Schopenhauer-how to describe it? As a biography? The book's titular character would object to that-then again, he objects to most things. Should we call it a novel? Let us call it a novel. We can at least with some certainty say that the book tells the story of one of the foremost pessimists in all of human history. And that if he were in charge, or so he tells us, he would do things differently. Yes: when he is in charge, he says, he is going to do things differently.

And yet he has questions. And so do we. Why is A. Schopenhauer in an apartment in Seattle eating Chinese takeout and watching Howard Hawks's Rio Bravo? Why at an abstinence rally in rural Oklahoma? Why, momentarily, at an Easter dinner? Why, for that matter, alone in a spaceship with Jesus, orbiting a hellish planet that rains rocks? And why does Jesus have John the Baptist's head in a box? (Because, Jesus says-well, we'd better not say, at least not here.)

What is A. Schopenhauer doing at the Battle of Little Bighorn, or, after a certain famous public execution, trapped inside a tomb just beyond Golgotha, or in Hell-where he admittedly probably belongs? What is he doing at a so-called literary festival in America? Why does he get such prodigious nose-bleeds? Why is getting a haircut, for him, such an issue? Why can't he remember how to tie his shoes?

He doesn't know. That's the whole problem. Then again: none of us know why we are where we are either. A. Schopenhauer, though, has a fool-proof plan: when he figures out who's responsible, he's going to make them pay for it. Oh God yes. He is going to make them pay.