I enjoyed the preface by Nietzsche's sister, but most of the time I spent in this book felt tedious and despising him for constructing a wise-man figure into whose mouth he could cram his terrible poetry.

Just as the ancient Chinese curse says, "May you live in interesting times," much of what Zarathustra says seems like it might have some wisdom, until you realize they're shallow aphorisms that weren't strong enough to stand on their own, so needed a fictional man of mysterious Persian learning to lend authority. (Of course, the saying isn't ancient and it isn't Chinese, but it certainly sounds wise and memorable when you're told it is.)

Who knows, maybe there's real philosophical value in this volume. Perhaps I missed the picture because I couldn't get past the frame. I'll read a commentary before I consider reading more Nietzsche again.