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The Fall into Time
Profundity wedded to supreme style characterizes the dazzling philosophical essays of E. M. Cioran. The Fall into Time is the second of this Rumanian-born writer's books to be translated into English, and it cannot but enhance his growing reputation in the English-speaking world as a modern philosophical writer of the first rank.
Who other than E. M. Cioran could write: "Whatever his merits, a man in good health is always disappointing." Or: "Nature has been generous to none but those she has dispensed from thinking about death." Or again: "If each of us were to confess his most secret desire, the one that inspires all his plans, all his actions, he would say: ' I want to be praised.' "
Cioran has been variously described as a skeptic, a pessimist, an existentialist. But none of these labels quite fits. Cioran's is a unique voice, one that comes - elegantly, ironically, pointedly - out of the void to describe the modern predicament with an almost excruciating sharpness. "Our determination," he writes, "to banish the irregular, the unexpected, and the misshapen from the human landscape verges on indecency; that certain tribesmen still choose to devour their surplus elders is doubtless deplorable, but I cannot conclude that such picturesque sybarites must be exterminated; after all, cannibalism is a model closed economy, as well as a practice likely to appeal, some day, to an overpopulated planet."
Susan Sontag has declared E. M. Cioran to be "the most distinguished figure writing today in the tradition of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein." St.-John Perse, the Nobel prize-winning poet, has hailed him as "one of the greatest French writers to honor our language since the death of Paul Valery."
The Fall into Time brilliantly continues what Cioran himself has called an "autobiography'' in the form of his thoughts. The book has been translated by Richard Howard, winner of the 1970 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.
Who other than E. M. Cioran could write: "Whatever his merits, a man in good health is always disappointing." Or: "Nature has been generous to none but those she has dispensed from thinking about death." Or again: "If each of us were to confess his most secret desire, the one that inspires all his plans, all his actions, he would say: ' I want to be praised.' "
Cioran has been variously described as a skeptic, a pessimist, an existentialist. But none of these labels quite fits. Cioran's is a unique voice, one that comes - elegantly, ironically, pointedly - out of the void to describe the modern predicament with an almost excruciating sharpness. "Our determination," he writes, "to banish the irregular, the unexpected, and the misshapen from the human landscape verges on indecency; that certain tribesmen still choose to devour their surplus elders is doubtless deplorable, but I cannot conclude that such picturesque sybarites must be exterminated; after all, cannibalism is a model closed economy, as well as a practice likely to appeal, some day, to an overpopulated planet."
Susan Sontag has declared E. M. Cioran to be "the most distinguished figure writing today in the tradition of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein." St.-John Perse, the Nobel prize-winning poet, has hailed him as "one of the greatest French writers to honor our language since the death of Paul Valery."
The Fall into Time brilliantly continues what Cioran himself has called an "autobiography'' in the form of his thoughts. The book has been translated by Richard Howard, winner of the 1970 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.
186 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1964
66 people are currently reading
2427 people want to read
About the author
Emil M. Cioran
170 books4,317 followersBorn in 1911 in Rășinari, a small village in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania, raised under the rule of a father who was a Romanian Orthodox priest and a mother who was prone to depression, Emil Cioran wrote his first five books in Romanian. Some of these are collections of brief essays (one or two pages, on average); others are collections of aphorisms. Suffering from insomnia since his adolescent years in Sibiu, the young Cioran studied philosophy in the “little Paris” of Bucarest.
A prolific publicist, he became a well-known figure, along with Mircea Eliade, Constantin Noïca, and his future close friend Eugene Ionesco (with whom he shared the Royal Foundation’s Young Writers Prize in 1934 for his first book, On the Heights of Despair).
Influenced by the German romantics, by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and the Lebensphilosophie of Schelling and Bergson, by certain Russian writers, including Chestov, Rozanov, and Dostoyevsky, and by the Romanian poet Eminescu, Cioran wrote lyrical and expansive meditations that were often metaphysical in nature and whose recurrent themes were death, despair, solitude, history, music, saintliness and the mystics (cf. Tears and Saints, 1937) – all of which are themes that one finds again in his French writings. In his highly controversial book, The Transfiguration of Romania (1937), Cioran, who was at that time close to the Romanian fascists, violently criticized his country and his compatriots on the basis of a contrast between such “little nations” as Romania, which were contemptible from the perspective of universal history and great nations, such as France or Germany, which took their destiny into their own hands.
After spending two years in Germany, Cioran arrived in Paris in 1936. He continued to write in Romanian until the early 1940s (he wrote his last article in Romanian in 1943, which is also the year in which he began writing in French). The break with Romanian became definitive in 1946, when, in the course of translating Mallarmé, he suddenly decided to give up his native tongue since no one spoke it in Paris. He then began writing in French a book that, thanks to numerous intensive revisions, would eventually become the impressive 'A Short History of Decay' (1949) -- the first of a series of ten books in which Cioran would continue to explore his perennial obsessions, with a growing detachment that allies him equally with the Greek sophists, the French moralists, and the oriental sages. He wrote existential vituperations and other destructive reflections in a classical French style that he felt was diametrically opposed to the looseness of his native Romanian; he described it as being like a “straight-jacket” that required him to control his temperamental excesses and his lyrical flights. The books in which he expressed his radical disillusionment appeared, with decreasing frequency, over a period of more than three decades, during which time he shared his solitude with his companion Simone Boué in a miniscule garret in the center of Paris, where he lived as a spectator more and more turned in on himself and maintaining an ever greater distance from a world that he rejected as much on the historical level (History and Utopia, 1960) as on the ontological (The Fall into Time, 1964), raising his misanthropy to heights of subtlety (The Trouble with being Born, 1973), while also allowing to appear from time to time a humanism composed of irony, bitterness, and preciosity (Exercices d’admiration, 1986, and the posthumously published Notebooks).
Denied the right to return to Romania during the years of the communist regime, and attracting international attention only late in his career, Cioran died in Paris in 1995.
Nicolas Cavaillès
Translated by Thomas Cousineau
A prolific publicist, he became a well-known figure, along with Mircea Eliade, Constantin Noïca, and his future close friend Eugene Ionesco (with whom he shared the Royal Foundation’s Young Writers Prize in 1934 for his first book, On the Heights of Despair).
Influenced by the German romantics, by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and the Lebensphilosophie of Schelling and Bergson, by certain Russian writers, including Chestov, Rozanov, and Dostoyevsky, and by the Romanian poet Eminescu, Cioran wrote lyrical and expansive meditations that were often metaphysical in nature and whose recurrent themes were death, despair, solitude, history, music, saintliness and the mystics (cf. Tears and Saints, 1937) – all of which are themes that one finds again in his French writings. In his highly controversial book, The Transfiguration of Romania (1937), Cioran, who was at that time close to the Romanian fascists, violently criticized his country and his compatriots on the basis of a contrast between such “little nations” as Romania, which were contemptible from the perspective of universal history and great nations, such as France or Germany, which took their destiny into their own hands.
After spending two years in Germany, Cioran arrived in Paris in 1936. He continued to write in Romanian until the early 1940s (he wrote his last article in Romanian in 1943, which is also the year in which he began writing in French). The break with Romanian became definitive in 1946, when, in the course of translating Mallarmé, he suddenly decided to give up his native tongue since no one spoke it in Paris. He then began writing in French a book that, thanks to numerous intensive revisions, would eventually become the impressive 'A Short History of Decay' (1949) -- the first of a series of ten books in which Cioran would continue to explore his perennial obsessions, with a growing detachment that allies him equally with the Greek sophists, the French moralists, and the oriental sages. He wrote existential vituperations and other destructive reflections in a classical French style that he felt was diametrically opposed to the looseness of his native Romanian; he described it as being like a “straight-jacket” that required him to control his temperamental excesses and his lyrical flights. The books in which he expressed his radical disillusionment appeared, with decreasing frequency, over a period of more than three decades, during which time he shared his solitude with his companion Simone Boué in a miniscule garret in the center of Paris, where he lived as a spectator more and more turned in on himself and maintaining an ever greater distance from a world that he rejected as much on the historical level (History and Utopia, 1960) as on the ontological (The Fall into Time, 1964), raising his misanthropy to heights of subtlety (The Trouble with being Born, 1973), while also allowing to appear from time to time a humanism composed of irony, bitterness, and preciosity (Exercices d’admiration, 1986, and the posthumously published Notebooks).
Denied the right to return to Romania during the years of the communist regime, and attracting international attention only late in his career, Cioran died in Paris in 1995.
