The Temptation to Exist
Title | The Temptation to Exist PDF eBook |
Author | E. M. Cioran |
Publisher | Simon and Schuster |
Pages | 204 |
Release | 2013-02-01 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 1628724951 |
This collection of eleven essays originally appeared in France thirty years ago and created a literary whirlwind on the Left Bank. Cioran writes incisively about Western civilizations, the writer, the novel, mystics, apostles, and philosophers. The Temptation to Exist first introduced this brilliant European thinker twenty years ago to American readers, in a superb translation by Richard Howard. This literary mystique around Cioran continues to grow, and The Temptation to Exist has become an underground classic. In this work Cioran writes about Western civilizations, the writer, the novel, about mystics, apostles, philosophers. For those to whom the very word philosophy brings visions of arduous reading, be assured: Cioran is crystal-clear, his style quotable and aphoristic. “A sort of final philosopher of the Western world. His statements have the compression of poetry and the audacity of cosmic clowning”—The Washington Post
The Fall Into Time
Title | The Fall Into Time PDF eBook |
Author | Emile M. Cioran |
Publisher | Quadrangle/The New York Times Book Company |
Pages | 200 |
Release | 1970 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN |
Drawn and Quartered
Title | Drawn and Quartered PDF eBook |
Author | E. M. Cioran |
Publisher | Skyhorse Publishing Inc. |
Pages | 201 |
Release | 2012-11-13 |
Genre | Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | 1611456967 |
"A brilliant and original exponent of a rare genre, the philosophical essay. Once read, Cioran cannot fail to provoke reaction. New York Times Book...
All Gall is Divided
Title | All Gall is Divided PDF eBook |
Author | Emile M. Cioran |
Publisher | Arcade Publishing |
Pages | 180 |
Release | 1999 |
Genre | Literary Criticism |
ISBN | 9781559704717 |
Romanian-born E.M. Cioran moved to Paris at the age of 26, remaining there nearly six decades until his death in 1995. He was called "a sort of final philosopher of the Western world" and "the last worthy disciple of Nietzsche"; the bleak aphorisms of All Gall Is Divided make a strong case for either appellation. "With every idea born in us," he declares early on, "something in us rots." Throughout the book, he addresses the futile attempts of man to impose meaning on a meaningless existence--"That there should be a reality hidden by appearances is, after all, quite possible; that language might render such a thing would be an absurd hope"--and nurses an ongoing fascination with the possibilities death holds for release from life's madness. (When the Dead Kennedys sang, "I look forward to death / This world brings me down," they might as well have been taking notes from Cioran.) Grim stuff, but presented in brilliant, crystalline form--particularly in the translation by Richard Howard, which retains Cioran's cold, detached viewpoint.
Tears and Saints
Title | Tears and Saints PDF eBook |
Author | E. M. Cioran |
Publisher | University of Chicago Press |
Pages | 155 |
Release | 1998-07-06 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 0226106748 |
"(Cioran's) statements have the compression of poetry and the audacity of cosmic clowning".--WASHINGTON POST. In TEARS AND SAINTS, Cioran touches on nearly all the themes that would preoccupy the writer over the course of his career. Self-consciously perverse, this collection will fascinate anyone interested in saints, mysticism, philosophy, the history of Christianity, or the ultimate strangeness of the sacred.
History and Utopia
Title | History and Utopia PDF eBook |
Author | E. M. Cioran |
Publisher | Simon and Schuster |
Pages | 128 |
Release | 2015-01-20 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 1628724668 |
“Only a monster can allow himself the luxury of seeing things as they are,” writes E. M. Cioran, the Romanian-born philosopher who has rightly been compared to Samuel Beckett. In History and Utopia, Cioran the monster writes of politics in its broadest sense, of history, and of the utopian dream. His views are, to say the least, provocative. In one essay he casts a scathing look at democracy, that “festival of mediocrity”; in another he turns his uncompromising gaze on Russia, its history, its evolution, and what he calls “the virtues of liberty.” In the dark shadow of Stalin and Hitler, he writes of tyrants and tyranny with rare lucidity and convincing logic. In “Odyssey of Rancor,” he examines the deep-rooted dream in all of us to “hate our neighbors,” to take immediate and irremediable revenge. And, in the final essay, he analyzes the notion of the “golden age,” the biblical Eden, the utopia of so many poets and thinkers.
On the Heights of Despair
Title | On the Heights of Despair PDF eBook |
Author | E. M. Cioran |
Publisher | University of Chicago Press |
Pages | 154 |
Release | 1996-10 |
Genre | Literary Collections |
ISBN | 9780226106717 |
"Born of a terrible insomnia wchich E. M. Cioran called "a dizzying lucidity which would turn even paradise into hell," this book presents the youthful Cioran, a self-described "Nietzsche still complete with his Zarathustra, his poses, his mystical clown's tricks, a whole circus of the heights." On the Heights of Despair shows Cioran's first grappling with themes he would return to in his mature works: despair and decay, absurdity and alienation, futility and the irrationality of existence. It also presents Cioran as a connoisseur of apocalypse, a theoretician of despair, for whom writing and philosophy both share the "lyrical virtues" that alone lead to metaphysical revelations. An exorcism of despair, this book offers insights into the ironic anguish of Cioran's philosophic mind while providing fascinating information on his early development as a writer and thinker."