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Nietzsche's Teaching: An Interpretation of "Thus Spoke Zarathustra"

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I consider Thus Spake Zarathustra one of the greatest works in history. It is so such a pleasure to read; deep, clear, confusing, subtle as a hammer here and as a tuneing fork there. It is still capable of creating shouts of delight by revealing new insight after a dozen readings. As such it is always a pleausre to examine the things that others have gotten out of it. Expecially if that other is the careful reader and critic that Lampert is. As an amuture scholar of this work, it is almost impossible to find anyone worth ( in terms of providing new insight) discussing it with, so unless you are on campus, in some sort of philosophy club, etc, Lampert could become your best enemy to challenge your current ideas and lead you to new ones. Just remember not to take everything he says as an absolute answer. After all, at the end of the first part of TSZ, Zarathustra tells his students to go away and not come back until they have rejected him. Only when the sudent thinks for himself will Zarathustra love him.

Published in 1986 by Yale University Press, Laurence Lampert's `Nietzsche's Teaching' is a commentary on Nietzsche's philosophical fable `Thus spoke Zarathustra'. Lampert is a long time professor at Indiana University and well known contemporary Nietzsche scholar.

While Zarathustra is sometimes overlooked by modern readers, Nietzsche himself viewed it as an important part of his corpus. While unfortunate the fact that Zarathustra has failed to garner a greater non-academic audience is not entirely surprising. Nietzsche's particular form of literary philosophy can be difficult at the best of times; Zarathustra his most poetic major work is downright abstruse; heavily laden with historic, literary and aphilosophical allusions - it is nearly impenetrable without a skilled guide. Fortunately, Lampert is just such a guide, his elegant prose combined with his informed and sensitive reading provides valuable insight in to many of Nietzsche's key themes (overman, will to power and eternal recurrence). As other reviewers have noted, a potential down side of using a commentary, especially a persuasive commentary such as this one, is risk that the reader take it as the definitive interpretation of the text (this is also a risk with a compelling professor). In my view this small risk is more than offset by the insight that Lampert provides.

Overall this is an excellent guide to an important and difficult work. I highly recommend it for all Nietzsche lovers. While I have not had an opportunity to read them, Lampert's other work on Nietzsche may also be worth a look.

This study of Neitzsche's masterpiece is (as can be gleaned by its sheer size) one of the most detailed secondary works on TSZ out there. The book is extremely well written, and the author clearly takes his subject seriously--but that is not to say that I recommend it. In fact, I suggest you don't read it because it is so detailed and well written. TSZ is definitely a book that people will walk away from with a different understanding, just like the Bible, and that is precisely one of TSZ's (and all of Nietzsche's philosophy)strengths--each person has their own idea. Even though the subtitle of this work says it is a subjective interpretation, it is not presented as such. After reading it, and going back to Zarathustra, what you read can't help but be affected by Lampert's objective ideas. The book though has some great points: it uncovers the well subsumed storyline, offers interesting insight to its relation with some of Nietzsche's other books, and points out some flaws in existing translation. BUT, do not open this book until you have read Thus Spoke Zarathustra about a dozen times and formed your own opinion about it; TSZ's strength lies in its subjectivity, and should not be viewed objectively.

this book is the best among the ones in its catagory; those are in my opinion jack london's martin eden, and hermann hesse's siddhartha.i have read thus told zharadustra more than ten times and i am still reading it because of the 1)perfection in the usage of nietzsche's language 2)the overhuman philosophy's uncertainity 3)effect of nietzsche on the 20th century's all philosophers and worldviews.each time , i get closer to the idea of value of man personally and value of life. the book is not anyone, one who will start reading nietzsche shall not begin with this book because it can change the mind at one glance. i still could not decide on if nietzsche is the craziest man of all times or the most intelligent ever. i recommend to be careful about this book.

"My children are here." This Zarathustra spoke to himself as he looked down the valley toward a procession of children with doves flying over their heads. "They are here, they come UP to me. These must be the ones who have learned to read me well, connoisseurs of the word, patient ones who read slowly, deeply, looking cautiously fore and aft, with reservations, with doors left open, with delicate eyes and fingers..."