagine in practical terms. And in the same way that I, an irresponsible agnostic, am looking to live some form of ecstatic experience without the constraint of dogmatic religion, I don’t properly understand or think I can pretend to whatever Nietzsche’s had in mind by Übermensch. But I like the idea that continuing to practice personal self-criticism and -improvement while maintaining a sense of humour is not a bad way to live.

I’m not suggesting that Thus Spake Zarathustra will be a good read or even inspirational for everyone. I think Walter Kaufmann’s books on Nietzsche might be a bit more accessible if you’re interested in finding out about the philosopher.

I won’t presume to tack a numerical score onto this one…