Perhaps the first thing that the reader will notice about "Writings from the Late Notebooks" is that they lack a consistant theme. Of course, this is to be expected and cannot be a valid criticism of the author. Here Nietzsche writes of philosophy proper, here he writes of the origin and subsequent decline of morality, and again here he writes about the task of the "Free-Spirit". This makes the reading slightly more difficult than his published works, for there is no thematic unity to carry the reader through those passages that he or she finds difficult, and no hope that a later passage will shed interprative light upon a former passage. As piecemeal as these entries may be, they still offer valuable insight into those subjects that Nietzsche thought and wrote about.

Perhaps the greatest advantage that a reader could gain from this book is a more complex understanding of the tensions and struggles not only in Nietzsche's thought, but thought in general. What a writer thinks and what a writer publishes are two different things, and although the latter include the former, the reverse does not hold true. Of course, this is how it should be. Thinking and writing are both messy enterprises, and for everything valuable that is produced, much more will enter the mind as genius only to be later discarded as trash. These notebooks show that, as brilliant and original as Nietzsche was (and remains), his thought and his writings had to suffer the most painful criticism of all-those of the self.

Of all the great philosophers, Nietzsche is perhaps one of the most ill-read. By this of course I do not mean that Nietzsche could have had a few more books in his library. Rather, I mean that Nietzsche's works are subject to haphazard quoting by almost everyone (for it is fashionable to quote philosophers), and this work offers more that could be tossed out at almost any occasion. To treat Nietzsche's philosophy as an idealogical buffet that one may pick and chose from is to betray this geat thinker, for he demands all from those who would be his readers. Therefore, I would not recommend "The Writings from the Late Notebooks" to those who have no previous exposure to the writings of this German malcontent. They would not get the strongest style and originality committed to published works, nor would they get the scope and scale of his overall cultural evaluation.

To those who are familiar with Nietzsche's thought, however, this book will serve to demonstrate the depth and variety of topics that Nietzsche the thinker considered, and will highlight the profound effort required to produce such polished and powerful works as Nietzsche has.