E.M. Cioran Community

Cioran's notebooks, to be published, Sept 2005

Sun, 27 Mar 2005 04:58:11 GMT

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1559706325/qid=1111899418/sr=1-10/ref=sr_1_10/002-3598111-5851252?v=glance&s=books

Pre-ordering is available on amazon.com.

I'm giddy.

Biography? Bibliography?

Fri, 12 Nov 2004 23:10:37 GMT

Has anyone seen any comprehensive lists of all the Cioran material in English? Are their translations of his books that are out of print? The New Gods, for example? I am trying to collect every one of his books in English and I am wondering if anyone else in the community has already attempted this.

I'm also wondering if anyone has read any material describing Cioran's involvement in Romania's Iron Guard movement. Evidently he did a lot of writing for this group, and was a "representative" of their movement in Paris. When did Cioran break with this movement? Does anyone know? Has he written about it in a book I just haven't come across yet?

There is actually more material in Romanian on Cioran and the Iron Guard, including a picture of him in uniform with Codreanu here - but this looks like a current Iron Guard page of some kind and I doubt that it will offer much.

Nothing is Important

Sun, 12 Sep 2004 17:37:46 GMT

How important can it be that I suffer and think? My presence in this world will disturb a few tranquil lives and will unsettle the unconscious and pleasant naiveté of others. Although I feel that my tragedy in the greatest in history - greater than the fall of empires - I am nevertheless aware of my total insignificance. I am absolutely persuaded that I am nothing in this universe; yet I feel that mine is the only real existence. If I had to choose between the world and me, I would reject the world , its lights and laws, unafraid to glide alone in absolute nothingness. Although life for me is torture, I cannot renoucne it, because I do not believe in the absolute values in whose name I would sacrifice myself. If I were to be totally sincere, I would say that I do not know why I live and why I do not stop living. The answer probably lies in the irrational character of life which maintains itself without reason. What if there were only absurd motives for living? Could they still be called motives? This world is not worth a sacrifice in the name of an idea or belief. How much happier are we today because others died for our well-being and our enlightenment? Well-being? Enlightenment? If anybody had died so that I could be happy; then I would be even more unhappy because I do not want to build my life on a graveyard. There are moments when I feel responsible for all the suffering in history, since I cannot understand why some have shed blood for us. It would be a great irony if we could determine that they were happier than we are. Let history crumble to dust! Why should I bother? Let death appear in a ridiculous light: suffering, limited and unrevealing; enthusiasm, impure; life, rational; life's dialectics, logical rather than demonic; despair, minor and partial; eternity, just a word; the experience of nothingness, just and illusion; fatality, a joke! I seriously ask myself, What is the meaning of all this? Why raise questions, throw lights, or see shadows? Wouldn't it be better if I buried my tears in the sand on the seashore in utter solitude? But, I never cried, because my tears have always turned into thoughts. And my thoughts are bitter as tears.

"Nothing is Important", On the Heights of Despair. Zarifolpol-Johnston, Ilinca; trans. The University of Chicago Press, 1992.

lydia lunch

Thu, 09 Sep 2004 23:36:52 GMT

hi everyone.

i was just curious as to what the avid cioran reader thinks of someone like the ex-nowaver, performance/spoken word artist, lydia lunch, making no secret about cioran's influence on her writing, specifically on her album 'matrikamantra.' (and also naming a spoken word piece of hers 'a short history of decay pts 1&2' as a direct tribute.)

personally, i came upon cioran because of her enthusiasm.
i've only read 'on the heights of despair' & 'the trouble with being born' (both i adore), as well as 'the temptations of emil cioran' (kluback/finkenthal) and i think lydia, even before she knew about cioran, has been treading on similar territory that the latter has astonishing mastery over, & seems to share common nihilistic attitudes with him as well.

any other 'fans' by chance? i'd love to hear any of your thoughts.

also, here's a cioran userpic:

anyway, my name's charles, hailing from the toronto suburbs, and i'm thrilled to see this community.

a question

Thu, 09 Sep 2004 12:54:36 GMT

Dear friends,

Could you please kindly advise from what Emil Cioran's work the following passage is excerpted:

L'acharnement à bannir du paysage humain l'irrégulier, l'imprévu et le difforme frise l'inconvenance. Que dans certaines tribus on se plaise à dévorer des vieillards trop encombrant, nous pouvons sans doute le déplorer, quant à traquer des sybarites aussi pittoresques nous n'y consentirons jamais, sans compter que le cannibalisme représente un modèle d'économie fermée, en même temps qu'un usage propre à séduire un jour une planète comble. Mon propos n'est pas toutefois de m'apitoyer sur le sort des anthropophages, bien qu'on les pourchasse sans merci et qu'ils soient aujourd'hui les grands perdants. Convenons-en leur cas n'est pas excellent. Ils se font du reste de plus en plus rares : une minorité aux abois, dépourvue de confiance en elle-même, incapable de plaider sa cause. Toute différente nous apparaît la situation des analphabètes, masse considérable, attachée à ses traditions et à ses privilèges, contre laquelle on sévit avec une virulence que rien ne justifie. Car enfin, est-ce un mal de ne savoir ni lire, ni écrire? En toute franchise je ne puis le penser. Je vais même plus loin, je pose en fait que lorsque le dernier illettré aura disparu, nous pourrons prendre le deuil de l'homme.

