Schopenhauers Blues

There are poetry titles that sound inviting, and then there is Schopenhauer’s Blues by Michael Blackburn, which strolls in wearing the expression of a man who has read too much philosophy, noticed too much life, and now intends to make both your problem in verse.

Published in 1994 by Sunk Island Publishing, this is exactly the kind of book Crappy Old Books likes to discover lurking among the shelves: small-press, clever, faintly improbable, and blessed with a title that does almost scandalously good work before you have even opened it. Schopenhauer’s Blues is marvellous because it takes one of the gloomiest heavyweight names in philosophy and pairs him with the language of a smoky, slightly battered musical lament. Pessimism, but with rhythm. Existential despair, but perhaps in twelve bars.

Arthur Schopenhauer, of course, was not famous for bounding optimism. He was the grand old maestro of cosmic dissatisfaction, the philosopher who looked at existence and concluded, with a consistency that is almost admirable, that it was fundamentally an exhausting business driven by blind will, suffering, and the occasional brief interruption. To stick his name in a poetry title is already delicious. To add Blues is even better. It suggests that all this metaphysical misery has somehow made it into a more portable, performative form — less “The World as Will and Representation,” more “The World as a Damp Tuesday with a Hangover.”

Michael Blackburn clearly knew what he was doing. This is the sort of title that signals intelligence without pomp, seriousness without stiffness, and wit with just enough darkness in it to be worth trusting. One suspects a poet alert to absurdity, melancholy, culture and the comic indignities of ordinary consciousness. Any book that can make Schopenhauer sound faintly like a pub act has already achieved something quite distinguished.

And then there is the publisher: Sunk Island Publishing, which is almost too perfect. A name like that sounds less like a conventional press and more like the ideal place from which a poetry collection called Schopenhauer’s Blues ought to emerge — a little out of the way, a little windswept, and entirely unconcerned with the commercial imperative to be cheerful. Crappy Old Books salutes this sort of thing. The world needs more publishing that sounds like it happens in a half-mythical estuary under low skies.

As sold by Crappy Old Books, this copy is in good condition, which feels exactly right. A good-condition 1994 small-press poetry book should look as though it has been sensibly kept by someone who valued it, perhaps read it in thoughtful moods, and then allowed it to live on the shelf with a certain quiet dignity. Good condition gives it the right atmosphere: not shrink-wrapped sterility, but survival. A book like this should have made it through the decades by merit and odd charm, not by accident.

There is also something wonderfully ironic about a book like this turning up second-hand now. Once upon a time it may have been bought by someone very much in the mood for late-century poetry with a philosophical edge — perhaps a person in spectacles, perhaps someone who owned jazz records, perhaps just an intelligent soul who suspected that modern life was ridiculous but wished this suspicion expressed more elegantly. Now it reappears, still carrying that mood, ready to be adopted by a new reader who understands that poetry titles should occasionally be allowed to have ideas of their own.

The appeal here lies partly in the collision of registers. Philosophy and blues. German metaphysics and human complaint. High thought and low mood. It is exactly the sort of combination that makes good poetry titles memorable, because it promises not abstraction alone, but feeling shaped by intelligence. Not merely gloom, but stylised gloom. Not merely wit, but wit with a long shadow behind it. In short: excellent shelf behaviour.

For collectors, this is a lovely oddity: a 1994 small-press poetry title with genuine personality, from a publisher with an unforgettable name. For readers, it promises the pleasure of work that may be literary, darkly funny, and alert to the fact that consciousness itself can be both tragic and faintly embarrassing. For shelf appeal, it is superb. A copy of Schopenhauer’s Blues says that somebody in the house may have opinions about poetry, philosophy, and the comedy of disappointment — which is almost always a good sign.

It is also the sort of book that flatters its owner in a very particular way. Not by boasting, but by implying that one’s taste runs to the intelligent, the offbeat and the slightly mournful. It suggests that you do not require your books to be obvious, and that you appreciate a title capable of making a joke at the expense of civilisation itself. This is niche elegance, and Crappy Old Books is fully in favour of it.

So here we have a good-condition 1994 survivor: literary, melancholic, slyly funny, and possessed of one of the better poetry titles you are likely to encounter this side of a damp philosophy department. It is a small-press book with brains, atmosphere and just enough gloom to feel substantial.

Schopenhauer’s Blues is exactly the kind of thing Crappy Old Books loves to rehome: a slim, smart, slightly shadowed volume that understands suffering, absurdity and the uses of a well-pitched title. If you like poetry, philosophy, intelligent melancholy, or simply the idea of owning a book that sounds as though it could out-think your record collection, this is a splendidly strange and appealing find.

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