Customer Reviews

Nietzsche in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes Series)

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Paul Strathern in his short little tome on Friedrich Nietzsche manages to say almost nothing that is neccessary to justify the ambitious title of this book or the Publisher's claim that Strathern deciphers "philosophical thought in [an] entertaining and accessible fashion...making it comprehensible and interesting to almost everyone." On page 54, for instance, he writes: "The parable of Zarathustra is childishly simple, and on reflection it remains so. Yet its message is profound despite this." This is the sort of gibberish that infects his analysis in the eight-page section entitled Key Philosophical Concepts. Indeed, his insights are worthy of a contemporary journalist and just as depthless. Almost anyone involved in the discipline of Philosophy could have informed Strathern of the true merits of the above statement, but Starthern, although he has "lectured" in philosophy and mathematics according to the Author Blurb at the end of the book, apparently had no one reliable at hand to perform this service or to question his many demeaning and snide remarks about Nietzsche's work and his Philosophy. Psychologically, of course, this can be explained by the blurb previously sited which indicate's that Strathern has lectured in both Philosophy and Mathematics. He was undoubtedly more suited to being a professor of Math than Philosophy to judge from the quote just mentioned. The other Reviewer here who mentions his comments on page 52 about Eternal Recurrence is absolutely correct in their analysis but doesn't really go far enough in denouncing this rubbish. This is the sort of book dishonest publisher's foist on the unsuspecting public (and students) in the hope of fleecing them of their coin, albeit very little in this case. In spite of this one cannot rebuke the Publisher or Strathern enough for their part in this micro-atrocity. Nietzsche is the single most important philospher of the last two hundred years and he deserves more than this philstine treatment with its merde spread from cover to cover like a Tom Wolfe op-ed piece for the February edition of the New Yorker Magazine. Stay away from this silly book and don't waste your money or your time (as I did). Read Nietzsche the Philosopher instead or Kaufmann's book (as I am now doing) for a better overview than you'll ever get here. There. I've said enough. You get the picture.

Well, Strathern is certainly entertaining, if not informative. He gives us the dirt on each philosopher, tells us who was overweight, cheap, pushed people around, etc. This would be great if we were reading about movie stars or politicians but I bought these books in order to understand something about what these philosophers thought. He does reserve a few pages at the end of each volume to tells us one or two of their ideas and gives us a handful of quotes. A total waste of money unless you hate your philosophy classes so much that you want to hear how awful the personal lives of the philosophers were. A new low in publishing.

I can't find any value in a work like this - in this day and age, one can surf the web for 90 minutes and be far more enlightened than this.
Alot of the time I know am in the presence of someone who cannot stand the grandness of Nietzsche's vision - he relays this to the listener in tone and weasel words. The author doesn't like Nietzsche - which for a reader is worse than hating.

The rest of the time, one has the author makes it his job to apologize for the Nietzsche's excesses twisted by those who would willfully distort the racial philosophy, etc.

To the writer's credit? If you hate Nietzsche, you can use this to make yourself sound smarter in your argument with a Nietzsche-lover. If you haven't read him, you won't want to.

Nietzsche in 90 minutes? This worthless attempt to present Friedrich Nietzsche's very profound and complex ideas in a concise form as a quick read for the reader utterly fails in every aspect! Paul Strathern only gives a very, very brief outline of Nietzsche's philosophy and a short biography of his life interspersed with numerous disparaging remarks about Nietzsche. One gets the idea that Paul Strathern thinks that Nietzsche was just a megalomaniacal joke who took himself too seriously. He writes off all of his philosophical works as "childish" and only understandable to teenagers. Although extremely easy to read, "Nietzsche in 90 Minutes" is an extremely depthless, shallow book that does not clarify or shed light on any of Nietzsche's ideas. For anyone that is interested in learning more about Friedrich Nietzsche: DON'T BUY THIS BOOK!!!!

I listened to the audio version of this book, which meant that I couldn't throw it across the room against a wall. Perhaps this would be the only good reason for buying a paper copy. This book is not a guide to Nietzsche, but a guide to sounding clever and world weary should someone mention Nietzsche at a dinner party. Indeed, surprising as it may sound, I got the strong impression that Strathern had not even read Nietzsche, or even serious commentary on him, but only a few pop-philosophy books about him. He also adds into the mix what I presume is his own attempt at analysis, which is doubly unenlightening: he has misunderstood (or is plain unfamiliar with) the material, and because the analysis itself is faulty anyway. Strathern's attempts at being witty are horribly careless - he unfailingly chooses a turn of phrase that despite its symmetry or sage appearance always distances the book further from anything Nietzsche ever wrote.