Nicolas Cavaillès
Translated by Thomas Cousineau
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November 27, 2016
Cioran is immensely enjoyable to read. His contempt for everything can be invigorating. On an academic level, his writing isn't very good. It isn't the best philosophy, nor is it always easy to understand; after reading so many of his books, his ideas and concepts start to blend and his contradictions grow more apparent. Yet, on an emotional level, his writing is poetic and beautiful and can break the reader through to another dimension and bring them the closest they've ever been to black melancholy through text. Those that enjoy reading Cioran have most likely been crushed under the weight of an existence which they have no power to end, nor endure. Endlessly floating in a limbo of shit, they find the search for meaning exhausting and near impossible. Death seems to have the only salvation for them, but suicide is not an option. That, or they're fucking posers. Either way, Cioran writes in the true Romanian spirit and will always be an important writer and prophet of doom.
"I accumulate the past, constantly making out of it and casting into it the present, without giving it a chance to exhaust its own duration. To live is to suffer the sorcery of the possible; but when I see in the possible the past that is to come, then everything turns into potential bygones, and there is no longer any present, any future. What I discern in each moment is its exhaustion, its death-rattle, and not the transition to the next moment. I generate dead time, wallowing in the asphyxia of becoming. Other people fall into time; I have fallen out of it. The eternity that set itself above time gives way to that other eternity which lies beneath, a sterile zone where I can desire only one thing: to reinstate time, to get back into it at any price, to appropriate a piece of it, to give myself the illusion of a place of my own. But time is sealed off, time is out of reach; and it is the impossibility of penetrating it which constitutes this negative eternity, this wrong eternity."
"I accumulate the past, constantly making out of it and casting into it the present, without giving it a chance to exhaust its own duration. To live is to suffer the sorcery of the possible; but when I see in the possible the past that is to come, then everything turns into potential bygones, and there is no longer any present, any future. What I discern in each moment is its exhaustion, its death-rattle, and not the transition to the next moment. I generate dead time, wallowing in the asphyxia of becoming. Other people fall into time; I have fallen out of it. The eternity that set itself above time gives way to that other eternity which lies beneath, a sterile zone where I can desire only one thing: to reinstate time, to get back into it at any price, to appropriate a piece of it, to give myself the illusion of a place of my own. But time is sealed off, time is out of reach; and it is the impossibility of penetrating it which constitutes this negative eternity, this wrong eternity."
July 5, 2022
::انطباع عام::
لماذا أقرأ سيوران؟ لأنه يشعل عقلي! يتوجب علي قراءة عباراته ٣ مرات على الأقل لأفهم ما الذي يقصده، كلا، الهدف من قراءة سيوران ليس فهمه، بل فهم نفسك، وكشف ما أنت بالفعل تعرفه بالأساس. سيوران نفسه، لم ينتحر. إنه في الحقيقة يقدم عزاءً للحياة، بل رؤية تفاؤلية لموضعنا في الحياة. لا يمكنني الإفراط في قراءته أكثر من ١٠ صفحات يوميًا، وكذلك، لا يمكنني تجنبه مطلقًا. إن قراءة كتاب له، يجعلني مع كل عبارة له أصرخ في فزع: يخرب بيتك يا جدع! ليس لأنه يقدم لي حقيقة جديدة، بل لأنه يكشف لنا عن حقائقنا التي دفنت في دواخلنا منذ الزمن الأول — منذ أسلافنا. سيوران يفتح البشرية من بدايتها، إنه يعمم، وهذا سيء للأسف، أن يقول بلهجة إطلاقية: المرأة، الإنسان، الرجل..إلخ لكنه بالفعل عاد بالزمن حيث لافردانية، واللغة لا تسعف في هذا الزمن الأول، لأنها لم تكن قد اخترعت بعد. سيوران يصيبنا بصدمة، قاسية لكنها لذيذة وتعينني شخصيًا على مواصلة
الحياة.
سقط آدم من الأبدية إلى الزمن وبسبب حقد الإنسان وضعفه اخترع الآلات لكي يسيطر وينافس وعاند فصنع صيرورة التاريخ، لكن هنالك من حلل أكثر من اللازم وتخلى عن العوز فسقط من الزمن، وأصبح الزمن ثقيلا لا معنى له، فكل تحليل تدنيس وفقدان للمعنى، هل كان على آدم الأكل من شجرة الحياة لا شجرة المعرفة؟! وهكذا اختار الفناء والضعف والمنافسة والصراع والتملق وصار بداخله رغبة سرية أو معلنة في الحصول على المديح على أي فعل يفعله حتى لو بمفرده.
***
::اقتباس محوري::
"الزمن خلق ليعاش لا ليعرف: أن نتفحصه ونتعمق فيه يعني أن نحط من قدره وأن نحوله إلى موضوع. () كل شكل من أشكال التحليل تدنيس () معرفة الذات باهظة الثمن، دائمًا، شأنها في ذلك شأن المعرفة ككل () لا شيء يظل محافظًأ على معنى في عالم مشروح، ربما باستثناء الجنون. إن من شأن الشيء الذي نلم بكافة جوانبه أن يفقد كل قيمة () ليس من الجيد أن نطيل الوقوف تحت شجرة المعرفة."
لماذا أقرأ سيوران؟ لأنه يشعل عقلي! يتوجب علي قراءة عباراته ٣ مرات على الأقل لأفهم ما الذي يقصده، كلا، الهدف من قراءة سيوران ليس فهمه، بل فهم نفسك، وكشف ما أنت بالفعل تعرفه بالأساس. سيوران نفسه، لم ينتحر. إنه في الحقيقة يقدم عزاءً للحياة، بل رؤية تفاؤلية لموضعنا في الحياة. لا يمكنني الإفراط في قراءته أكثر من ١٠ صفحات يوميًا، وكذلك، لا يمكنني تجنبه مطلقًا. إن قراءة كتاب له، يجعلني مع كل عبارة له أصرخ في فزع: يخرب بيتك يا جدع! ليس لأنه يقدم لي حقيقة جديدة، بل لأنه يكشف لنا عن حقائقنا التي دفنت في دواخلنا منذ الزمن الأول — منذ أسلافنا. سيوران يفتح البشرية من بدايتها، إنه يعمم، وهذا سيء للأسف، أن يقول بلهجة إطلاقية: المرأة، الإنسان، الرجل..إلخ لكنه بالفعل عاد بالزمن حيث لافردانية، واللغة لا تسعف في هذا الزمن الأول، لأنها لم تكن قد اخترعت بعد. سيوران يصيبنا بصدمة، قاسية لكنها لذيذة وتعينني شخصيًا على مواصلة
الحياة.
سقط آدم من الأبدية إلى الزمن وبسبب حقد الإنسان وضعفه اخترع الآلات لكي يسيطر وينافس وعاند فصنع صيرورة التاريخ، لكن هنالك من حلل أكثر من اللازم وتخلى عن العوز فسقط من الزمن، وأصبح الزمن ثقيلا لا معنى له، فكل تحليل تدنيس وفقدان للمعنى، هل كان على آدم الأكل من شجرة الحياة لا شجرة المعرفة؟! وهكذا اختار الفناء والضعف والمنافسة والصراع والتملق وصار بداخله رغبة سرية أو معلنة في الحصول على المديح على أي فعل يفعله حتى لو بمفرده.
***
::اقتباس محوري::
"الزمن خلق ليعاش لا ليعرف: أن نتفحصه ونتعمق فيه يعني أن نحط من قدره وأن نحوله إلى موضوع. () كل شكل من أشكال التحليل تدنيس () معرفة الذات باهظة الثمن، دائمًا، شأنها في ذلك شأن المعرفة ككل () لا شيء يظل محافظًأ على معنى في عالم مشروح، ربما باستثناء الجنون. إن من شأن الشيء الذي نلم بكافة جوانبه أن يفقد كل قيمة () ليس من الجيد أن نطيل الوقوف تحت شجرة المعرفة."
September 22, 2020
Başkaları zamana düşer, bense zamandan düştüm.
Zaman kanımdan çekildi; birbirine destek olur ve birlikte akarlardı; şimdi donup kalmışlarken,artık hiçbir şeyin olmamasına şaşmak mı gerek?
Zaman kanımdan çekildi; birbirine destek olur ve birlikte akarlardı; şimdi donup kalmışlarken,artık hiçbir şeyin olmamasına şaşmak mı gerek?
March 19, 2012
What can I say about Cioran other than to assert his brilliantly precise skepticism and, dare I say, in some perverse way, life affirming thought. He wrote this after "A Short History of Decay" and "All Gall is Divided," and the longer essay format fits his thought well. The last piece, a collection of disconnected (possibly) fragments on time and existence, "The Fall Out of Time" read like a lyric essay that could have been written yesterday and still miles deep into the fathoms of The Essay. He did all of this in a learned tongue that he learned in his late teens/early twenties...unreal.
I have read everything Howard has translated into English by Cioran and can't recommend the first two essays, "The Fall into Time" and "Civilized Man" highly enough. They are, in my opinion, perfect starting points for any scholarly Cioranian study.
