Schopenhauer was twenty-five when he began this book, convinced he had solved the riddle of existence. The world we perceive is mere appearance; beneath it surges a blind, insatiable Will, and all of life is suffering. His pessimism is so thorough, so systematically argued, and so gorgeously written that it becomes strangely exhilarating. He offers only two escapes: aesthetic contemplation and ascetic renunciation. Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Tolstoy, and Freud all fell under his spell. You may not agree with a word of it, but you will not emerge unchanged.