Rating: 
Summary: Tedious, all too tedious
Review: Nietzsche's writings are full of half-truths, overstatements, endless repetitions of a few basic themes. His epigrams are often nothing but restatements of the obvious. I never understood what all of the fuss was about but the Nietzsche cult goes on and on. Here is his philosophy in a nutshell:
1) God is no longer the powerful idea that once held sway in the West. Morality needs a new foundation. Yawn.
2) Those who work and struggle to rise above the masses are, well, they rise above the masses and can be called supermen (or overmen). Big deal. Nietzsche can call them that if he wants. So what?
3) Christianity in its purest form makes wimps out of people. Well, a few people do if they become saints. The rest of us are Christians in name only and have no trouble acting in more practical ways. We didn't need Nietzsche to tell us to have common sense.
4) How many of us are living lives that we wouldn't mind having endlessly repeated into infinity? How many of us could endure an eternal recurrence? Answer: none of us. Everything becomes a trial when endlessly repeated. So what else is new? And since there is little chance of that happening, what is the point of the question?
I have just saved you the trouble of reading Nietzsche.
Rating:
Summary: What can one say that can add to Nietzche?
Review: Obviously brilliant, some of his theories I'm not sure I can handle. His denial of free will, for one. What I find most interesting is the number of people who say they liked Thus spoke Zarathustra the best, probably unaware that when Nietzshe was speaking of the Higher Man he was adressing them. The higher man Nietzsche refers to is obviously Democratic man, or Modern man for which Nietchze has so much abuse.
Rating: 
Summary: Introduction to Nietzsche Par Excellance
Review: Reading this great introductory book years ago started off an ever growing curiosity to understand the riddle of the man and his lifelong struggle against personal decadence and debilitating illness; a struggle that yielded such profound insights into epistemology, metaphysics, psychology, and the fate of humanity. Nietzsche wrote not to be believed, but to inspire thinking.
Rating: 
Summary: An excellent book for those new to Nietzsche.
Review: The book contains Nietzsche's four major works, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, The Twilight of the Idols, The Antichrist and Nietzsche Contra Wagner; as well as notes, letters and excerpts from other books. Though I found Thus Spoke Zarathustra rather boring, the rest of the contents kept me interested. It is an excellent way to get familar with his style of writing.
Rating: 
Summary: They Killed Trees For This Book?
Review: The rating I give this book is a reflection of my overall impression after carefully skimming through most of the sections of it. Unfortunately, it is a compilation of incongruent pieces translated by Kaufmann, who regards Nietzsche with a nauseatingly scholarly piety. It is a confusing conglomeration of pompous epigrams. The reader is left with no doubt that Nietzsche was only able to compose his thoughts speciously and abstractedly. Nietzsche didn't believe in most things because he couldn't even DEFINE the things he didn't believe in....something that most other "overhumans" are in the practice of doing. He was a pathetic megalomaniac who worshipped the WORD. He loved WORDS, alright! So much so that he comes across as an overly cerebral idiot. Try making sense out of anything he writes....it's impossible even if you have an exceptional vocabulary. You must have an abstract mind which somewhat resembles a Jackson Pollack painting....random paint splatterings....how profound! Nietzsche, like all "nihilists" was only at home dealing with WORDS. Worst of all, he was a CRITIC, and a very stupid one at that. If you like meaningless riddles and have plenty of time on your hands, you'll love The Portable Nietzsche. It's great fodder for aspiring pseudo-intellectuals.
Rating:
Summary: Behold, Nietzsche...
Review: This anthology of Nietzsche's writing is a marvelous work - Kaufmann's translations make the philosopher's unique style accessible and interesting to the English reader; it doesn't resort to false formality or dry academic prose as is often the case in translation of such material, but rather sets things in lively and dynamic tones, much as Nietzsche's own writing and tendency toward the dramatic was noted by his contemporaries.Nietzsche's father was a Lutheran minister, but he died five years after Nietzsche's birth in 1844. Nietzsche was raised by his mother, grandmother and aunts; later in his life, his sister would become executor of his estate (after Nietzsche had become incapable of managing his own affairs) and reshape his philosophy and writings in her own idea - this becomes a running motif in later anthologies of Nietzsche; editors can quote and clip to fit their own agendas. In some ways, that is true of Kaufmann's text here, but in much less inappropriate ways than others, particularly Nietzsche's first editor, his sister. Nietzsche was a star pupil from his earliest days at university in Bonn and Leipzig. His formal study was in classical philology, but his attentions turned in various directions quickly during his writing and professional life - he had an intense interest in drama and the arts, with Wagner's music and Greek drama in principal interest. His first book was devoted to these topics - 'The Birth of Tragedy'. It was not highly regarded at the time, but has since become much more appreciated as an anticipation of later developments in philosophy and aesthetics. Nietzsche's life after this period was a very choppy one - he left the university, claiming illness, and while this developed later to be a true situation, at the time is was probably academic politics and difficulties fitting in with the establishment he was trying to break. He had a formal falling-out with Wagner, even writing later a piece entitled ' Nietzsche contra Wagner', finished just a few week prior to his going insane. Kaufmann states in the introduction that Nietzsche's real career took off after his active life was over; under his sister's direction, many of the writings Nietzsche had managed to do and not get published, or which were published but forgotten, really took off in major directions. While his major works of Zarathustra, Ecce Homo, Will to Power and Genealogy of Morals were in various editions of disrepair (inded, the Will to Power was never more complete than a series of notes), Nietzsche had a knack for language that made him very quotable, and his influence continued to grow well into the first half of the twentieth century, influencing art, philosophy, history, and politics in dramatic ways, if not always the ways in which Nietzsche envisioned. For example, Nietzsche was not particularly impressed with the 'typical' German anti-semitism, which later erupted into the Nazi movement. He considered it rather bourgeois, and while he undoubted had his own issues with Jews (Nietzsche had issues with almost everyone, particularly any group, Christians included, who had a religious connection), the Nazi use of Nietzsche's work owes more to Nietzsche's sister's influence than anyone else. Kaufmann here presents a chronology of Nietzsche (his life and his publications after his death); a brief bibliography, excerpts from correspondence and essays, and major selections from 'Thus Spake Zarathustra', 'Twilight of the Idols', 'The Antichrist', and other major works. Almost all of the writings are presented in new translations by Kaufmann. This is one of the best single-volumes of Nietzsche available, reprinted dozens of times since its original publication.