I have read everything Howard has translated into English by Cioran and can't recommend the first two essays, "The Fall into Time" and "Civilized Man" highly enough. They are, in my opinion, perfect starting points for any scholarly Cioranian study.
March 5, 2023
Cioran e interesant rău.🫠
August 4, 2023
‘nu-i bine pentru om să-și amintească în fiecare clipă că este om’
November 20, 2023
mam wrażenie, że cioran jest niemal zawsze przedstawiany od strony jego nihilizmu, obsesji wokół śmierci i samobójstwa, co w ogóle nie wydaje się być spójne z esencją jego myśli…
to, co najbardziej wybrzmiewa tutaj to głęboki antyhumanizm, postawienie na to, co ma służyć człowiekowi i jego szczęściu. chorobę cywilizacji łączy z podejsciem naukowym, oświeceniowym - obiektywnym (choć możemy wstawić tutaj wiele rzeczy, które prowadzą do stanu jaki mamy dzisiaj), które głęboko przesiąkło życie jednostki.
rozdziały „portret cywilizowanego” i „wypaść z czasu” najlepsze. ten drugi w zasadzie jest zwieńczeniem, zebraniem wszystkiego w jedno w piękny, dynamiczny sposób… cioran - poeta i enfant terrible !
dodatkowo, polecam esej sontag o cioranie dla odrobiny dysonansu poznawczego!!!
to, co najbardziej wybrzmiewa tutaj to głęboki antyhumanizm, postawienie na to, co ma służyć człowiekowi i jego szczęściu. chorobę cywilizacji łączy z podejsciem naukowym, oświeceniowym - obiektywnym (choć możemy wstawić tutaj wiele rzeczy, które prowadzą do stanu jaki mamy dzisiaj), które głęboko przesiąkło życie jednostki.
rozdziały „portret cywilizowanego” i „wypaść z czasu” najlepsze. ten drugi w zasadzie jest zwieńczeniem, zebraniem wszystkiego w jedno w piękny, dynamiczny sposób… cioran - poeta i enfant terrible !
dodatkowo, polecam esej sontag o cioranie dla odrobiny dysonansu poznawczego!!!
June 4, 2021
Libro altamente recomendado, muy deleitable y disfrutable desde el punto de vista estético, pero que nos pone desde un principio en una situación incómoda, al borde de un principio de dudas y preguntas sin respuestas. Las contradicciones de Cioran nos colocan de frente a nuestra propia imagen( pero a aquella imagen de nosotros que rehusamos ver), a nuestras ideas, destino, creencias, fe, todos igualmente contradictorios y absurdos.
April 7, 2022
Acord aceste 4 stele (și nu 5) mai mult capacității mele de înțelegere. Nu mă consider îndeajuns de competent încât să încerc o recenzie cum ar merita-o Cioran.
December 25, 2021
الكاتب الرّوماني الأصل سيوران هو ابن كاهن أرثوذكسي عاش في باريس ويكتب بالرّومانية حتى أدرك أن هذه اللّغة ماتت فيه وقرر التخلّي عنها تماما..
ارتبط المثقفون في ذلك الوقت، وخاصة الفرنسيون، ارتباطا وثيقا بالسّياسة والوضع العام، مع استثناءات قليلة، ولم يتمكّنوا من الانسجام مع فكر كاتب لم يتعاطف مع شيء، وبلا سبب، حتى مع الجنس البشري وكان تعاطفه أقلّ من ذلك بكثير مع نفسه.
كما هو الحال بعد بضعة أسطر من الكتاب يؤكّد لنا : "نحن لسنا حقّا إلاّ حين نقف وجها لوجه مع ذواتنا فلا نتطابق مع شيء، ولا حتّى مع فرادتنا. (ص6)
يكتب سيوران للأفكار لأنّه يعتبرها المصدر والمبدأ الرئيسي للمعرفة، ذلك أنّ أيّ فكرة عميقة سيتم تحييدها عاجلا أم آجلا بمواجهتها بنقيضها ..
سيوران هو رجل يكتب بفكره النّقي ويدرك أن هذا الفكر نفسه ليس معصوما من الخطأ ..
يعالج في كتابه جميع "مشاكل" الحياة في "السّقوط في الزمن".
يبدأ تحليله من القصّة الدّينية عن الفردوس ليخلص بنا إلى ذلك السؤال الذي يبدو فاتحة لكل شيء:
ماذا يمكن للمرء أن يتوقّع من شخص بدأ حياته الأرضية بالخيانة لهديّة الجهل التي منحها الخالق له؟
إن طبيعة الإنسان تفترض الهشاشة، والمغالاة ضرورة بالنّسبة إليه، والشكّ يجعله غير مناسب للحياة في الفردوس..
- ماهو الحل؟
- لا يوجد.
إن التخلّي عن الخير والشرّ (ثم التخلّص من هوس الذّات) من الممكن أن يكون حقا علاجا للحياة، إذا كانت تلك الحياة التي لا هدف لها هي بالضّبط التي دفعتنا إلى السّير في الطّريق السّيئ لأوّل مرّة..
الحياة شرّ عرضيّ والفرد هو حادث .. إن علاج السّقوط في الزّمن بالنسبة إلى سيوران يشكل شرّا أعظم : الجمود والركود والملل والجحيم ؛ في تعبير واحد هو السقوط في الزّمن ..
هذا الكتاب إدانة للحياة كما نعرفها أو نتوقعها ..
ممتع للغاية ومبهر من الناحية الجمالية أيضا . يضعنا سيوران في موقف محرج منذ البداية إذ يستهلّ مشواره في هذا الكتاب بتكوين شكوك وأسئلة بلا إجابة،كما تجرّدنا فرضياته المتناقضة من كل أوهامنا وإسقاطاتنا على ذواتنا لتدفع بنا أمام صورتنا الخام(إنها تلك الصّورة التي ننكرها ونأبى رؤيتها). ذلك أن أفكارنا ومصيرنا ومعتقداتنا وإيماننا، كلّها متناقضة حدّ العبث..
من المفترض أن يكون سيوران متشائما أو عدميا لأن انطباعه عن المعرفة واللغة والوعي يقضي بأنها كلها بداية لمعاناتنا. وعلى الرغم من أنني وقعت في كف هذا التشاؤم إلا أن ذلك لم يحل دون أن أجد سيوران ساخرا ومضحكا في بعض الأحيان ..
كتاب مليء بتأملات عميقة ومثيرة للدهشة وهي على الأرجح قادرة على أن تزعزع نمط تفكير القارئ وأن تدفع به إلى بوتقة الأسئلة المضنية .
ارتبط المثقفون في ذلك الوقت، وخاصة الفرنسيون، ارتباطا وثيقا بالسّياسة والوضع العام، مع استثناءات قليلة، ولم يتمكّنوا من الانسجام مع فكر كاتب لم يتعاطف مع شيء، وبلا سبب، حتى مع الجنس البشري وكان تعاطفه أقلّ من ذلك بكثير مع نفسه.
كما هو الحال بعد بضعة أسطر من الكتاب يؤكّد لنا : "نحن لسنا حقّا إلاّ حين نقف وجها لوجه مع ذواتنا فلا نتطابق مع شيء، ولا حتّى مع فرادتنا. (ص6)
يكتب سيوران للأفكار لأنّه يعتبرها المصدر والمبدأ الرئيسي للمعرفة، ذلك أنّ أيّ فكرة عميقة سيتم تحييدها عاجلا أم آجلا بمواجهتها بنقيضها ..
سيوران هو رجل يكتب بفكره النّقي ويدرك أن هذا الفكر نفسه ليس معصوما من الخطأ ..
يعالج في كتابه جميع "مشاكل" الحياة في "السّقوط في الزمن".
يبدأ تحليله من القصّة الدّينية عن الفردوس ليخلص بنا إلى ذلك السؤال الذي يبدو فاتحة لكل شيء:
ماذا يمكن للمرء أن يتوقّع من شخص بدأ حياته الأرضية بالخيانة لهديّة الجهل التي منحها الخالق له؟
إن طبيعة الإنسان تفترض الهشاشة، والمغالاة ضرورة بالنّسبة إليه، والشكّ يجعله غير مناسب للحياة في الفردوس..
- ماهو الحل؟
- لا يوجد.
إن التخلّي عن الخير والشرّ (ثم التخلّص من هوس الذّات) من الممكن أن يكون حقا علاجا للحياة، إذا كانت تلك الحياة التي لا هدف لها هي بالضّبط التي دفعتنا إلى السّير في الطّريق السّيئ لأوّل مرّة..
الحياة شرّ عرضيّ والفرد هو حادث .. إن علاج السّقوط في الزّمن بالنسبة إلى سيوران يشكل شرّا أعظم : الجمود والركود والملل والجحيم ؛ في تعبير واحد هو السقوط في الزّمن ..
