Thus Spoke Zarathustra By Friedrich Nietzsche - Book Review

While the majority of people were busy fighting over whose god is a better suit for humanity, Fredrick Nietzsche was busy writing his own holy scripture: Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Nietzsche is probably one of the most prominent names in philosophy.

The topics of discussions he ignited and his alienated way of thinking made him one of the most profoundly influential people of all time. It truly is astonishing how in a time where humans were just starting to ask bigger and more complex questions, this guy’s mind was light years ahead. His ideologies are almost the basis of what millennials now call existential crisis or nihilism. 

Truth be told, reading the words translated can have some effect on the true essence of the message. Nevertheless, it is an extremely intense read that requires lots of forays into the dictionary.

However, this is only due to the fact that this book was published in the late 1800s and, therefore, uses quite old-English/German. No one likes to have the ideologies and beliefs that define them ridiculed and beaten to a pulp, no matter how amusing the person doing the ridiculing is.

It’s a rather classic notion that follows the “a joke is funny as long as it's not on my expense “pretense. One of the most controversial topics that have little tolerance for defamation is religion. 

Whether you believe humans have evolved over time from unintelligent creatures, or have been this complex from the start, one thing is clear; we’ve always been on a quest for a deeper meaning of life.

This might be the reason why we’re the only organisms to feed on arbitrary concepts of divinity or have our lives revolve around a deity of sorts. Nietzsche points this out so elegantly in this philosophical fictitious, almost satirical novel.

The story begins with Zarathustra, who leaves his house and finds shelter in the mountains, in an attempt to find contentment or salvation. 

His spirit rises in his preclusion and finds a much more sensual truth than all the others he's known so far. Following that, he descends from his spiritual heights and decides to share his knowledge of the truth with humanity.

After that, Nietzsche leads on for 252 pages on Zarathustra, the speaker for the Overman. The fact that this book can sound so religious, yet Shakespearean in a sense, makes it one of the best pieces of literature ever made.