Rating:
Summary: well thought compilation ..
Review: this book is an excellent compilation of nietzsche's work. often one of the most misunderstood writers, this definitive interpretation gives excellent insight into nietzsche's background, inspirations and versatility. in "Human, All Too Human", nietzsche states "when marrying, one should ask oneself this question: do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this woman into your old age? everything else in marriage is transitory, but the most of the time during the association belongs to conversation." ... nietzsche writes his views and opinions aptly and although you might not always agree, usually you will take pause and consider his presented alternative.
Rating:
Summary: Great work tainted by biased editing
Review: This is a great compendium of Nietzsche's thoughts arranged chronologically by date written. I would have rather of had more Beyond Good and Evil and less Contra Wagner but that's my own preference. Those who admire Nietzsche find themselves in a bit of a quandry these days and this leads to the reason why I only gave the book three stars. The PC crowds will wail and moan that Nietzsche is fascist and a proto-Nazi. Of course he is not (his Overman was not a product of genetic breeding but of intellectual enlightenment), but those who admire Nietzsche still feel the need to defend him to the masses. A survey of Nietz. should be just that, a survey of his thoughts and writings. However what Kaufmann has done, in many of the excerpted works and in Nietz's letters, is to select those bits which show Nietz. at his most un-Nazi-ish (cursing and berating anti-Semites, etc.). That's fine for a work designed to show that he was not a proto-Hitler, but the Portable Niezsche is not that work and should not be edited to prove a point. Nietzsche did criticize the Jews in ways that would brand him an anti-Semite today even though he also says that anti-Semites should be shot. However when he says anti-Semites, he means Christians who hate Jews because of Scripture and not those who, like him (he deems their faith megalomaniacal in The AntiChrist), would otherwise criticize them for whatever reasons. I would agree with Kaufmann that Nietzsche is not a proto-Nazi but neither is he a good egalitarian and the only times he ever speaks of equality is to scorn it as a false and dangerous notion. Nietzsche is not so easily defined and I would wish him better left to the thoughtful reader rather than the hopeful editor to discover.
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Summary: best translations of the best Nietzsche
Review: this is perhaps the best single volume edition of nietzsche's works. from the 1960's on the late walter kaufmann took on the daunting task of making the first accurate translations of nietzche into english, identifying serious errors in the "scholarly" german texts as he did so, and rehabilitating nietzsche's intellectual reputation in a post-wwii culture that thought of him as a 'proto-nazi'. today these are still the finest translations of nietzsche available -- models of dogged scholarship, generally very accurate, yet stylistically amazingly spirited and convincing as well. (hollingdale, by comparison, comes off as wooden and wordy.) the range of works here is extreme -- from the poetical, dense "zarathustra" to the lucid and elementary "twilight" and "antichrist," which together provide an excellent summary of nietzsche's basic ideas and deliciously clear examples of his treacherously paralogical argumentative methods. nietzsche, like freud, proceeded by telling fables, and philosophy has never been the same since. kaufmann's notes are excellent, particularly for the cryptic symbolism of "zarathustra". (note: kaufmann's translations of nietzsche's more academic, formal texts are gathered in his "basic nietzsche," which i also highly recommend.)
Rating:
Summary: The Portable Nietzsche is very comprehensive.
Review: This is the best book I own. Nietzsche is the greatest philosopher to ever live; he uses his brilliant poetic mastery to express what are the highest thoughts had by mankind, while all the while realising that humanity itself is perhaps a hopeless cause. Nietzsche explores with amazing eloquence those ideas which most writers and philosophers dare not even consider, as they have CUSTOMARILY been called immoral...
Read this book (it's a great introduction to Nietzsche without all of the insufferable additives made by those editors who consider the reader entirely unintelligent and unable to read Nietzsche's writing in its pure form), or any of Nietzsche's writings, if you wish to grow intellectually as you never have by any reading before!!
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