هذا الكتاب إدانة للحياة كما نعرفها أو نتوقعها ..
ممتع للغاية ومبهر من الناحية الجمالية أيضا . يضعنا سيوران في موقف محرج منذ البداية إذ يستهلّ مشواره في هذا الكتاب بتكوين شكوك وأسئلة بلا إجابة،كما تجرّدنا فرضياته المتناقضة من كل أوهامنا وإسقاطاتنا على ذواتنا لتدفع بنا أمام صورتنا الخام(إنها تلك الصّورة التي ننكرها ونأبى رؤيتها). ذلك أن أفكارنا ومصيرنا ومعتقداتنا وإيماننا، كلّها متناقضة حدّ العبث..
من المفترض أن يكون سيوران متشائما أو عدميا لأن انطباعه عن المعرفة واللغة والوعي يقضي بأنها كلها بداية لمعاناتنا. وعلى الرغم من أنني وقعت في كف هذا التشاؤم إلا أن ذلك لم يحل دون أن أجد سيوران ساخرا ومضحكا في بعض الأحيان ..
كتاب مليء بتأملات عميقة ومثيرة للدهشة وهي على الأرجح قادرة على أن تزعزع نمط تفكير القارئ وأن تدفع به إلى بوتقة الأسئلة المضنية .
July 21, 2021
istediğim kadar anlara yapışayım, anlar sıvışıyor. bana hasmane davranmayan, tanımazdan gelmeyen ve benimle düşüp kalkmayı reddettiğini bildirmeyen tek bir an yok. hepsi yanaşılmaz olan bu anlar birbiri ardına, tecridimi ve yenilgimi ilan ediyorlar.
alıntıdan fark edildiği üzere, müthiş bir kitap.
cioran zor bir yazar, onun düşüncelerini anlamaya çalışan bir okur olarak azıcık kendi dünyana çekildiğinde kayboluyorsun.
kimler okumalı?
insanlığa lanetler yağdıran huysuz bir yazarı hoşgörü ile karşılayabilecek okur tarafından tercih edilebilir. kişi sabırla kendine eğilmek isterse, ısrarla yaptığı hatalar karşısında "aşağılık bir şey" yaptığını kabul edebilecek kadar alçakgönüllü olabilecekse tadından yenmez bir kitaptır. yoğun, felsefi ve acımasız olduğunu da eklersek iyi olur.
January 14, 2023
ماذا عساي أقول؟
سيوران يا عزائي, يا مؤنسي, ويا عشقي الأبدي!
كيف يمكن للكلمات ان تصفك أو تُنصفك. لا لا مُحال, محال أيها الجميل. من اين لك هذا؟ من يدعمك؟! آه وألف آه, هل لي بعناق فكري او قبلة متافيزيقية!
وحيك و وحي من يتهمونك بكل تلك التلفيقات المخزية! تقرأ سيوران فتلامس الروح و الوجود وتشاكس الواقع. كتاباته بلسم يجعل الجروح تندمل! آآه أأغني ام ارقص او اصيح ام ابكي، اظن أني ساصمت .....
كمون هو وضعي!
سيوران يا عزائي, يا مؤنسي, ويا عشقي الأبدي!
كيف يمكن للكلمات ان تصفك أو تُنصفك. لا لا مُحال, محال أيها الجميل. من اين لك هذا؟ من يدعمك؟! آه وألف آه, هل لي بعناق فكري او قبلة متافيزيقية!
وحيك و وحي من يتهمونك بكل تلك التلفيقات المخزية! تقرأ سيوران فتلامس الروح و الوجود وتشاكس الواقع. كتاباته بلسم يجعل الجروح تندمل! آآه أأغني ام ارقص او اصيح ام ابكي، اظن أني ساصمت .....
كمون هو وضعي!
April 10, 2025
Own Notes:
- Cioran said: "I am interested only in Those which are flooded in Music." - in this, however, fails to observe the divine Music that plays in Every Human Being.
- Cioran's speaking of Wisdom in the Conventional Sense. - It's rather the Uncovering of the invisible Threads that the Wisdom may create. (the Protective Gap outside Volition)
- Agony = the Highway to Bliss.
- Agony = the Path of the Heart pervading through Everything.
- Pain = Realignment to Universal Order.
- Pain = the utmost Importance of One's Core Being.
- Pain = God greeting Oneself through a Blowing Whirlpool of Stars within Oneself.
- Pain = the Way in which the Heart makes Haste.
- Pain = the biggest Blessing.
- To love Suffering - is to live lovingly.
-----------
Precious Quotes from the Author:
"Once we each had our Star - now we find ourselves Slaves to some ordinary Chemistry - this is the ultimate Degradation of the Notion of Destiny."
"Man still has his Road to travel - and since he is advancing by the Virtue of acquired Illusion - he cannot stop until the Illusion disintegrates, disappears.
But it is indestructible as long as Man remains an Accomplice of Time."
"Having sought to be other - he will end by being nothing."
"There is no Future for those who live in the Idolatry of Tomorrow."
"Provided that he avoided the 'Snares of Becoming', but once he had experienced their Seduction -> he abandoned himself to them - a State of Grace based on Intoxication -> which only an Ascent to Unreality can afford."
"What might Man not have achieved by an Effort contrary to the one required by an adherence to Time ?"
"Instead of trying to recover Himself - to re-encounter Himself and his Timeless Depths -> Man has trained his Faculties on External - on History -- if only he would have internalized them by their Exercise and Direction - his Salvation would be assured."
"If Man already wills in excess in his Present State -> what would become of him once he ascedes to the Rank of Superman ? - He will doubtless explode and fall back upon Himself."
"To believe it is his Responsability to transcend his Condition - and tend toward that of the Superman - is to forget that he has Trouble enough to sustain himself as Man - and that he succeds only by straining his Will."
"A Man who seeks to be more than he is - will not fail to be less -- The Disequilibrium of Tension will sooner or later will yeld to that of Slackness and Abandonment."
"Wisdom is deadly - to the Man that seeks to manifest Himself - to exercise his Gifts."
"To make ourselves unvulnerable - is to close Ourselves to almost any Sensation we feel in the common Life."
"When he speaks good of his Kind - he notices less Power and Pleasure - than when he speaks badly."
"The Depressive - lives in a Heavy Non-Reality."
"This Revelation is so contrary to our Nature - that we long only to forget it."
"To Like or Dislike - is to match Ourselves against Ghosts."
"The more inclined we are to take Pleasure in Everything - the more Disgust persists in keeping us from doing so."
"Pleasure's Function is not in dispelling Paing - but in preparing it."
"Real Life begins and ends with Agony. - such is the Lesson to be learned from Tolstoy."
"A Man's worst Impulse = to append - to explain - to refute - to add to."
"Divined Images by Shadows of no Things."
"Nothing divine - only divined."
- Cioran said: "I am interested only in Those which are flooded in Music." - in this, however, fails to observe the divine Music that plays in Every Human Being.
- Cioran's speaking of Wisdom in the Conventional Sense. - It's rather the Uncovering of the invisible Threads that the Wisdom may create. (the Protective Gap outside Volition)
- Agony = the Highway to Bliss.
- Agony = the Path of the Heart pervading through Everything.
- Pain = Realignment to Universal Order.
- Pain = the utmost Importance of One's Core Being.
- Pain = God greeting Oneself through a Blowing Whirlpool of Stars within Oneself.
- Pain = the Way in which the Heart makes Haste.
- Pain = the biggest Blessing.
- To love Suffering - is to live lovingly.
-----------
Precious Quotes from the Author:
"Once we each had our Star - now we find ourselves Slaves to some ordinary Chemistry - this is the ultimate Degradation of the Notion of Destiny."
"Man still has his Road to travel - and since he is advancing by the Virtue of acquired Illusion - he cannot stop until the Illusion disintegrates, disappears.
But it is indestructible as long as Man remains an Accomplice of Time."
"Having sought to be other - he will end by being nothing."
"There is no Future for those who live in the Idolatry of Tomorrow."
"Provided that he avoided the 'Snares of Becoming', but once he had experienced their Seduction -> he abandoned himself to them - a State of Grace based on Intoxication -> which only an Ascent to Unreality can afford."
"What might Man not have achieved by an Effort contrary to the one required by an adherence to Time ?"
"Instead of trying to recover Himself - to re-encounter Himself and his Timeless Depths -> Man has trained his Faculties on External - on History -- if only he would have internalized them by their Exercise and Direction - his Salvation would be assured."
"If Man already wills in excess in his Present State -> what would become of him once he ascedes to the Rank of Superman ? - He will doubtless explode and fall back upon Himself."
"To believe it is his Responsability to transcend his Condition - and tend toward that of the Superman - is to forget that he has Trouble enough to sustain himself as Man - and that he succeds only by straining his Will."
