A review by daphnesayshi
The Schopenhauer Cure by Irvin D. Yalom

4.0

2 narratives run alongside each other in The Schopenhauer Cure—that of present day Julian, making the best use of whatever remaining time he has left, and a look into the man himself, Schopenhauer and his life and the catalysts which would lead him to developing his own philosophy in life. And what life! Schopenhauer is a man with excess bitterness in life. A lot of his ideas are great, and the foundation upon which undoubtedly entire generations of thinkers have built upon, but his ideas would have been a lot more palatable if he had been a little more personable—a fact the book does point out too. At the risk of sounding like a dolt because I've never read Schopenhauer myself, I will say that the book endears itself to readers precisely because it attempts to mitigate the harshness of Schopenhauer's philosophy to the extent where comfort can actually be drawn. This mitigation is mostly successful, and is I would think what's best about the book. A lot less can be said about the end though: it's too haphazard, too well-resolved, almost as if I walked to the end of a metaphorical cliff unwittingly and dropped off the edge.