Chapter 33 Reading Schopenhauer at night

There are many famous philosophers with broad systems and pure thinking, but few with clear and fascinating writing style.For ordinary readers, a master of philosophy like Kant will always look like a famous city with steep walls and deep ravines, which is very spectacular to look at, but it is a pity that the guards are tight and no one can enter.Such a master may have too much system, may have too profound ideas, or may only care about the meaning of his words, but not enough to make his words beautiful, in short, the benefits are difficult to summarize.Therefore, if you open any dictionary of proverbs and famous sayings, Kant is quoted far less than philosophers such as Bacon, Nietzsche, Russell, and Santeyana.Schopenhauer belongs to this clear and easy-to-sentence category.Although he does not win with his literary talents, his thinking is clear, his writing is clean, and his tone is firm. It is clear and refreshing to read, and he is infinitely fascinated by the philosopher's lonely and aloof sentiment.Reading Schopenhauer at night, drinking a cup of bitter tea alone through the ages, I can't help translating a few paragraphs to share with readers.I use the Penguin English translation of "Schopenhauer: Essays and Aphorisms" (Arthur Schopenhauer: Essays and Aphorisms):

"Writers can be divided into meteors, planets, and fixed stars. The first type lasts only a moment. You look up and exclaim: 'Look!' - they are fleeting. The second type is the planet, They are much more durable. They are nearer to us, and so often outshine the stars, which the ignorant think they are. But they must soon perish, too, since their brilliance is but borrowed from others, and their influence extends only to Pedestrians on the same road (that is, peers). Only the third category remains unchanged. They stick to space, shine their own light, and maintain the same influence on all ages, because they have no parallax and do not change shape with our viewpoint. They belong to the whole universe, not to one system (i.e., a country) like others. Because the stars are so high, their brilliance will not reach the eyes of the world until many years later."

Schopenhauer used astronomy as a metaphor for humanities, which is vivid and interesting.Aside from saying that stars don't have parallax, his astronomy is generally good.Schopenhauer's astronomy reminds me of Xu Xiake's geography.Xu Xiake wrote in "Traveling Taihua Mountain Diary": "Before entering the customs, you can see Taihua standing out of the clouds hundreds of miles away; and after entering the customs, you will be covered by Ganglong." Taihua Mountain is like a great man. Far enough away to see its size.People in the world are used to honoring the past and despising the present, and always feel that there are no great men in their own time.Van Gogh was far enough away that we could see him clearly, but the citizens of Arrow saw only a madman that day.

"Style, like the face of the soul, is harder to fake than the face of the body. To imitate another's style is to put on a false mask. No matter how beautiful the mask may be, its lifeless appearance soon becomes dull and depressing. No, on the contrary, we welcome the ugly real face. Learning other people's style is like making a funny face." The writer's style is as different as it is, it is better to be ugly than fake.This metaphor is also very expressive, but it will also be used by mediocre or lazy writers to make fun of it.This kind of writers are unable to establish or change their own style, so they can only put on a face with no expression or an unchanged expression. When they see other writers with vivid and changeable expressions, they say that they are making faces.Quite a few writers like to flaunt "simple".In fact, simplicity should mean "hiding cleverness", not "hiding clumsiness", it should be "hiding wealth", not "showing off poverty".People who desperately say that they are simple are actually showing off their virtues, and they are no longer simple.

"The way of 'not reading' is really the way. It consists in utterly disregarding all the subjects that everyone is passionate about at the moment. Whether it is a pamphlet of government or religion, a novel or a poem, it must not be forgotten that anything written for What a fool reads will always attract a large number of readers. The prerequisite for reading a good book is not to read a bad book: because life is limited.” This remark was categorical and resolute, and it was extremely joyful.However, if you want to speak frankly, you can't help being a bit arbitrary, rounding up an account of the truth, and dealing with it decisively.Schopenhauer's long life was not satisfied in the academic and literary circles.His masterpiece "The World of Will and Ideas" was published when he was thirty-one years old, and the response thereafter has been lukewarm. Sixteen years later, he realized that most of his slow-selling books were sold as waste paper.Schopenhauer had to wait for many, many years before he got a bosom friend like Wagner and Nietzsche.His words were just for himself, and there was inevitably a bit of sourness behind his joy.In fact, it is not necessary to be high-spirited, and it is not necessary to wait for a bosom friend for a long time. The songs of the Beatles can prove it.But this is only a phenomenon of sub-culture. As for high culture, it can only be "minorized" at best.A blockbuster work, although advertised by the newspapers and sold well in the market, may be just an illusion, and the "pass rate" is not high.It should be the critics' business to judge the superiority, and should not be allowed to be commercialized, depending on the ranking list.During this period, if there are a few cultural and educational journalists to fuel the flames, and to teach the slow-selling writers to reflect on their lonely style, then they will go too far and misunderstand the interview as literary criticism.