"A Man who seeks to be more than he is - will not fail to be less -- The Disequilibrium of Tension will sooner or later will yeld to that of Slackness and Abandonment."
"Wisdom is deadly - to the Man that seeks to manifest Himself - to exercise his Gifts."
"To make ourselves unvulnerable - is to close Ourselves to almost any Sensation we feel in the common Life."
"When he speaks good of his Kind - he notices less Power and Pleasure - than when he speaks badly."
"The Depressive - lives in a Heavy Non-Reality."
"This Revelation is so contrary to our Nature - that we long only to forget it."
"To Like or Dislike - is to match Ourselves against Ghosts."
"The more inclined we are to take Pleasure in Everything - the more Disgust persists in keeping us from doing so."
"Pleasure's Function is not in dispelling Paing - but in preparing it."
"Real Life begins and ends with Agony. - such is the Lesson to be learned from Tolstoy."
"A Man's worst Impulse = to append - to explain - to refute - to add to."
"Divined Images by Shadows of no Things."
"Nothing divine - only divined."
June 7, 2020
Cioran propune o solidaritate între "căderea în timp" şi "păcatul originar", unde căderea reprezintă un salt abrupt de la Eternitatea Edenului înspre Temporalitatea Lumească( căci odată ce Omul a muşcat din fructul Cunoaşterii, acesta este realmente pierdut, iar Dumnezeu îl izgoneşte din Eden fiindcă acum Omul îi este egal din punct de vedere al Cunoaşterii).
Deşi Omul este capabil să-şi cunoască istoria, să îşi construiască un viitor pe fundamentul trecutului, acesta nu face altceva decât să-l repete aproape inconştient.
Revelaţia "naturii corupte a timpului" conduce Omul spre un marş al dezastrului iminent, fiindcă atâta timp cât istoria este deschisă prin păcat, finalul nu poate fi decât apocaliptic. Catastrofele naturii nu au un caracter contingent ci sunt în relaţionare strânsă cu o anumită etapă existenţială şi cu libertatea Divinităţii.
"Căderea în timp" reprezintă METAFIZICA TEMPORALITĂŢII, unde introspecţia este focusată pe relaţia dintre Om şi Istorie.
“După ce a stricat adevărata eternitate, omul a căzut în timp, unde a izbutit, dacă nu să prospere, cel puţin să trăiască: sigur e că s-a obişnuit cu noua lui condiţie. Procesul acestei căderi şi al acestei deprinderi se numeşte istorie.
Dar iată că-l ameninţă o altă cădere, a cărei amploare e însă greu de apreciat. De data asta, el nu va mai cădea din eternitate, ci din timp; şi a cădea din timp înseamnă a cădea din istorie, înseamnă, devenirea fiind suspendată, împotmolirea în inerta şi posaca monotonie, în absolutul stagnării, acolo unde verbul însuşi se împotmoleşte, neputându-se înalţă până la blasfemie sau până la implorare. Iminentă sau nu, această cădere e posibilă, ba chiar inevitabilă. Când îi va fi dată, omul nu va mai fi un animal istoric. Şi atunci, după ce-şi va fi pierdut până şi amintirea adevăratei eternităţi, a primei sale fericiri, îşi va întoarce privirile spre universul temporal, spre acest al doilea paradis din care va fi fost izgonit”.
Deşi Omul este capabil să-şi cunoască istoria, să îşi construiască un viitor pe fundamentul trecutului, acesta nu face altceva decât să-l repete aproape inconştient.
Revelaţia "naturii corupte a timpului" conduce Omul spre un marş al dezastrului iminent, fiindcă atâta timp cât istoria este deschisă prin păcat, finalul nu poate fi decât apocaliptic. Catastrofele naturii nu au un caracter contingent ci sunt în relaţionare strânsă cu o anumită etapă existenţială şi cu libertatea Divinităţii.
"Căderea în timp" reprezintă METAFIZICA TEMPORALITĂŢII, unde introspecţia este focusată pe relaţia dintre Om şi Istorie.
“După ce a stricat adevărata eternitate, omul a căzut în timp, unde a izbutit, dacă nu să prospere, cel puţin să trăiască: sigur e că s-a obişnuit cu noua lui condiţie. Procesul acestei căderi şi al acestei deprinderi se numeşte istorie.
Dar iată că-l ameninţă o altă cădere, a cărei amploare e însă greu de apreciat. De data asta, el nu va mai cădea din eternitate, ci din timp; şi a cădea din timp înseamnă a cădea din istorie, înseamnă, devenirea fiind suspendată, împotmolirea în inerta şi posaca monotonie, în absolutul stagnării, acolo unde verbul însuşi se împotmoleşte, neputându-se înalţă până la blasfemie sau până la implorare. Iminentă sau nu, această cădere e posibilă, ba chiar inevitabilă. Când îi va fi dată, omul nu va mai fi un animal istoric. Şi atunci, după ce-şi va fi pierdut până şi amintirea adevăratei eternităţi, a primei sale fericiri, îşi va întoarce privirile spre universul temporal, spre acest al doilea paradis din care va fi fost izgonit”.
May 12, 2018
Dacă fiecare dintre noi ar mărturisi dorința lui cea mai tainică, cea care-i inspiră toate proiectele și toate faptele, el ar spune: "Vreau să fiu lăudat". Dar nimeni nu se va hotărî la această mărturisire, căci e mai puțin dezonorant să săvârșești o nelegiuire decât să proclami o slăbiciune atât de jalnică și de umilitoare, ivită dintr-un sentiment de singurătate și nesiguranță de care suferă, cu o egală intensitate, și ghinioniștii și norocoșii. Nimeni nu e sigur de ceea ce el este și de ceea ce el face. Oricât am fi de pătrunși de meritele noastre, suntem roși de neliniște și nu cerem, spre a o depăși, decât să fim înșelați, să primim încuviințarea de oriunde și de la oricine. Observatorul descoperă o nuanță rugătoare in privirea oricui a terminat o acțiune sau o operă, sau a celui care pur și simplu, se consacră unui gen oarecare de activitate. Această infirmitate este universală; iar Dumnezeu pare a nu fi fost atins de ea doar pentru că, după ce și-a terminat creația, nu putea, din lipsă de martori, să se aștepte la laude. E adevărat însă că și le-a oferit singur, și încă la sfârșitul fiecărei zile!
October 10, 2021
Cioran never fails to dazzle. His ruminations on humankind's hopeless condition take the shape of frenetic essays here, rather than his usual aphoristic style. It is a shame that this book has failed to be republished since its original printing. Physical copies of this work are scarce – I myself was gifted it, for which I am grateful, but it came at a cost of $90.
This work does contain an at-times frustrating mystery, which the reader must decipher as to what exactly Cioran is getting at. While this sometimes occurs with his work, it feels rather odd and rambling. My rating was somewhere between four and five but given my love for Emil and for the extravagance this book often wields, I've rounded up.
This work does contain an at-times frustrating mystery, which the reader must decipher as to what exactly Cioran is getting at. While this sometimes occurs with his work, it feels rather odd and rambling. My rating was somewhere between four and five but given my love for Emil and for the extravagance this book often wields, I've rounded up.
February 10, 2024
في أعماق أفكاره المُظلمة، يتلوى سيوران حول نفسه بلا رحمة، يجذبك إلى أفكاره السوداوية، ويلعب أمامك بأغراض الوجود مُسَوِفًا مقصده مؤجلًا غايته، مُبتعدًا عنه، يأخذك معه لتهرب من الذات وتنسى أنك إنسان. يُجرفك بتياره القويّ بطوفان نوح المظلم إلى الأفق البعيد لتكتشف فجأة أنك سقطت في عُمق البحر مُتأملًا وأنت تغرق الأفق البعيد الذي كنت للتو تتحسسه لتبدأ تشك حتى تصل إلى آخر نقطة في عمق البحر حيث تشك في الشك نفسه.
السّقوط في الزّمن هو ذلك الفعل الذي لحق الخطيئة الأولى وطوفان نوح؛ هو السقوط الذي يخبئك داخل ذواتك (كُلها) هربًا منها متوغل في حاجة أن تكون ولا شيء. في صفحات هذا الكتاب، يستمر سيوران بالتساؤلات والشكوك عن الحياة والخوف والمجد والموت والمرض والانتحار وتلاشي الزمن فينا وانتهاك الإرادة.
يبدأ سيوران في الحديث عن ما قبل الحياة؛ عن الخطيئة وما نتجته من أبدية ضالة وذات مُرعبة وبراءة ملوثة وخوف يُهددنا وسلطة مُبالغة. ثُم يتناول الانسان الحضاري وغيرته واستدراجه لكل القبائل الذين لم يقعوا في فخ الحضارة، ليجزء دوافع الإنسان قائلًا بأن سعادة الآخر لم تكن أبدًا دافع لحركتنا إذ لا يمكن الاعتراف حقًا بدوافعنا.
