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Essays of Schopenhauer by Arthur Schopenhauer, Mrs. Rudolf Dircks

litdreamer's review

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3.0

One problem with free books on Kindle is that any books that include multiple languages do not translate all the languages. With the book in question, Schopenhauer is translated from German to English, but the French and Latin quotes he provides are not. Therefore, unless you're fluent in these languages, you might want to stick with a paid version of his essays. If not for this flaw, I'd give the collection four stars, for Schopenhauer gives fascinating (and sometimes dated) views on a variety of subjects.

This collection contains a preliminary and a biographical note before the essays. Due to weird formatting, however, it may be difficult to make out which each essay is, since all the titles run together. They are: On Authorship and Style, On Noise, On Reading and Books, The Emptiness of Existence, On Women, Thinking for Oneself, Short Dialogue on the Indestructibility of Our True Being By Death, Religion: A Dialogue, Observations, Metaphysics of Love, Physiognomy, On Suicide. "On Women" is highly sexist and based on stereotypical views of women, but the rest challenge the modern reader with their ideas without being offensive (though "Metaphysics of Love" may anger romantics -- which Schopenhauer anticipated in the essay). And hey, he influenced Wagner: http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2013/oct/23/a-to-z-of-wagner-s-for-schopenhauer
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