I did not read this cover to cover. It contains a certain amount of belaboring the point, which when you’re treading Cioran’s thematic territory can easily become smothering. It actually feels worlds away from The Trouble With Being Born, which was written when Cioran was much older (and arguably wiser) and had honed his style to succinct aphoristic perfection delivered with a subtle levity that offsets the heavy subject matter. It’s much more tolerable to consume Cioran’s writing in these small bits, as opposed to unwieldy chunks that may clog your head and ultimately direct you to lie down in a dark room for several hours.

Reading Cioran reminds me a lot of reading Thomas Bernhard. Both writers project an uncompromising insight into the futility of life, but in their realization and acceptance of this awareness they raise it to high art, continuously boring in on their few and related themes with laser focus and elegant rhetoric. At the same time, both of these writers also saw suicide as a logical solution to the dilemma of living, and while looking with some reverence upon those who take their own lives, they simultaneously perceived a degree of weakness in themselves for not being able to take that decisive step. Hence, their steady determination to forge an alternative path for themselves and their undivided devotion to traveling it.

Basically, this path consists of writing at a distance around their own inability to commit suicide, resulting in tightly controlled concentric circles of exacting prose that illustrates what it is like to live with this inability while also being conscious of all thought that drove them to consider suicide in the first place. It is a conundrum of massive proportions, which is what makes reading these writers’ work so fascinating (at least until one reads too much of it, and then it just becomes exhausting). Thematic crossover is common between the two; Bernhard, though, chose to chiefly channel his creative energy into fiction and drama, while Cioran employed aphorisms for the most part. One could argue that without the artifice of fiction, Cioran’s naked observations are thus that much more brutal to take in.

Probably isn't a good sign that I agreed with a lot more of this book than I did the first time I read it. I really appreciate Cioran's unrelenting nihilism and his refusal to pull any punches whatsoever, but I still find this book to be a bit overwritten in a way that takes away from the ideas.

Non dico che è stata la migliore lettura del mese solo perché ho letto Satantango e si meritano il coprimariato: sicuramente mi hanno fatto iniziare l'anno con il botto, anche più che big Beng è un'implosione creatrice di buco nero che tende a risucchiare tutto, vista la vena angosciante che percorre entrambi i testi. Ma se non devastano non mi soddisfano, se non destabilizzanti non si imprimono, se hanno qualcosa da dire meglio che lo facciano in modo dirompente anche se questo incrinò la patina quotidiana: ma è l'unico modo per portare alla luce il loro senso, la loro realtà e farti avere una epifania dando nomi a cose che senti o farti schiantare contro nuove visioni obbligandoti ad integrarle con la tua, sia in addizione che in confutazione ma sicuramente non lasciandoti indifferente, invariato.
Questo è il primo libro scritto in francese dall'autore, oltre a essere uno dei più famosi e credo sia stato un ottimo inizio: l'ho scelto sia attratta dal titolo che per la posizione temporale e ora sono tentata di procedere in ordine cronologico, anche se la tentazione di esistere è un titolo che mi intriga molto; sicuro è che recupererò tutto di lui.
Il testo è diviso in macro capitoli su vari argomenti, il primo ha lo stesso titolo della raccolta, a loro volta, per lo più, suddivisi in paragrafi ognuno su un aspetto dell'esistenza dell'uomo o del gruppo società: piccole perle rilucenti che condensano il pensiero dell'autore, e inevitabilmente vengono sottolineate, rilette e studiate per capirle appieno. Il tutto gira attorno al dubbio e alla speranza, che si oppongono e si fondono. Il titolo è estremamente emblematico: sommario per la forma e decomposizione per come ogni aspetto è mostrato con una lente che ne evidenzia tutti gli aspetti decadenti, mentre si sfalda e autodigerisce.
Menzione speciale per il capitolo sulla decadenza delle società, nulla di innovativo mi direte, soprattutto per un autore vissuto alla fine di un'era, eppure riesce a dare nuova vita al topos, non scadendo in clichés.
Un libro esistenzialista imperdible, non scalzerà Camus dal mio cuore ma lo incalza da vicino sicuramente.

"As incompetent in life as in death, I loathe myself and in this loathing I dream of another life, another death. And for having sought to be a sage such as never was, I am only a madman among the mad..."

Tedious, fearful, profoundly religious posturing that mistakes talking about Nothing for talking about nothing. Read Hume if you want something substantively destructive, Kierkegaard for something substantively upbuilding.

I remember back in January when I was reading the opening chapters, submerged in the bathtub, strangely enough, feeling dizzy and distressed by the thoughts I had tried to push back. Much like the beginning phase of reading any book, my mind was wrapped in waves of impression and judgement, often induced by prose and mood, more than the actual ideas behind the words. I added a note on top of a page: "This is Cioran at his most sleepless". While initial impressions often do not last, this one did, until the very end.

Well, this one took a while for such a slim volume. But even aside from being an aphoristic work of philosophy (seldom the sort of thing to benefit from being read at speed), it's hard powering through a book which is one long sigh. A hymn to the futility of everything - including thinking you've gained anything by having noticed the futility of everything - it's torn between Cioran's desire to fade away, and his envy for the great monsters of history. At times, especially when he's compellingly observing how heroism is the opposite of depth, I was reminded of the works of Jeff Lint - but that may just have been because I was reading this alongside And Your Point Is?, not to mention the phenomenon I've observed before where a sentiment intended quite sincerely in French develops irony simply through being translated into English, a language fundamentally less suited to grand seriousness. But it's precisely through the grandness of his sentiments that Cioran undermines his own plea for universal renunciation. He says himself that poetry is a grander work than philosophy, and ultimately what he's achieved here is closer to the former than the latter.

Wrapped up reading THE TEMPTATION TO EXIST last and I'm three for three on Cioran right now. Seen a lot of people accuse him of belaboring the point to an exhausting degree, yet I'd argue that part of the appeal of the pessimists. Labored misery, torrid existentialism.

“I have recommended you the dignity of skepticism: yet here I am, prowling around the Absolute. Technique of contradiction? Remember, rather, what Flaubert said: "I am a mystic and I believe in nothing".”

sen dünyanın en güzel baş ucu kitabısın

It is a very rare thing that a philosopher can write well stylistically. Even if I disagreed with everything said here it would have gotten 5 stars for its prose alone.

Of course, I did still agree with at least half of it, so that helps.

Cioran okurken aynı örüntüyü tekrarladığımı fark ettim. Başlarda “ne okuyorum ben”, sonra “aslında öylesine okurken güzel ama ciddiye alınca sinir bozucu” daha sonra “aşırı üslupçu”, sonlara doğru metne tamamen kendini kaptırma ve etkilenme derken kapanış
Bunda sanırım sistem felsefelerine olan takıntım ama cioran’ın tamamen yıkıcılıktan yana fragman biçiminde yazması etkili

Biz sonuncularız: Gelecekten, daha fazla da kendimizden bezdik; toprağın suyunu sıktık ve gökleri soyup soğana çevirdik. Artık düşlerimizi madde de ruh da besleyemez: Bu evren yüreklerimiz kadar kurumuş. Artık hiçbir yerde cevher yok: Atalarımız bize paçavraya dönmüş ruhlarını ve kurtlanmış iliklerini bıraktı. Macera son buluyor; bilinç can çekişiyor; ezgilerimiz uçup gitti; ölenlerin güneşi parlıyor işte!