Some examples of the problems with the book: He talks about how abhorrent the idea of the superman is, but never quite explains what Nietzsche meant by it - pretty poor for a guide to Nietzsche. (He also frequently flips between absolving Nietzsche for the Nazi abuse of the concept, and condemning Nietzsche because the 20th century was so awful). He several times refers to the quote "God is dead" as if Nietzsche were just some rebellious teenager testing the patience of his god-fearing parents - but it actually means something rather more than a puerile statement of atheism. As another reviewer has noted, his passages dealing with the concept of "eternal recurrence" are mindbendingly silly and simplistic. The desire to throw the book came at the moment that he approvingly quotes (Saul Bellow's?) quip asking why anyone should trust the writings of a syphilitic (which Nietzsche was) about morals. Perhaps Strathern was just trying to be entertaining and that's why he let it stand, but a lot of people will have paid money for this book to find out about Nietzsche, not how to bluff about him. One of the most important elements of Nietzsche's moral philosophy is the analysis of shame and guilt, and of the concept of sin, and really should have been properly examined. To gloss over that with stuff mined from a dictionary of quotations is pretty shameless itself. Then again, dinner parties are not the place for serious philosophical discussion.

I am no Nietzsche scholar myself, but I've read enough to know that this book is no more than a bad rehash of other quick guides.

The author considers himself to be able to explain Nietzsche's philosophy in 60 pages. He does not achieve this, and dares to write things like: "eternal recurrence is simply poetry, a worthless idea". I do not recommend this book to anyone who wants to start reading Nietzsche, instead try "Nietzsche for Begginers"

In one of his books, Nietzsche refers to, perhaps a bit vitriolically, the "profound mediocrity of the English". Maybe Strathern was annoyed at this statement, if he ever read it. But he ends up almost confirming it by writing this book. Fortunately there are actually many great English Nietzsche scholars, such as R J Hollingdale and Duncan Large, etc. One should turn to them instead. I recommend Nietzsche: The Man and his Philosophy (Biography). Hollingdale was a distinguished translator of Nietzsche and knew his subject well.

Edit: It's hard to overstate how much of a disservice you would be doing yourself if you read this book and thought you got something useful out of it. If you have the choice between reading 10 "in 90 minutes" books (or similar), or just one original work by one philosopher (Nietzsche or somebody else), you are far better off reading the one original work. But you are still better off not reading this particular quick introduction than you are if you read it. Why? Because humans have a tendency to anchor their thoughts on first impressions, an anchoring that cannot be unlearned. You will be stuck with a travesty of a first impression and perhaps never be interested in learning any more about Nietzsche.

In the same way that tabloids trap you in a simplistic world view where everything is reduced to saucy, juicy detail, providing quick satiation and reducing genuine desire for genuine knowledge, this book is a cognitive trap that removes a potential hunger for fine cuisine by feeding you junk food. I do think that it may be possible to approach Nietzsche with wit and humour in some kind of way, but the complete lack of any substance here means that this is not the route to take.

In his works, Nietzsche engages with Christianity, Platonism, the Greek tragedy, with the Dionysian and the Apolline, nihilism, European culture, with the nature of philosophy and knowledge, and morality among other themes. There is no real discussion or elucidation of his views on any of these topics here.

When I read Strathern's book I get the impression that Nietzsche was a deranged, sick, weak eccentric with strange ideas. But when I read Nietzsche's books - or almost any academic book on Nietzsche - the image that comes to me is that of one of the greatest writers I've ever read, a man of towering ambition and ability, of uncanny wit, insight, profundity and style. Why the contradiction between these two images? Either Strathern is completely ignorant about Nietzsche, his writing and his themes, or Strathern harbors some kind of prejudice towards N. that he doesn't want to debate in the open. This is a great shame, since N.'s books really have the ability to change one's outlook on life (for the better, for a more joyous one, even!), but this is only possible if the reader approaches him with an open mind.

I was frankly appalled by the author's attitude and like a previous reviewer lamented being unable to fling the audio book against a wall.

