The Schopenhauer Cure

ensured Fichte`s future in philosophy, and a year and a half thereafter he was offered

a professorship at the University of Jena.

«That,” Philip looked up from his notes with an ecstatic look on his face and then

jabbed the air with an awkward show of enthusiasm, «that is what I call a debut!» No

students looked up or gave a sign of registering Philip`s brief awkward display of

enthusiasm. If he felt discouraged by his audience`s unresponsiveness, Philip did not

show it and, unperturbed, continued:

And now consider something closer to your hearts—athletic debuts. Who can forget

the debut of Chris Evert, Tracy Austin, or Michael Chang, who won grand–slam

professional tennis tournaments at fifteen or sixteen? Or the teenaged chess prodigies

Bobby Fischer or Paul Morphy? Or think of JosГ© Raoul Capablanca, who won the

chess championship of Cuba at the age of eleven.

Finally, I want to turn to a literary debut—the most brilliant literary debut of all

time, a man in his midtwenties who blazed onto the literary landscape with a

magnificent novel…

Here, Philip stopped in order to build the suspense and looked up, his countenance

shining with confidence. He felt assured of what he was doing—that was apparent. Julius

watched in disbelief. What was Philip expecting to find? The students on the edge of their

seats, trembling with curiosity, each murmuring, «Who was this literary prodigy?»

Julius, in his fifth–row seat, swiveled his head to survey the auditorium: glazed

eyes everywhere, students slumped in chairs, doo–dling, poring over newspapers,

crossword puzzles. To the left, a student stretched out asleep over two chairs. To the

right, two students at the end of his row embraced in a long kiss. In the row directly in

front of him, two boys elbowed each other as they leered upward, toward the back of the

room. Despite his curiosity, Julius did not turn to follow their gaze—probably they were

staring up some woman`s skirt—and turned his attention back to Philip.

And who was the prodigy?(Philip droned on.) His name was Thomas Mann. When he

was your age, yes, your age, he began writing a masterpiece, a glorious novel

calledBuddenbrooks published when he was only twenty–six years old. Thomas

Mann, as I hope and pray you know, went on to become a towering figure in the

twentieth–century world of letters and was awarded the Nobel Prize for

Literature.»(Here Philip spelled M–a–n–nand B–u–d–d–e–n-

b–r–o–o–k–sto his blackboard scribe.) Buddenbrooks, published in 1901, traced the life

of one family, a German burgher family, through four generations and all the

associated vicissitudes of the life cycle.

Now what does this have to do with philosophy and with the real subject of

today`s lecture? As I promised, I have strayed a bit but only in the service of

returning to the core with greater vigor.

Julius heard rustling in the auditorium and the sound of footsteps. The two

elbowing voyeurs directly in front of Julius noisily collected their belongings and left the

hall. The embracing students at the end of the row had departed, and even the student

assigned to the blackboard had vanished.

Philip continued:

To me, the most remarkable passages inBuddenbrooks come late in the novel as the

protagonist, the paterfamilias, old Thomas Buddenbrooks, approaches death. One is

astounded by a writer in his early twenties having such insight and such sensibility to

issues concerned with the end of life.(A faint smile played on his lips as Philip held

up the dog–eared book.) I recommend these pages to anyone intending to die.

Julius heard the strike of matches as two students lit cigarettes while exiting the

auditorium.

When death came to claim him, Thomas Buddenbrooks was bewildered and

overcome by despair. None of his belief systems offered him comfort—neither his

religious views which had long before failed to satisfy his metaphysical needs, nor his

worldly skepticism and materialistic Darwinian leaning. Nothing, in Mann`s words,

was able to offer the dying man «in the near and penetrating eye of death a single

hour of calm.»

Here, Philip looked up. «What happened next is of great importance and it is here

that I begin to close in on the designated subject of our lecture tonight.»

In the midst of his desperation Thomas Buddenbrooks chanced to draw from his

bookcase an inexpensive, poorly sewn volume of philosophy bought at a used book

stand years before. He began to read and was immediately soothed. He marveled by

how, as Mann put it, «a master–mind could lay hold of this cruel mocking thing called

life.»

The extraordinary clarity of vision in the volume of philosophy enthralled the

dying man, and hours passed without his looking up from his reading. Then he came

upon a chapter titled «On Death, and Its Relation to Our Personal Immortality» and,

intoxicated by the words, read on as though he were reading for his very life. When

he finished, Thomas Buddenbrooks was a man transformed, a man who had found the

comfort and peace that had eluded him.

What was it that the dying man discovered?(At this point Philip suddenly

adopted an oracular voice.) Now listen well, Julius Hertzfeld, because this may be

useful for life`s final examination....

Shocked at being directly addressed in a public lecture, Julius bolted upright in his

seat. He glanced nervously about him and saw, to his astonishment, that the auditorium

was empty: everyone, even the two homeless men, had left.

But Philip, unperturbed by his vanished audience, calmly continued:

I`ll read a passage fromBuddenbrooks. (He opened a tattered paperback copy of the

book.) «Your assignment is to read the novel, especially part nine, with great care. It

will prove invaluable to you—far more valuable than attempting to extract meaning

from patients` reminiscences of long ago.

Have I hoped to live on in my son? In a personality yet more feeble, flickering, and

timorous than my own? Blind, childish folly! What can my son do for me? Where

shall I be when I am dead? Ah, it is so brilliantly clear. I shall be in all those who

have ever, do ever, or ever shall say «I»—especially, however, in all those who say it

most fully, potently, and gladly!...Have I ever hated life—pure, strong, relentless

life? Folly and misconception! I have but hated myself because I could not bear it. I

love you all, you blessed, and soon, soon, I shall cease to be cut off from you by all

the narrow bonds of myself; soon that in me which loves you will be free and be in

and with you—in and with you all.

Philip closed the novel and returned to his notes.

Now who was the author of the volume which so transformed Thomas

Buddenbrooks? Mann does not reveal his name in the novel, but forty years later he

wrote a magnificent essay which stated that Arthur Schopenhauer was the author of

the volume. Mann then proceeds to describe how, at the age of twenty–three, he first

experienced the great joy of reading Schopenhauer. He was not only entranced by the

ring of Schopenhauer`s words, which he describes as «so perfectly consistently clear,

so rounded, its presentation and language so powerful, so elegant, so unerringly

apposite, so passionately brilliant, so magnificently and blithely severe—like never

any other in the history of German philosophy,” but by the essence of

Schopenhauerian thought, which he describes as «emotional, breathtaking, playing

between violent contrasts, between instinct and mind, passion and redemption.» Then