Splinters

Becoming Zarathustra

An engaging review of a new biography of Nietzsche by R?diger Safranski, the writer of a recommended biography of Heidegger. The reviewer, Thomas Nagel, says ?it concentrates on the temporal course of Nietzsche's inner life and his self-transformation through thought and writing.? Which sounds promising. Then he says Safranski ?does not give special emphasis to the topics that are of most interest to contemporary academic philosophy - truth, objectivity, skepticism about morality?. Which sounds even better! And if I needed any more encouragement, he writes that the book ?ends with the image of Caspar David Friedrich's painting The Monk by the Sea: the individual in the face of immensity.? Terrific. In the postmodern era, for sea read bookshelf.