The author begins to disparage Nietzsche's ideas without, in my opinion, having the intellect or nature to understand them. While some of the early chapters on Nietzsche's personal history proved interesting, when Mr. Strathern begins to discuss Nietzsche's ideas he begins to use terms such as "unfortunately; childish; useless". The narrator of the audio book I was listening to picks up on this and his tone becomes disdainful and dismissive.

For example, the idea of "eternal recurrence", wherein Nietzsche suggests that as a tool to human understanding, we live each moment as if we would be repeating it over and over for eternity. [The idea which famously inspired the film "Groundhog Day"] While this idea is a key to unlock creativity, conscientiousness and a perfection of spirit, Strathern dismisses it as "an unwittingly hilarious piece of self exposure" which he furthermore thinks should be ignored and omitted because it is not a "system" of philosophy.

Well, whoever said that Nietzsche wanted to create a systematic philosophy? That would rather have interfered with his aim of having excellent thoughts. They say that "those who can't do, teach" and Strathern is a perfect example. While he himself is not noted as a source of useful or original ideas, he nevertheless seeks to make his reputation by reducing the finest thoughts of others to academic carrion, and we are tempted to add, "Those who can't teach, critique".

What so many books need is to be left alone, how absurd a critic who thinks he improves a work by removing a handful of the author's ideas, replacing them with reams of his own prattle. But in order to put his name to it he needed to write something and he fancied it no doubt the politically correct stance to reject and ridicule Nietzche's ideas, especially the idea of the Ubermensch.

Here Stratton is showing his own herd morality and mentality, he himself is clearly not an "Overman"; if he were he would recognize that [as Nietzsche takes pain to emphasize repeatedly] the "Overman" strives for perfection through creativity, not destruction, for any fool can destroy. It is a very easy idea to grasp. The "Will to Power" is satisfied in the Overman by Creativity, the highest power. To create a human life, to create a great spirit within oneself, to create a work of art or a noble idea (such as eternal recurrence)is the spirit of the Overman. People are not a problem to be overcome, lack of creativity is the problem, and the lack of the creative spirit is the problem. Man simply deserves to have a noble, creative spirit. Anyway, thus spake Zarathustra. ..

As this noble creative human spirit is Nietzsche's highest good, it is no contradiction that Nietzsche was short in stature, or shy around women, as Mr Stratton repeatedly points out in an attempt to perhaps portray Nietzsche as falling short of his own aspirations.

Nietzsche writes clearly and is accessible to anyone. I would suggest you find his unabridged works and discover his ideas for yourself. As for the work currently being reviewed, it should be retitled, "Nietzsche Bashing in 90 Minutes".

Beyond Good and Evil
The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche: (V.2) (1909-13)
Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None
Groundhog Day (Special 15th Anniversary Edition)

The majority of this book gives a biographical sketch of his life and is well done, particularly in being against Anti-Semitism and his relation to Wagner. It is generally lighthearted (but I sure wouldn't agree that Dostoevsky and Hesse are unreadable unless you're a teenager). Perhaps a few more "minutes" could have been spent on his key philosophical concepts, with just 2 pages on "The Will To Power", and three on "The Superman". Since Nietzsche wrote in aphorisms he would seem to be ideal for an abbreviated work, but his ideas do not come through here. Readers of this may enjoy his short piece "The Madman". I think more post-WW II or post-modern treatment of Nietzsche would have been helpful. Favorite quote from the book "Beware of syphilitics preaching morals" - Saul Bellow, Herzog. A few quotes not included in the book:
"That which does not kill you makes you stronger".
"The time for petty politics is over: the very next century will bring the fight for dominion of the earth - the compulsion of large-scale politics".
"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. When you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you".

This is really not a good book if you are really interested in what Nietzsche was all about. If you are trying to throw together a paper that needs a bunch of quotes, however...

I wanted an idea of what I was getting myself into before I clawed my way thru "Thus Spake Zarathustra" and this was just the book to get my attention. Some of my favorite quotes by Nietzsche aren't included, but they really aren't that important for achieving a basic understanding.

If you are really into philosophy, you probably aren't buying the "90 Minute" books. If you are doing graduate level work, you'd better not be in the "90 Minute" books. If you're taking philosophy at a community college just because you like taking classes, this book may save you a lot of time.

I liked it, I still use it, but I don't rely on it!