Thank you in advance for help!

bonjour

Mon, 16 Aug 2004 22:27:01 GMT

hello, contemporaries. as a romanian girl and a lover of romanian literature myself, finding this community was refreshing after wading through piles of worthless shit. i love cioran and eliade, as well as the french surrealist poets, ionesco, and other expats. my brother's name is emil, after cioran actually :-} anyway, drop by my journal if you get bored....happy to be here.
margaux

Another Anathema!

Sun, 01 Aug 2004 02:55:08 GMT

"When we must make a crucial decision, it is extremely dangerous to consult with anyone else, since no one, with the exception of a few misguided souls, sincerely wishes us well."

When I'm feeling pessimistic... (this has nothing to do with John Kerry or politics)

Mon, 28 Jun 2004 02:40:41 GMT

...I can't cook. So, I ask myself, WWCC: What Would Cioran Cook?

He wouldn't. He'd walk around the corner and have some Pot au Feu or Beef Bourgogne at a cafe.

If he absoutely was confined to his flat by a case of agoraphobia coupled with insomnia, he'd eat chickpeas from a can, opened with a rusty can opener and heated over a hot plate in a worn enamelwear windsor pot. Then he'd muster up the courage, (Or is it simply a level of self-defeat?) to go ride his bicycle around the Jardin de Luxemborg until he was exhausted enough to fall asleep.

I'm not a big fan of chickpeas. I need air in the tires of my bicycle.

WWCC?

An Amazonian list

Mon, 28 Jun 2004 02:22:02 GMT

An Amazon.com list of Cioran books that I threw together

Thu, 17 Jun 2004 21:02:37 GMT

Hello Dear Friends!

I am not familiar at all with Cioran and have found my way to the community only by the fact that it has listed amongst topics of interest one Vladimir Solovyov - the only listing besides mine to feature this philosopher's name.

May this unexpected connection prove to be fruitful and blessed.

M.M.

Tue, 15 Jun 2004 04:58:00 GMT

I often wish I had cause and leisure to immerse myself in Cioran, to take it upon myself to flesh out the analysis of his work, beyond the epideral prather that abounds.

Oh well, that dream, for the moment is beyond my means. Instead, here's a link to another summary of the summarized and re-summarized. It's a little meatier than most, and lovely to look at, as well.

http://www.rosenoire.org/articles/sunic-cioran.php

Mon, 29 Mar 2004 04:38:31 GMT

"Max Cafard became legendary when 'The Surre(gion)alist Manifesto' first appeared in Exquisite Corpse. His insurgent writing gave our readers the sudden frisson when first encountering Nietzche, Cioran, Derrida, or Deleuze... The frisson is renewed by each encounter, but the original feeling of discovery is unequalled. This was precisely my epiphany in encountering Max Cafard's manifesto: I am in a new place." -- Andrei Codrescu, from the Introduction

http://www.corpse.org/mall/index.html

This may be of interest, and I would be more informative, as well as interested, but I can't seem to find the promised "more info".

And here's one of "Cafard"'s articles in the First Issue of the Corpse online.

http://www.corpse.org/issue_1/cafard.html

Mon, 29 Mar 2004 00:09:03 GMT

A rather weak and flighty essay on Cioran as "Anti-Gnostic" (I respectfully disagree)

http://mtsu32.mtsu.edu:11072/LFS/cioran.htm

Mon, 29 Mar 2004 00:03:47 GMT

The Following is an article regarding Cioran appearing in Spike Magazine

http://www.spikemagazine.com/1197cior.php

Mon, 08 Mar 2004 06:00:32 GMT

An interesting paper from David Rieff, for the Warhol Foundation, that calls upon the spirit of Cioran to comment on the crisis of identity in the contemporary United States:

http://www.warholfoundation.org/paperseries/article1.htm

Mon, 08 Mar 2004 05:57:09 GMT

"De l'inconvenient d'etre ne"
E.M. Cioran, 1973
("The trouble with being born", 1993)

If it is true that by death we once more become what we were before being,
would it not have been better to abide by that pure possibility, not to stir
from it? What use was this detour, when we might have remained forever in an
unrealized plenitude?

Time, fertile in resources, more inventive and more charitable than we think,
possesses a remarkable capacity to help us out, to afford us at any hour of
the day some new humiliation.

Life is nothing; death, everything. Yet there is nothing which is death,
independent of life. It is precisely this absence of autonomous, distinct
reality which makes death universal; it has no realm of its own, it is
omnipresent, like everything which lacks identity, limit, and bearing:
an indecent infinitude.

Once we begin to want, we fall under the jurisdiction of the Devil.
It is a great force, and a great fortune, to be able to live without any
ambition whatever. I aspire to it, but the very fact of so aspiring still
participates in ambition.

