Nietzsche by Stefan Zweig (Author) & Will Stone (Translator) - Book Recommendation

"...It is disadvantageous for thinker to be linked to any single person. When a man finds hiself, it is preferable that he loses himself again from time to time and then rediscovers himself once more."

Nietzsche by Stefan Zweig is an examination of the man, his life, and his philosophy. We are given a glimpse of Nietzsche's default mindset, the passion with which he pursued truth, and what it costs him. The book contains a number of his essays, dissecting their meanings in relation to what Nietzsche was going through at the time.

POSITIVES
I like Stefan Zweig's portrayal of Nietzsche's psychological profile. We are able to have a glimpse into his makeup and what sort of "madness" drove him to see the world as he did. This profile drives our empathy as well as understanding of why he behaved and wrote the way he did.


DISLIKES
None.

SAMPLE PASSAGE

"Finally he (Nietzsche) invents a dance, a dance of swords and, butchered, torn, bloodied, he performs his new deadly art to the public, but no one guesses the significance of these shrill jokes, nor the passion wounded to death that exists in this affected light-heartedness.

Without listeners or echo, the most extraordinary drama of the spirit ever granted to our troubled century is played out to its bitter end before an empty house. No one turns their glance even cursorily towards him, when the whirli-gig of his thoughts spinning on a steel point leaps exuberantly for the last time and finally falls, exhausted on the ground – ‘Dead by immortality’.

This aloneness with the self, this solitary state of being face to face with the self, is in the deepest sense the exceptional sacred affliction of that tragedy which was Friedrich Nietzsche’s existence."

Many thanks to Pushkin Press for review copy.