Abstract

Returning to Sils-Maria is a section-by-section commentary on Friedrich Nietzsche's Also sprach Zarathustra. Greg Whitlock returns to Nietzsche's text during the centennial years of its creation (1883-85) to argue that Zarathustra is not a book of the past or present, but of the future. He highlights Nietzsche's visions of the fanatics, demagogues, true believers, men of action and prophets who have come to populate the 20th-century human landscape. Zarathustra's teachings are interpreted as riddles whose solutions are harbingers of mankind's fate. Whitlock thereby creates a refreshing and new image of Nietzsche and Zarathustra in the course of his comments.