The blank time of meditation is, the only "full" time. We should never
blush to accumulate vacant moments - vacant in appearance, filled in fact.
To meditate is a supreme leisure, whose secret has been lost.

It is because of speech that men give the illusion of being free. By speaking,
they deceive themselves, as they deceive others: because they say what they
are going to do, who could suspect they are not masters of their actions?

I pride myself on my capacity to perceive the transitory character of
everything. An odd gift which spoiled all my joys; better: all my sensations.
I have decided not to oppose anyone ever again, since I have noticed that I
always end by resembling my latest enemy.

Buddha: "By what right do you claim to rule over men and universe?
Have you suffered for knowledge?" This is the crucial, perhaps the sole
question we should ask ourselves when we scrutinize anything, especially
a thinker. There is never too great distinction made between those who
have paid for the tiniest step toward knowledge and those, incomparably
more numerous, who have received a convenient, indifferent knowledge,
a knowledge without ordeals.

We make choices, decisions, as long as we keep to the surface of things;
once we reach the depths, we can neither choose nor decide, we can do
nothing but regret the surface...

The fear of being deceived is the vulgar version of the quest for Truth.

A work is finished when we can no longer improve it, though we know it
to be inadequate and incomplete. We are so overtaxed by it that we no
longer have the power to add a single comma, however indispensable.
What determines the degree to which a work is done is not a requirement
of art or of truth, it is exhaustion and, even more, disgust.

"An enemy is as= useful as a Buddha." Exactly, for our enemy watches
over us, keeps us from letting ourselves go. By indicating, by divulging
our least weakness, he leads us straight to our salvation, moves heaven
and earth to keep us from being unworthy of his image of us. Hence our
gratitude to him should be boundless.

Over the centuries, man has slaved to believe, passing from dogma to dogma,
illusion to illusion, and has given little time to doubts, short intervals
between his epochs of blindness. Indeed they were no doubts but pauses,
moments of respite following the fatigue of faith, of any faith.

Each time you find yourself at a turning point, the best thing is to lie
down and let hours pass. Resolutions made standing up are worthless:
they are dictated either by pride or by fear. Prone, we still know these
two scourges, but in a more attenuated, more intemporal form.

When, after a series of questions about desire, disgust, and serenity,
Buddha was asked: "What is the goal, the final meaning of nirvana?"
he did not answer. He smiled. There has been a great deal of commentary
on that smile, instead of seeing it is a normal reaction to a pointless
question. It is what we do when confronted by a child's WHY. We smile,
because no answer is conceivable, because the answer would be even more
meaningless than the question. Children admit no limits to anything;
they always want to see beyond, to see what there is afterward. But there
is no afterward. Nirvana is a limit, the limit. It is liberation, supreme
impasse...

A golden rule: to leave an incomplete image of oneself

Our first intuitions are the true ones.

I have always lived with the awareness of the impossibility of living.
And what has made existence endurable to me is my curiosity as to how I
would get from one minute, one day, one year to the next.

To have opinions is inevitable, is natural; to have convictions is less so.
Each time I meet someone who has convictions, I wonder what intellectual
vice, what flaw has caused him to acquire such a thing.

When you no longer believe in yourself, you stop producing or struggling,
you even stop raising questions or answering them, whereas it is the
contrary which should have occured, since it is precisely at this moment
that, being free of all bonds, you are likely to grasp the truth, discern
what is real and what is not. But once your belief in your own role, or
your own lot, has dried up, you become incurious about everything else,
even the "truth", though you are closer to it than ever before.

"What's wrong - what's the matter with you?" Nothing, nothing's the matter,
I've merely taken a leap outside my fate, and now I don't know where to turn,
what to run for...

Sat, 28 Feb 2004 23:17:49 GMT

I embarked upon a marathon of Borges, with guilt. I felt guilty for manner by which I came to know of him, as if I was exposing him, by being exposed to him.

Once again, Emil has come to agreement with me prior to my own thought being birthed. Happily, his letter, about Borges, in Anathemas and Admirations also allows me a little entitlement to my enjoyment of Borges. I empathize with Cioran's description of Borges as a phenomena of the rural delicately but voraciously synthesizing the global.

So, I will continue to read.

Welcome

Fri, 27 Feb 2004 21:19:40 GMT

Vasile was always bombastic in his expression of love for Cioran. He had a passion, I never quite understood. To me, such raucous enthusiasm seemed contrary to the spirit of my beloved Emil.

Sitting the the same French Institute in Bucuresti, that delivered Cioran to Paris, I could imagine him observing the same absurd choreography of Italianate brutalism, Dacian barbarianism, and French protectionism that defines the Romanian people. And, I love him with all the passion that a disenfranchised, American, post-modern foundling can muster. Vasile loves him like only ones crazy younger brother can love. Vlad's love, I do not understand, but I admire; perhaps, because we are alike or dual in nature.

I have created this community, not to fill a void, but to empty it.