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Question Just finished reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and I can't help but be completely and utterly confused. His format of hyperbolic and metaphoric employs were incredibly interesting, but didn't quite comprehend the overall message. Maybe this novel is a bit an over-reach of a pure understanding for me. Granted, I've only read rich language in holy books. What was the philosopher trying to gift a reader with his novel?

Accepted:
May 10, 2012

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Join the club ... I'm sure you'll hear from Nietzsche specialists, but as a non-specialist -- but great admirer -- let me merely say that TSZ is perhaps not the best place to start to begin to understand this amazing thinker and writer ... a fairly clear, and more straightforward, account of some of his main ideas (anyway) might be found in On the Genealogy of Morals, another famous work as stylistically rich as TSZ but a bit more 'conventional' (if that word is ever applicable to Nietzsche) ... So rather than try to answer your question, I'll merely suggest you read something else! ....

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I fully agree, Zarathustra is not the best place to begin withNietzsche – although many people do, without suffering unduedamage! However, as you have worked your way through it and enjoyedyourself, just a few pointers for getting something further out ofZarathustra: first, don't forget its novel-like characteristics:Zarathustra develops as a character right from the first few pages,and these developments and also his emotional responses to situationsand to emerging ideas are not just for effect, but part of thephilosophical content. Second, to my mind the most philosophicallyimportant symbolic contrasts are between change/ motion andstillness, and between male and female. If, when reading, you payparticular attention to these, many of the more cryptic passages makesense. Notice that these are not terribly original symbols; in fact, they are about as old as symbols get. Nietzsche's 'gift' (a very Nietzschean word you've used there!) is to provide new meanings for very old symbols and very old systems of value.