Basic Writings of Nietzsche - Friedrich Nietzsche / Walter Kaufmann

Nietzsche is a well known name. But I had little idea what I was getting into when I had chosen this book in the flipkart liquidation sale. Since I had heard the name quite a few times and since the book was coming dirt cheap, I decided to go ahead with it. Picked it up more than a year later, though.

Nietzsche's works are probably the second blatantly philosophical work that I have read; the first being Aurelius' "Meditations". Nietzsche's proved to be an agitating philosophy. He is possibly more of a psychologist than a philosopher. He tends to explain things based on human psychology rather than come up with pleasant sounding irrational theorems. And his philosophy is indeed too far from pleasant. Also, it is easy to see why he is so widely misunderstood. He proclaims quite a few offending things without meaning offence, or so interprets Walter Kaufmann. But as far as I can see, Nietzsche is all about interpretation. If you like him, you will interpret his words differently from what you would if you dislike him. Nietzsche, as per his own writing, does not give a damn for those who do not understand him. The topics he touched upon seemed very personal to him as well as current for his time. In parts, it became unnecessarily verbose for the modern reader who does not share his perspective. Again, I doubt Nietzsche cared a lot about being 'eternal', though he did believe himself to be 'the destiny'.

This book five of his writings : "The Birth of Tragedy", "Beyond Good and Evil", "On the Genealogy of Morals", "The Case of Wagner", "Ecce Homo"; and a collection of aphorisms from his various essays. The compilation was quite beautiful in itself, showcasing a wide variety of Nietzsche's works throughout his 'career' as a writer. Walter Kaufmann seemed in total agreement with Nietzsche's philosophy and did a rather tedious job of pointing out every instance of disagreeable meaning or criticism that certain pieces of texts had received. But often, it seemed like a publicity for his other works regarding Nietzsche.

I will reserve my views regarding Nietzsche's philosophy for another post in Phantasmagoria. However, they rang with a certain degree of understanding and easily explained why intelligent brains over the years have read him time and again. Towards the end I started finding him tedious and pompous, though the arrogance and self importance had showed in every single work of his. "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" is another of his book that I will read. But not now. I have had enough of philosophy for quite some time, thank you.