@Linda: I've not read any Kingsolver - I worked at a bookstore while "The Poisonwood Bible" was very popular, but I never felt compelled to read it. Would you recommend that or another title?

@Whimsical: I don't know if I liked "The Outsider" or not! I expected to like it, maybe that's the trouble. I found the themes of the novel very interesting, and personally could relate quite well to the idea that one finds it hard to think when it is bright and hot. It's an interesting crossing of terms - quite often light is considered knowledge, and darkness is a lack of knowledge or confusion (this is something we were recently discussing in regards to "Kafka on the Shore" in our Fiction discussion). I found the two separate parts of the book a little disconcerting... and the ending very much so. In same ways it made me think of "The Trial" by Franz Kafka because of the ridiculous situation the main character is in that is made all the more ridiculous by the bizarre characters in the court.

I guess my main issue with the book is the main character didn't seem to follow any sort of internal consistency. I understand that he is meant to be emotionally uninvolved (which is his actual "crime") but even without emotional involvement, some of his actions and thoughts just seemed very random. I totally understood what he was thinking in the beginning at his mothers funeral, though. It seems wrong to enjoy a nice coffee at a funeral, but how is it wrong? Whether you have a coffee or not, what does it matter, especially to the now deceased person? I think that sort of thing all the time - I think a lot of people do. To be arbitrarily constrained by the expectations of society must be all the more baffling when you have no emotional attachment to what people think of you.

Edit: Oh, and "Nausea" by Sartre is one of my all-time favourite novels. I adore that book. It makes me feel like my brain is being opened up - much like one of my favourite quotes from that book: "I must wash myself clean with abstract thoughts, transparent as water."

A friend of mine started reading "The Outsider" at the same time I began "The Fall". His commentary was similiar to yours. He didn't feel like he could follow it because of the randomness. It's not on my list of "to read sometime soon" though I've enjoyed the Fall and would like to read more from Camus.

I've known many folks who did not like "Nausea" so I feel as though I've just met a kindred and it makes me want to dance!

Theomanic wrote:Wikipedpia says he died of a stroke after getting pneumonia, and that his madness was diagnosed as syphilis but they don't think that's right. He was institutionalized for the last year and a half of his life.

I do not think the thoughts and opinions of Zarathustra are supposed to be ironic. I think Zarathustra was to be the paragon of Nietzsche's ideals. While the style of the novel was an ironic twist on the Bible, Zarathustra was not in any way to be taken as less than he was presented. It is sometimes difficult in this novel to determine who is saying what, but I think the passages on women are pretty clearly from Zarathustra's point of view. I have not read other works by Nietzsche, but I have heard that this theory on the nature of women is repeated in other writings.

His opinions on women aside, I didn't think much of his philosophy in Thus Spake Zarathustra. While his general idea of getting beyond the pettiness in our lives is laudable, I don't think much of the manner he intends men should do so. Some of it is tied up with his misogyny, such as his belief that men should not have lust. I get the impression he is trying to maintain certain standards and ideas of the day while doing away with the religious decrees that make them so - in essence keeping society very similar to its current state, but taking out the religious figures who he deems as hypocritical and not at all "good" as they claim to be. Maybe in his day that was a stunning idea but I don't see why he's still referenced today. Though I would agree that society still has ideas which are considered "good" but which really are not that good. The pain of reading this book wasn't really worth that one little gem, though.

Well there you go. Maybe I just always read what I don't like with an ironic twist? I suppose Zarathustra being the ubermensch and saying what he thought the super man would say does convey his views on women quite well. Well I guess not everything can be transvaluated, right? Silly, Nietzsche.

I took a little vacation and upon my return home found myself completely drenched in responsibilities and obligations to catch up with. Now that I am finally back to a normal pace I've finished the other books I was reading before I left and am going to start on Thus Spake Zarathurstra tonight.

Camus' last words of The Fall are reverberating through my every action today. "It's too late now. It will always be too late. Fortunately!"

I wonder if I will ever be able to fully digest what that means to me... or if I already have.

Forward movement.

I have such mixed feelings about this work. I agree with some of the previous posts that Nietzsche can be at times simplistic and even infuriating. As previously pointed out by others, his sexism is difficult to get by. I also find that 'Thus Spake.." at times exudes an intolerance for other ideas and belief systems that is arrogant and perhaps sophomoric.

