Clancy Martin on Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra
"You don't want to just live onward—you want to live upward."
The Book He Carries
John Kaag on Clancy Martin and the book he has carried for forty years: Thus Spoke Zarathustra as a relationship you inhabit, not an object you hold.
Read the introduction →- 1 The Poetic Life Episode 1 • 18 min • Members
- 2 How to Read a Prophet Episode 2 • 18 min • Members
- 3 The Saint Has Not Heard Episode 3 • 17 min • Members
- 4 Bathroom-Wall Nietzsche Episode 4 • 19 min • Members
- 5 The Last Man Checks His Credit Score Episode 5 • 19 min • Members
- 6 The Tightrope Episode 6 • 18 min • Members
- 7 Camel, Lion, Child Episode 7 • 18 min • Members
- 8 Other Worlds Episode 8 • 18 min • Members
- 9 The Garden and the Pale Criminal Episode 9 • 21 min • Members
- 10 Write with Blood Episode 10 • 19 min • Members
- 11 He's a Fool Who Stays Alive Episode 11 • 19 min • Members
- 12 The Coldest Monster Episode 12 • 21 min • Members
- 13 Moralizers Episode 13 • 20 min • Members
- 14 A Thousand and One Goals Episode 14 • 18 min • Members
- 15 The Whip Episode 15 • 19 min • Members
- 16 The Bitter Cup Episode 16 • 19 min • Members
- 17 Die at the Right Time Episode 17 • 20 min • Members
- 18 Remain True to the Earth Episode 18 • 18 min • Members
- 19 The Pitying and the Priests Episode 19 • 19 min • Members
- 20 Tarantulas Episode 20 • 16 min • Members
- 21 The Most Falsified Idea Episode 21 • 20 min • Members
- 22 Scholars, Poets, and Smoke Episode 22 • 16 min • Members
- 23 Thus I Willed It Episode 23 • 16 min • Members
- 24 The Gateway Episode 24 • 16 min • Members
- 25 The Long Way Home Episode 25 • 14 min • Members
- 26 The Convalescent Episode 26 • 20 min • Members
- 27 What the Night Whispered Episode 27 • 20 min • Members
- 28 The Higher Men Episode 28 • 22 min • Members
- 29 The Murderer of God Episode 29 • 18 min • Members
- 30 The Sign Episode 30 • 21 min • Members
In Conversation With – Where this book meets another
This Is My Way
Zarathustra's missing way and Thoreau's different drummer are the same demand, Martin and Kaag show: there is no ready-made path — only the one you make.
Go deeper →Saying Yes to the Nick of Time
Thoreau's deliberate living and Nietzsche's amor fati are two disciplines with one target, Kaag and Martin show: the habit of living everywhere but now.
Go deeper →The Knitting and the Eagle: Nietzsche, Dickens, and the Morality of Vengeance
Madame Defarge's knitting is ressentiment made visible, Atwood and Martin show — legitimate rage metastasized into a register that cannot stop expanding.
Go deeper →Become What You Are: Joyce, Nietzsche, and the Terror of Self-Creation
Nietzsche demands you become what you are; Joyce shows why most people won't. Banville and Martin read Zarathustra's challenge against Dublin's paralysis.
Go deeper →The Will That Gives the Law
Kant and Nietzsche agree the human will gives itself the law — and split on whether that law binds everyone or only its maker.
Go deeper →
The Questions these books keep starting →
What Is Eternal Recurrence?
Could you say yes to living this exact life again — every joy, every humiliation, every loss — forever?
Go deeper →What Is the Übermensch?
The Übermensch is not a superman or a master race but Nietzsche's name for the human being who stops receiving values and starts creating them.
Go deeper →What Did Nietzsche Mean by the Death of God?
The death of God is Nietzsche's diagnosis, not his boast: inherited values have collapsed, and either nihilism or human value-creation fills the vacuum.
Go deeper →- Was Charlotte Lucas Right to Marry Mr. Collins? Sadie Stein on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice
- What Does the A on Hester's Chest Actually Mean? Megan Marshall on Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter
- Was Thoreau Selfish? The Question of Self-Reliance John Kaag on Henry David Thoreau's Walden
- What Is Kant's Categorical Imperative? Paul Guyer on Immanuel Kant