ثُم يُشَرِح حالة الانسان الشكاك والهمجي ليُقارن ويتساءل ما إذا كان الشيطان شكاك. بينما الانسان يبذل قصاري جهده في شكه في إصلاح الوجود ااذي قام بتفكيكه، لا نستطيع ان نُصنف الشيطان لا من الارواح الجادة ولا التافهة بل في وضع العابر القلق إذ لا مكان ولا زمان يعطيانه الاحساس الملزم بالحقيقة.
يُقدم بعدها سيوران أفكاره عن المجد والمرض والموت كَثُلاثي لا مفر منه. يبدأ الانسان برغبته المحضة بالمجد وسرعان ما تتلاشى عندما يؤدبه المرض الذي يأتي ببطء شديد ويعتصر الأعضاء كحالة "مصرع إيفان إيليتش" ليتبعه أبدية بعيدة.
وينتهي الكتاب في التوغل بمخاطر الحكمة التي تقضي بأن الوهم هو الشيء الوحيد الحقيقي والمخصب والأصل وبالسقوط التام الأبديّ في الزمن: يسقط الآخرونَ في الزمن؛ أما أنا فقد سقطتُ منه." السقوط من الزمن في الزمن يُبين الحياة كحالة اضطرارية والوجود كشيء حتمي شاذ لا مفر منه والهرب من المسؤولية الوجودية كعذاب مُترف نستلقي فيه داخل ال��من الذي نهلع فيه بدايةً ثُم نتعود على طوفانه المظلم كأمواج هادئة ترخي عضلاتنا.
السّقوط في الزّمن هو ذلك الفعل الذي لحق الخطيئة الأولى وطوفان نوح؛ هو السقوط الذي يخبئك داخل ذواتك (كُلها) هربًا منها متوغل في حاجة أن تكون ولا شيء. في صفحات هذا الكتاب، يستمر سيوران بالتساؤلات والشكوك عن الحياة والخوف والمجد والموت والمرض والانتحار وتلاشي الزمن فينا وانتهاك الإرادة.
يبدأ سيوران في الحديث عن ما قبل الحياة؛ عن الخطيئة وما نتجته من أبدية ضالة وذات مُرعبة وبراءة ملوثة وخوف يُهددنا وسلطة مُبالغة. ثُم يتناول الانسان الحضاري وغيرته واستدراجه لكل القبائل الذين لم يقعوا في فخ الحضارة، ليجزء دوافع الإنسان قائلًا بأن سعادة الآخر لم تكن أبدًا دافع لحركتنا إذ لا يمكن الاعتراف حقًا بدوافعنا.
ثُم يُشَرِح حالة الانسان الشكاك والهمجي ليُقارن ويتساءل ما إذا كان الشيطان شكاك. بينما الانسان يبذل قصاري جهده في شكه في إصلاح الوجود ااذي قام بتفكيكه، لا نستطيع ان نُصنف الشيطان لا من الارواح الجادة ولا التافهة بل في وضع العابر القلق إذ لا مكان ولا زمان يعطيانه الاحساس الملزم بالحقيقة.
يُقدم بعدها سيوران أفكاره عن المجد والمرض والموت كَثُلاثي لا مفر منه. يبدأ الانسان برغبته المحضة بالمجد وسرعان ما تتلاشى عندما يؤدبه المرض الذي يأتي ببطء شديد ويعتصر الأعضاء كحالة "مصرع إيفان إيليتش" ليتبعه أبدية بعيدة.
وينتهي الكتاب في التوغل بمخاطر الحكمة التي تقضي بأن الوهم هو الشيء الوحيد الحقيقي والمخصب والأصل وبالسقوط التام الأبديّ في الزمن: يسقط الآخرونَ في الزمن؛ أما أنا فقد سقطتُ منه." السقوط من الزمن في الزمن يُبين الحياة كحالة اضطرارية والوجود كشيء حتمي شاذ لا مفر منه والهرب من المسؤولية الوجودية كعذاب مُترف نستلقي فيه داخل ال��من الذي نهلع فيه بدايةً ثُم نتعود على طوفانه المظلم كأمواج هادئة ترخي عضلاتنا.
May 19, 2020
Hopefully one day (soon) some publisher will reprint this book so more of Cioran's poverty-stricken admirers will have access to it. I pined for a copy for many years, scouring the internet and seeing nothing under $100 when I couldn't even have afforded it at $50. As a completist with every other one of his books in my collection, this glaring omission from my bookshelf was driving me to despair. I only managed to at last get a copy as a birthday present from a generous friend. NOW I AM COMPLETE. Not in any way a disappointment, this one features some of Cioran's finest, most astute, most brutal essays. No aphorisms here, if that's what you're looking for, so in that way it is similar to "The Temptation to Exist," though without question superior in content. Imagine waiting years to get your hands on a book and finding out it sucks. Cioran never wrote anything lousy, though -- in French, that is.
November 19, 2015
Iniziamo con il dire che "La caduta nel tempo" non è un saggio semplice. Va analizzato, compreso, capito, metabolizzato e anche vissuto, da un certo punto di vista. Va vissuto nella sua interezza, ma soprattutto nei suoi pensieri o meglio nei pensieri di Cioran.
Sin dall'inizio si percepisce una sorta di inquietudine:
"Non è bene che l'uomo si ricordi ogni istante di essere uomo".
Cioran tocca in questo saggio di circa 130 pagine una serie di temi, che vanno dall'albero della vita, sino alla gloria e alla malattia.
Non c'è pedanteria, ma il desiderio di spiegare, di guidarci lungo la vita e le sue fasi, liberandoci da alcuni orpelli che risultano essere ingombranti e pesanti.
La caduta di cui parla Cioran è la caduta che è prima umana, morale, etica, e che pian piano annuncia la caduta della Storia pronta a risucchiarci nella sua voragine.
Sin dall'inizio si percepisce una sorta di inquietudine:
"Non è bene che l'uomo si ricordi ogni istante di essere uomo".
Cioran tocca in questo saggio di circa 130 pagine una serie di temi, che vanno dall'albero della vita, sino alla gloria e alla malattia.
Non c'è pedanteria, ma il desiderio di spiegare, di guidarci lungo la vita e le sue fasi, liberandoci da alcuni orpelli che risultano essere ingombranti e pesanti.
La caduta di cui parla Cioran è la caduta che è prima umana, morale, etica, e che pian piano annuncia la caduta della Storia pronta a risucchiarci nella sua voragine.
April 24, 2020
Its rarely that I read a book in one breath, but this nihilistic work on subjects like civilisation, Ilness and the fear of death is definitively one of those scarce campaign reads. Although Cioran is definitely not for anyone, if you can manage to read him, the darkness and despair in his words is not a proclamation of nothingness and capitulation in front of the absurdity of existence, but on a contrary- an invitation to accept yourself as you are and find meaning within the boundaries of what really means to be a human, without the encumberment of the modern urge for the exceptional.
December 3, 2023
“Nu-i bine pentru om să-și amintească în fiecare clipă că este om.” - căderea începe cu prima propoziție.
Se conclude astfel, într-un târziu, toamna cioraniană. Căderea, însă, continuă.
Se conclude astfel, într-un târziu, toamna cioraniană. Căderea, însă, continuă.
December 12, 2020
After many abortive attempts, I’ve finally finished this book.
I was interested to see that the writer of the introduction (which was phenomenal as far as introductions go) used an Artaud quote to start and conclude the intro. Artaud not only pales in comparison to Cioran, but is a much more limited thinker and much more annoyingly postmodern/reactionary, whereas Cioran is much wittier and more nuanced (and, as a result, more original) than any other postmodern I’ve read.
And I would say Cioran is more of a postmodern than a modern, since he, in the tradition of Nietzsche, largely focuses on the loss of God and the ramifications that has caused. While Nietzsche claimed the absence of God required something to fill the void (like the will to power or the Ubermensch), Cioran seems to imply that nothing can; the veil has been torn, the wizard behind the curtain is a small man talking into a microphone, and we can never unsee this. This is not gloating in any way, and it’s not technically pessimistic; it’s something else. There isn’t the rapid heartbeats and wide-eyed hairpulling of nihilism here, there’s something else entirely. Something which, although resigned to floating adrift on the ocean, decides to recline in the dingy and sing to the starry sky, because Cioran is an insomniac anyway.
