SAGE ADVICE: Getting to know Nietzsche

By MARK SAGE/Columnist

I finally got around to slogging through that Nietzsche. I borrowed “Thus Spake Zarathustra” from the library and I’m glad I did. I learned something about myself, namely that I’d rather have someone else cherry pick the best Nietzsche quotes and save me the time and energy of slogging through something I only halfway get.
It was a bit, and this is probably indicative of a weak mind or some such nonsense, like paying good money to see one of those gross-out comedies that never seems to get nominated for any prizes and discovering, as you always do, that the only funny parts were the parts you’d already seen in the television advertisements and even they weren’t nearly as funny once put in context.
Whenever I find myself at one of those movies – asking myself “how did I get to this movie?” – I can’t walk out halfway through. My personality requires that I see things through to the end, if only on the off-chance that someday I’ll be able to tell someone that yes, yes I did see “Date Movie.” All 83 minutes of it.
So when I find myself with “Thus Spake Zarathustra” in my coming-home-from-the-library bag, I have to read it. All of it. The same way back in college I had to read every single word of “Moby Dick.” I’m fairly certain that I’m the only living person to have done so. Sure, everyone says they have. You can usually tell they’re lying because they say things like it’s an American classic or it’s America’s greatest literary work or it’s a must-read for the beach this summer. Speaking as someone who is not an authority on all things quality, mind you I have seen all 83 minutes of “Date Movie,” these people are liars. The problem with “Moby Dick” is that it starts so strong, promises so much. You’re a couple chapters into the book before you realize that you don’t want to call him Ishmael. You don’t even want to know him. You’d rather watch all 83 minutes of “Date Movie” five times in a row than find out one more earthly thing about this Ishmael character. But by then, as I’ve said, you’re a couple of chapters into the book and you have to see the thing through, mostly because no one else, ever, not even Herman Melville’s own mother, has. There’s a reason, I believe, that he died in obscurity, just as there’s a reason, I hope, that the makers of “Date Movie” will fade into their twilight in obscurity.
If admitting that I’d rather someone else do the hard work and give me the highlights on Nietsche and Melville exposes the shallowness of my being so be it. I won’t be fooled again. The next time I notice all these strange coincidences in the books I’ve picked to read and enjoy, I’ll keep my Jungian nature on a leash and say, “hmm. That’s interesting.” I won’t under any circumstances decide that those strange coincidences mean I should go out and read something I haven’t picked to read and enjoy for the sake of having read it.
There’s no pleasant way to work into a conversation, or column, that you’ve read but not necessarily enjoyed “Moby Dick” or “Thus Spake Zarathustra.” At least with “Date Movie” there are others who have seen it and not enjoyed it, too. And they, unlike that Ishmael crowd, don’t look at you like you’re a philistine when you cop to it.
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