Yet in many, many parts this also seems a work of genius. The concept of the Ubermensch is so very influential and important in relation to modern thinking.

A specific example of brilliance in my opinion is found in the Tomb Song. I find this part to a complex yet incredibly moving exploration of what happens to the innocence and faith when confronted with cold reality. I recommend it for anyone who wants to just get a taste of the work before wading into deep end of the pool.

I really enjoyed TSZ when I first read it, 25 years ago. I found it inspiring, ennobling, and beautifully written. I don't know how I would feel about it now. Nietzsche is brilliant but very narcissistic. He had a profound effect on me when I was a young man, but his contempt was too contagious. I've outgrown a lot of my own narcissism now, so I just don't connect with him the way I used to.

I heard that he died in a mental institution after his brain decayed from syphillis. He was never able to have a relationship with a woman that lasted more than 6 months, he used prostitutes, and he ended up dying because of it. For someone so obsessed with transcending personal limitations to be killed by such a low, base little spirochette, is a bit ironic. I believe he was manic-depressive as well -- much of his work, especially in the last 2 or 3 years of his life, has a a manic feel to it. He said it was like a lightbulb about to burn out, getting brighter before it does. It might have been the mixture of bipolar illness and syphillis. Or maybe the bipolar was secondary to the syphillis, I don't know.

TSZ is very different from Nietzsche's other works. His literary style here is much more flowery than usual. Normally, Nietzsche is the master of the compact aphorism.

p.s. Loved Camus, during that same period of my life, 25 years ago. Best Camus book, imo, is Lyrical and Critical Essays.

The stuff is contagious and having just left a world full of Eastern philosophical writings the contrast is making me a little, well... crazy. I'm not feeling that I am replicating the thoughts of Al and Freddy but I do feel that reading these things is essential to my growth as a human. I've come to the realization after starting TSZ that I am in need of some balance in my reading material.

It's impossible not to keep an open mind about the things written here when I know how he lived his life. It may be fallacious to do so, but my objective is to be as objective as possible when attempting to shift through the bullsh*t to find the good bits.

@Anderson: As I mentioned, they think the diagnosis of syphilis was incorrect. It's difficult to separate rumour from reality - and the little paranoid devil on my shoulder can't help but wonder if Nietzsche's enemies helped spread such rumours. It's always difficult to determine the truth of events from history... the further away they are, the more prone to being twisted or coloured by one thing or another.

@WhimsicalWonder: I think it is important to know the context of things, as much as we can. When someone speaks from the heart and follows what they preach, it has an entirely different weight than when someone says some stuff, but continues along other (or even opposite) paths. Of course that doesn't mean one can't gain wisdom for those that don't practice what they preach, but I think it is much less likely, and should certainly be taken with a hefty helping of salt.

Theomanic wrote:@Anderson: As I mentioned, they think the diagnosis of syphilis was incorrect.

How did he die, then?

He died at 54 (56?) in a mental institution, a cruel place. I think he had a bipolar illness (hypersexuality -> prostitutes) but he did die in the institution. Syphillis would kill you back then. You don't die of bipolar disorder. So if not syphillis, what killed him at 54?

I hope I have my facts straight. I got most of them from his translater.

He got pneumonia and in his weakened state died of a stroke.

Whether or not his madness was caused by syphilis cannot really be said. Labeling such a thing syphilis was common in his time, but some people challenge the diagnosis now. Syphilis may still be the culprit for his insanity, but it may not.

From Wikipedia:
Nietzsche's mental illness was originally diagnosed as tertiary syphilis, in accordance with a prevailing medical paradigm of the time. Although most commentators regard his breakdown as unrelated to his philosophy Georges Bataille drops dark hints (""man incarnate" must also go mad") and René Girard's postmortem psychoanalysis posits a worshipful rivalry with Richard Wagner. The diagnosis of syphilis was challenged, and manic-depressive illness with periodic psychosis, followed by vascular dementia was put forward by Cybulska prior Schain's; and Sax's studies;. Orth and Trimble postulate frontotemporal dementia, while other researchers propose a syndrome called CADASIL.