Cioran rightly points out how humans, who have so ardently divorced themselves from the animal kingdom and from nature itself (both of which were the goal and basis of premodernity) are now lost. It used to be that, for examplem in a Christian context, being “not of the world” was a good thing, because it implied another world which you would be able to relate to (We Are but Pilgrims Here, etc.). With the disenchantment of modernism which is completed in postmodernity (whose parents are WWI and WWII), there is no way to regain that enchantment. If the Fall into Sin was falling into a battle with God Himself, the Fall of Disenchantment was a fall into the hell of Sartre, where hell is other people, even, as Cioran would say (going one step further), hell is ourselves divorced from the old ways, and divorced from true communion with others. I’m impressed by Cioran’s knowledge of theology and his surprisingly respectful approach to Christianity and religion. He acknowledges its goodness, in other words how it kept us sane, but he doesn’t gloat over its fading nor does he lament it, per se. He laments the more general fall into madness that religion’s absence causes. But even lament isn’t the right word.
The second essay starts with a witty denunciation of “civilizing” and how “enlightening” the “primitive” (or proselytizing to the heathen) is actually just infecting them with the same disease that you have, it’s being jealous of their untainted reality and forcing them to suffer the same way as you. You see their lack of medical care and you assume that mortgages and suicide and depression are better, when in reality they might not be.
“Was it really to "save time" that these engines were invented? More deprived, more disinherited
than the troglodyte, civilized man has not one moment to himself; his very leisure is feverish,”
"In cultivated periods, men make it a kind of religion to admire what was admired in primitive times," notes Voltaire
“All things considered, the century of the end will not be the most refined or even the most complicated, but the most hurried, the century in which, its Being dissolved in movement, civilization, in a supreme impulse toward the worst, will fall to pieces in the whirlwind it has raised.”
The third essay starts talking about the changing of the gods (instead of the changing of the guard), and that we’re at such a junction as the romans were when Christianity burst onto the scene, but ends talking about the nature of doubt and its differences with negation. Whereas negation is simply the other side of the same coin as acceptance, doubt is throwing the coin away. It’s an option outside of the other two, instead of a third side of the coin (the rim, perhaps) nor is it a tangent off of negation; it’s its own beast.
“A civilization begins by myth and ends in doubt”
“To deny, granted, is to affirm in reverse.”
“Because negation is an aggressive, impure doubt, an inverted dogmatism, it rarely denies itself, rarely frees itself from its frenzies. Doubt, on the other hand, frequently, even inevitably, calls itself in question, prefers to abolish itself rather than see its perplexities degenerate into articles of faith.”
He ties that idea of doubt back to the start of the essay with the following:
“A religion is nothing by itself; its fate depends on those who adopt it. The new gods demand new men, capable, in any circumstance, of decision, of choice, of saying firmly yes or no, instead of floundering in quibbles or becoming anemic by abuse of nuance. Since the virtues of barbarians consist precisely in the power of taking sides, of affirming or denying, they will always be celebrated by declining periods. The nostalgia for barbarism is the last word of a civilization; and thereby of skepticism.”
The next essay fleshes out the negation/affirmation & doubt (skepticism) paradigm, especially about how doubt is a much more dogmatic and more entrenched stance than the vacillation between negation and acceptance. In essence, at least those latter two are human, whereas doubt is paralyzing and stultifying:
“Affirmation and negation being no different qualitatively, the transition from one to the other is natural and easy. But once we have espoused doubt, it is neither easy nor natural to return to the certitudes they represent”
“If certitude were established on earth, if it suppressed all trace of curiosity and anxiety from men's minds, nothing would be changed for the predestined skeptic. Even when his arguments are demolished one by one, he is not shaken from his positions. To dislodge him, to disturb him deeply, he must be attacked on his greed for vacillations, his thirst for perplexities: what he seeks is not truth, it is endless insecurity, endless interrogation. Hesitation, which is his passion, his risk, his discount martyrdom, will dominate all his thoughts and all his undertakings. And though he vacillates as much by method as by necessity, he will nonetheless react like a fanatic: he cannot leave off his obsessions or, a fortiori, himself. Infinite doubt will make him, paradoxically, the prisoner of a closed world. Since he will not be conscious of this, he will persist in believing that his course collides with no barrier and that it is neither inflected nor altered by the slightest weakness. His exasperated need of uncertainty will become a disease for which he will seek no remedy
“But you will keep one illusion nonetheless: the tenacious, ineradicable one of believing you have none.”
There are a few more essays of varying quality, but the initial fire which burned in the first three or so essays kept to a glow of embers until the last essay. Time, perhaps the most pregnant of all topics, comprised that last essay, which was an absolute tour de force which was almost solid underlining for me.
“In an explained universe, nothing would still have a meaning, except madness itself.”
“To know we are mortal is really to die twice over-no, is to die each time we know we must die.”
Overall I was positively surprised by Cioran; he’s often portrayed as some nihilistic curmudgeon who is some fatalistic prophet of doom, while in reality I found him very engaging, very nuanced and easy to follow despite his massive vocabulary, and a frankly pleasant read. He understood Christianity and religion in general very well, didn’t disparage is unfairly, and was thoroughly against certain dead ideologies like scientism and other drivel. A philosopher everyone should be familiar with, and a great introduction to him and his work.
I was interested to see that the writer of the introduction (which was phenomenal as far as introductions go) used an Artaud quote to start and conclude the intro. Artaud not only pales in comparison to Cioran, but is a much more limited thinker and much more annoyingly postmodern/reactionary, whereas Cioran is much wittier and more nuanced (and, as a result, more original) than any other postmodern I’ve read.
And I would say Cioran is more of a postmodern than a modern, since he, in the tradition of Nietzsche, largely focuses on the loss of God and the ramifications that has caused. While Nietzsche claimed the absence of God required something to fill the void (like the will to power or the Ubermensch), Cioran seems to imply that nothing can; the veil has been torn, the wizard behind the curtain is a small man talking into a microphone, and we can never unsee this. This is not gloating in any way, and it’s not technically pessimistic; it’s something else. There isn’t the rapid heartbeats and wide-eyed hairpulling of nihilism here, there’s something else entirely. Something which, although resigned to floating adrift on the ocean, decides to recline in the dingy and sing to the starry sky, because Cioran is an insomniac anyway.
Cioran rightly points out how humans, who have so ardently divorced themselves from the animal kingdom and from nature itself (both of which were the goal and basis of premodernity) are now lost. It used to be that, for examplem in a Christian context, being “not of the world” was a good thing, because it implied another world which you would be able to relate to (We Are but Pilgrims Here, etc.). With the disenchantment of modernism which is completed in postmodernity (whose parents are WWI and WWII), there is no way to regain that enchantment. If the Fall into Sin was falling into a battle with God Himself, the Fall of Disenchantment was a fall into the hell of Sartre, where hell is other people, even, as Cioran would say (going one step further), hell is ourselves divorced from the old ways, and divorced from true communion with others. I’m impressed by Cioran’s knowledge of theology and his surprisingly respectful approach to Christianity and religion. He acknowledges its goodness, in other words how it kept us sane, but he doesn’t gloat over its fading nor does he lament it, per se. He laments the more general fall into madness that religion’s absence causes. But even lament isn’t the right word.
The second essay starts with a witty denunciation of “civilizing” and how “enlightening” the “primitive” (or proselytizing to the heathen) is actually just infecting them with the same disease that you have, it’s being jealous of their untainted reality and forcing them to suffer the same way as you. You see their lack of medical care and you assume that mortgages and suicide and depression are better, when in reality they might not be.
“Was it really to "save time" that these engines were invented? More deprived, more disinherited
than the troglodyte, civilized man has not one moment to himself; his very leisure is feverish,”
"In cultivated periods, men make it a kind of religion to admire what was admired in primitive times," notes Voltaire
“All things considered, the century of the end will not be the most refined or even the most complicated, but the most hurried, the century in which, its Being dissolved in movement, civilization, in a supreme impulse toward the worst, will fall to pieces in the whirlwind it has raised.”
The third essay starts talking about the changing of the gods (instead of the changing of the guard), and that we’re at such a junction as the romans were when Christianity burst onto the scene, but ends talking about the nature of doubt and its differences with negation. Whereas negation is simply the other side of the same coin as acceptance, doubt is throwing the coin away. It’s an option outside of the other two, instead of a third side of the coin (the rim, perhaps) nor is it a tangent off of negation; it’s its own beast.
“A civilization begins by myth and ends in doubt”
“To deny, granted, is to affirm in reverse.”
“Because negation is an aggressive, impure doubt, an inverted dogmatism, it rarely denies itself, rarely frees itself from its frenzies. Doubt, on the other hand, frequently, even inevitably, calls itself in question, prefers to abolish itself rather than see its perplexities degenerate into articles of faith.”
He ties that idea of doubt back to the start of the essay with the following:
“A religion is nothing by itself; its fate depends on those who adopt it. The new gods demand new men, capable, in any circumstance, of decision, of choice, of saying firmly yes or no, instead of floundering in quibbles or becoming anemic by abuse of nuance. Since the virtues of barbarians consist precisely in the power of taking sides, of affirming or denying, they will always be celebrated by declining periods. The nostalgia for barbarism is the last word of a civilization; and thereby of skepticism.”
