Very much maligned and misunderstood
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Of all the philosophers you are ever likely to come across, Nietzsche is perhaps the easiest to read. His creative prose is graceful and poetic, whilst his aphoristic style delivers quick, witty and deeply profound insights.
However, whilst his writings are the easiest to read, they are also the hardest to truly understand - and most of the time this is completely intentional.
The result of this is that people dip into his works and come away believing that they fully understand Nietzsche's philosophy, when in reality they have allowed snippets of insight to snowball in entirely the wrong directions, resulting in gross misinterpretations. Look up the case of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb for the most extreme example of this.
Unfortunately, the only way to truly understand the development of Nietzsche's thought is to study all his works, beginning with the Birth of Tragedy and ending with Ecce Homo (and possibly The Will to Power, providing it is understood in context). It is also necessary to have a good background knowledge of antique philosophy and more recent 'influences' such as Spinoza, Kant, Hegel & Schopenhauer. Only in this way is it possible to ever come close to the true meaning behind these works.
However, Nietzsche's work is prolific - and most people will have neither the time nor the inclination to undertake this kind of project. Therefore, it is advisable to at least read a couple of introductory texts before diving into a book like this.
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Incredible book, insensing cover
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Of course this work is fantastic. It's Nietzsche, Nietzsche at his most insightful and delightful. However, whoever is responsible for that monstrous cover needs to be expelled from the Nietzschean universe. I am still waiting for this work to be published in a presentable fashion, so that I might own it without being sick.
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the pinacle of translations
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for all of those who cannot enjoy nietzsche, on of the 4, 5 greatest masters of the german language (with goethe, heine, kafka, possibly schiller), in his native tounge, walter kaufman is _the_ translation to read, everything else is not doing nietzsche justice. in la gaya scienca, the book that at least _i_ think is his most accessible for he offers light and heavy doses of his thought and humor in small portions, he rises to be one of the only and truly great german poets, e.g. with 'to the mistral'. aphorisms and poems especially are nowhere to be found in accurate translation - this book is the only notable exception. whereas other translators translate with what they think nietzsche's intent was in their mind, kaufman sticks to what nietzsche _actually_ writes, hence giving a much less distorted view than any other work. i cannot reccommend this book enough - and if i say that about every book of nietzsche, here i mean it yet even more. this i s i t !
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The Gay Science
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Kaufmann has done another excellent job with his translation of Nietzsche's most complete collection of thoughts. It is here that the famous adage "God is Dead" is first decreed. The Gay Science is a beautiful work of literature, and at the same time, a sort of summation of many of Nietzsche's previous and later books. The Gay Science is a must for anyone interested in Nietzsche's philosophy. And no one translates Nietzsche (or any other German philosopher) better than Walter Kaufmann.
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