I feel I need to begin this review by stating that Also Sprach Zarathustra is not a page-turner. It is also not strictly a work of fiction. It isn’t really strictly philosophy, either. In fact, it’s easier to continue describing the book by describing what it is not rather than by describing what it is. I feel that the only way I can explain what Zarathustra actually is in any affirmative sense is to say that it is perhaps the purest expression of Nietzsche’s ideas through the prism of his personality.

The book intentionally copies the style of the Luther translation of the Bible, using some archaic phrases and twisting many a famous Biblical passage to comic effect. For example, Zarathustra says, “Aber der Mensch lebt nicht vom Brot allein, sondern auch vom Fleische guter Lämmer, deren ich zwei habe” (But man does not live by bread alone, but also by the meat of good lambs, of which I have two). The parody is intentional and part of Nietzsche’s passionate disgust for Christianity.

Of course, the parody also highlights Nietzsche’s phenomenal arrogance (also on full display in his autobiography, Ecce Homo, with its chapter headings like Warum ich so weise bin - Why I am so wise – and Warum ich so gute Bücher schreibe - Why I write such good books). Nietzsche has, in a sense, decided to write his own Bible, and fully believes that it is superior to the holy books of the world religions.

The book has no real plot, but is instead largely extended monologues by Zarathustra, a man who preaches the coming of the Übermensch and the philosophy of the Will to Power. There are in some cases dialogues, and the fourth part of the book does have something approaching a frame story, but the reader is left with no doubt as to what is important in the book – Zarathustra’s teachings – and why (to change the world).

The philosophy of the Will to Power and the Übermensch who lives that philosophy, is the natural extension of Nietzsche’s premise that God is dead. This concept, obviously, is meant in the sense that the traditional concept of God has been disproven by man, and so man must himself create his own morality with his own concepts of “good” and “evil”, and that the life-affirming principle is the driving force in this quest (thus rejecting the pessimism of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche’s philosophical nemesis).

I believe that this book has been misunderstood by many because it exhorts the Übermensch to cast aside all pity for those who are weak, and extols three virtues as part and parcel to the Will to Power: Wollust, Herrschsucht, and Selbstsucht (lust, the pursuit of power and the search for the self). Lust is used as a metaphor for the rejection of the sexual morality of society and organized religion. The pursuit of power is a means of self-realization, and the search for the self is a more deeply philosophical goal, which can only be achieved if a person becomes like a child again.

And there is something childlike in the philosophy. It is incredibly selfish. In a way, our modern society seems to be the perfect expression of parts of Nietzsche’s dogma, but the result is by and large not that people are all Übermenschen, but rather, that they are Untermenschen. It is likely that Nietzsche would say this is because the common people, whom Nietzsche detested, have just created new idols in the place of the dead God, rather than consciously embrace his philosophy.

In Nietzsche’s defense, the Übermensch is not simply someone who assumes that, because “God is dead”, people can just do whatever they feel like. Although Zarathustra talks about the inner beast as a good thing, he speaks about it not with respect to a lack of self-control, but as an urge that can be controlled and channeled and used to gain power. The Übermensch is, simply, a person who can himself become a god. Nietzsche’s education and experience with Greek antiquity comes into play here. The Übermensch is like the master of the ancient mystery-religions, someone who has mastered his ego, who knows fundamentally who he is, and acts deliberately in a life-affirming manner.

One might ask why the Übermensch is so ambitious and active when a world without gods implies a world without a heaven. Nietzsche’s inartful and highly irrational solution to this problem is one of the weaker points of his philosophy as a whole. This is the concept of die ewige Wiederkunft, the eternal return. Nietzsche, through Zarathustra, expressed the idea that all of creation, including our own lives, would happen again and again into eternity.

To a certain extent, it seems that Nietzsche is projecting onto the Übermensch those qualities that he himself lacks, and identifies more with Zarathustra, as the harbinger of the Übermensch, rather than with the Übermensch. Zarathustra seeks solitude where he can get away from the Pöbel, the unwashed teeming masses of stupid humanity: “Des einen Einsamkeit ist die Flucht des Kranken; des andern Einsamkeit ist die Flucht vor den Kranken” (One man’s solitude is the flight of a sick man; another man’s solitude is the flight from sick men). The Übermensch, however, must live among people in order to struggle against his enemies. He is supposed to love them more than his friends because his enemies challenge him to become better and more powerful. It should be noted that the enemies of the Übermensch do not include the Pöbel, since one cannot have as an enemy someone one holds in contempt, and the Pöbel, according to Zarathustra, are worthy only of contempt. Even so, while flight is acceptable for Zarathustra it would not be even contemplated by the Übermensch.

Nietzsche’s philosophy casts a long shadow over the modern world, and so perhaps he is to be excused for his presumptuousness. Also Sprach Zarathustra contains hundreds of wonderful quotes and aphorisms, though as with many other Nietzsche works, the reader must sift the wheat from the chaff, and there is plenty of chaff in Zarathustra. It is a book that one reads not for the joy of reading it, though there is a great deal of alliteration and word-play, at least in the original (though some of it is almost certainly lost in translation). It is a book one reads because, after a few pages of cramped pseudo-Biblical invective, one comes across gems such as the timeless Du gehst zu Frauen? Vergiß die Peitsche nicht! (usually translated as “Goest thou to women? Forget not thy whip!”). I recommend it to anyone interested in Nietzsche, but not to casual readers.