The next essay fleshes out the negation/affirmation & doubt (skepticism) paradigm, especially about how doubt is a much more dogmatic and more entrenched stance than the vacillation between negation and acceptance. In essence, at least those latter two are human, whereas doubt is paralyzing and stultifying:
“Affirmation and negation being no different qualitatively, the transition from one to the other is natural and easy. But once we have espoused doubt, it is neither easy nor natural to return to the certitudes they represent”
“If certitude were established on earth, if it suppressed all trace of curiosity and anxiety from men's minds, nothing would be changed for the predestined skeptic. Even when his arguments are demolished one by one, he is not shaken from his positions. To dislodge him, to disturb him deeply, he must be attacked on his greed for vacillations, his thirst for perplexities: what he seeks is not truth, it is endless insecurity, endless interrogation. Hesitation, which is his passion, his risk, his discount martyrdom, will dominate all his thoughts and all his undertakings. And though he vacillates as much by method as by necessity, he will nonetheless react like a fanatic: he cannot leave off his obsessions or, a fortiori, himself. Infinite doubt will make him, paradoxically, the prisoner of a closed world. Since he will not be conscious of this, he will persist in believing that his course collides with no barrier and that it is neither inflected nor altered by the slightest weakness. His exasperated need of uncertainty will become a disease for which he will seek no remedy
“But you will keep one illusion nonetheless: the tenacious, ineradicable one of believing you have none.”
There are a few more essays of varying quality, but the initial fire which burned in the first three or so essays kept to a glow of embers until the last essay. Time, perhaps the most pregnant of all topics, comprised that last essay, which was an absolute tour de force which was almost solid underlining for me.
“In an explained universe, nothing would still have a meaning, except madness itself.”
“To know we are mortal is really to die twice over-no, is to die each time we know we must die.”
Overall I was positively surprised by Cioran; he’s often portrayed as some nihilistic curmudgeon who is some fatalistic prophet of doom, while in reality I found him very engaging, very nuanced and easy to follow despite his massive vocabulary, and a frankly pleasant read. He understood Christianity and religion in general very well, didn’t disparage is unfairly, and was thoroughly against certain dead ideologies like scientism and other drivel. A philosopher everyone should be familiar with, and a great introduction to him and his work.
April 9, 2023
بر قلههای زندگی بعد آفوریسمهایی برای زندگی و حالا سقوط در زمان.
پیشگفتاری بسیار روشنگر از مترجم انگلیسی در ابتدای کتاب گنجانده شده است.
«ما از بدبینی خودمان غره شدهایم، افسردگی خود را تا حد شأن متافیزیکی تعالی بخشیدیم. تشخیص چوران چنین است. در اثنایی که انسان معاصر بر آن شده است (مرگ خویش) را از سر بگیرد، افتخارش این است که حتی قادر به درک حقارت اراده نیست. انسان تنها حیوانی است که میتواند هرگونه استحاله را با تبیین قانونی تاب آورد، قادر است هرگونه فقدانی را بدون درک دلالتهای آن توجیه نماید...»
سایر افراد درون زمان سقوط میکنند؛ من از زمان بیرون افتادهام.
امیل چوران
پیشگفتاری بسیار روشنگر از مترجم انگلیسی در ابتدای کتاب گنجانده شده است.
«ما از بدبینی خودمان غره شدهایم، افسردگی خود را تا حد شأن متافیزیکی تعالی بخشیدیم. تشخیص چوران چنین است. در اثنایی که انسان معاصر بر آن شده است (مرگ خویش) را از سر بگیرد، افتخارش این است که حتی قادر به درک حقارت اراده نیست. انسان تنها حیوانی است که میتواند هرگونه استحاله را با تبیین قانونی تاب آورد، قادر است هرگونه فقدانی را بدون درک دلالتهای آن توجیه نماید...»
سایر افراد درون زمان سقوط میکنند؛ من از زمان بیرون افتادهام.
امیل چوران
September 19, 2020
Cioran zorlu bir kitap yazmış. Okumak cüret istiyor.
March 2, 2021
Il saggio su Tolstoj è eccellente. Il resto invece lo ha già detto, meglio, in altri libri.
February 2, 2022
cioran's style gets me everytime
January 19, 2024
Maravilloso. Este libro estudia y reivindica la pasión, la afirmación y el arrojo necesarios para la vivir. Sin que en el fondo todo deje de estar atravesado por lo trágico de la conciencia y la existencia, aquí Ciorán expone los puentes entre la realidad y la humanidad. En cierta medida les da los cimientos a esos puentes.
August 8, 2024
CE POT SĂ MAI ZIC?????? CE POT CE POT??? omul ăsta mi face mintea să aibă orgasm in the nicest, intellectual and intelligent way possible <3
April 14, 2021
Nu-i bine pentru om să-şi amintească în fiecare clipă că este om. E rău fie şi numai să se aplece asupră-şi; dar e şi mai rău să se aplece asupra speciei cu zelul unui obsedat, dând astfel mizeriilor arbitrare ale introspecţiei un fundament obiectiv şi o justificare filosofică. Atâta vreme cât îţi macini propriul eu, poţi crede că cedezi unui capriciu; dar de îndată ce toate eurile devin centrul unei interminabile ruminaţii, regăseşti pe o cale ocolită neajunsurile generalizate ale propriei condiţii, propriul accident înălţat la rangul de normă, de caz universal.
Percepem mai întâi anomalia faptului brut de a exista şi abia după aceea pe cea a situaţiei noastre specifice: uimirea de a fi precede uimirea de a fi om. Totuşi, caracterul insolit al acestei stări ar trebui să constituie datul primordial al perplexităţilor noastre: e mai puţin firesc să fii om decât să fii pur şi simplu. Simţim asta instinctiv; de unde şi voluptatea ce ne cuprinde de fiecare dată când ne întoarcem faţa de la noi înşine pentru a ne cufunda în somnul preafericit al obiectelor. Nu suntem cu adevărat noi înşine decât atunci când, faţă în faţă cu sinele, nu coincidem cu nimic, nici măcar cu singularitatea noastră.
Blestemul ce ne copleşeşte apăsa şi asupra primului nostru strămoş, cu mult înainte ca acesta să fi privit către copacul cunoaşterii. Nemulţumit de sine, el era încă şi mai nemulţumit de Dumnezeu, pe care-l invidia în mod inconştient; a devenit conştient de asta datorită bunelor oficii ale ispititorului, auxiliar mai curând decât autor al ruinei sale. Înainte trăia cu presimţirea cunoaşterii, cu o ştiinţă ce se ignora pe sine, într-o falsă inocenţă, propice înfloririi geloziei, viciu zămislit de frecventarea unuia mai norocos decât sine; or, strămoşul nostru îl avea în preajmă pe Dumnezeu, pândindu-l şi fiind pândit de el. Asta nu putea duce la nimic bun.
„Din toţi pomii din rai poţi să mănânci, iar din pomul cunoştinţei binelui şi răului să nu mănânci, căci în ziua în care vei mânca din el, vei muri negreşit”.
Percepem mai întâi anomalia faptului brut de a exista şi abia după aceea pe cea a situaţiei noastre specifice: uimirea de a fi precede uimirea de a fi om. Totuşi, caracterul insolit al acestei stări ar trebui să constituie datul primordial al perplexităţilor noastre: e mai puţin firesc să fii om decât să fii pur şi simplu. Simţim asta instinctiv; de unde şi voluptatea ce ne cuprinde de fiecare dată când ne întoarcem faţa de la noi înşine pentru a ne cufunda în somnul preafericit al obiectelor. Nu suntem cu adevărat noi înşine decât atunci când, faţă în faţă cu sinele, nu coincidem cu nimic, nici măcar cu singularitatea noastră.
Blestemul ce ne copleşeşte apăsa şi asupra primului nostru strămoş, cu mult înainte ca acesta să fi privit către copacul cunoaşterii. Nemulţumit de sine, el era încă şi mai nemulţumit de Dumnezeu, pe care-l invidia în mod inconştient; a devenit conştient de asta datorită bunelor oficii ale ispititorului, auxiliar mai curând decât autor al ruinei sale. Înainte trăia cu presimţirea cunoaşterii, cu o ştiinţă ce se ignora pe sine, într-o falsă inocenţă, propice înfloririi geloziei, viciu zămislit de frecventarea unuia mai norocos decât sine; or, strămoşul nostru îl avea în preajmă pe Dumnezeu, pândindu-l şi fiind pândit de el. Asta nu putea duce la nimic bun.
„Din toţi pomii din rai poţi să mănânci, iar din pomul cunoştinţei binelui şi răului să nu mănânci, căci în ziua în care vei mânca din el, vei muri negreşit”.
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