The World as Will and Representation
Decide its fate
The record
Time
An eveningA season1460 pages, about 29 hours: the length of 4.6 typical books on the shelf.
Getting in
Walk right inSteep climbOne reader reports quitting during the Introduction, where Schopenhauer surveys Kant.
What it gives
Plot and actionIdeas to live byIn 12 reviews from critics and book blogs, none credit the plot and 11 credit the ideas or a change in how they live.
One of a kind
Others do thisNothing else doesThree reviewers trace its arguments back to Kant, and one names Nietzsche among the thinkers it shaped.
The case for it
on the whole world
“It is the whole world in an extraordinarily vivid and beautiful reflection. I have begun translating him.”
Leo Tolstoy · letter to Afanasy Fet, 30 August 1869 on the sublime section
“it’s a really well-written section from one of the great stylists of German philosophy”
Robert Clewis · Five Books, 2022 on the metaphors
“so many gemlike passages and brilliant metaphors”
a Substack review on the absurd state
“Anticipating the existentialists, Schopenhauer captured this absurd state of affairs with clarity and compassion.”
Christopher Cokinos · Dark Mountain, 2019
The case against
on the prose
“writing has a kind of droning, disorganized quality that can make him hard to follow”
three stars · a book blog on the music chapter
“in a quite confusing discussion of music and what it can do for us”
David Bather Woods · Five Books, 2020 on the argument
“the argument from analogy seems particularly weak in this case”
Alistair Welchman · Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 2012 on the collective will
“misses a significant portion of the necessary discussion of the will of human beings”
a Substack review
