Preface
I have been in interested in Schopenhauer for as long as I can remember. The study of German at school, getting to know Wagner at university, and a natural tendency towards pessimism all led me towards his philosophy. Bryan Magee, that brilliant writer and clear thinker, wrote a book on Schopenhauer which I read with great sympathy. From then on, I felt a distinct affinity with his temperament, if not yet with his abstract reasoning. Over the succeeding decades, I spent ever more time thinking about philosophy, equipping myself, I suppose, for the task to come. When the Covid pandemic struck in 2020, the time seemed right finally to take up Schopenhauer’s main work, The World as Will and Representation, and read it thoroughly. I went slowly, with a ruler to prevent me from skipping a line and a pencil in hand to encapsulate the ideas in the margin as I went. It was one of the great reading experiences of my life. The author is readable, funny in a caustic sort of way, brilliant in his choice of metaphors and illustrations, sensitive on questions of art and aesthetics, phenomenally well-informed, and altogether excellent company on the page. He is also fascinating in his connections with other, especially Eastern, systems of thought.
This essay – which is really to do with Schopenhauer and the arts – was my last for Standpoint. It ran out of money shortly after publication of the edition in which Schopenhauer’s Rainbow appeared. It is very much missed.