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152 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
Solitude: so fulfilling that the merest rendezvous is a crucifixion.It doesn't matter that Cioran didn't pursue his own nihilognostic solution, that he occasionally dialed up the bile til it verged upon the ridiculous—I love the way the man used words in pursuit of his wryly bleak slandering of the universe. Whistling whilst scrubbing, indeed.
I want to write only in an explosive state, in a fever or under great nervous tension, in an atmosphere of settling accounts, where invectives replace blows and slaps. It usually begins this way: a faint trembling that becomes stronger and stronger, as after an insult one has swallowed without responding.
Writing is a provocation, a fortunately false view of reality that sets us above what is and what seems to be...to rival God, even to exceed him by the mere virtue of language: such is the feat of the writer, who, having forsaken his natural condition, has given himself up to a splendid vertigo, always dismaying, sometimes odious.
Writing is a vice one can weary of. In truth, I write less and less, and I shall doubtless end up no longer writing at all, no longer finding the least charm in this combat with others and myself.
When one attacks a subject, however ordinary, one experiences a feeling of plenitude, accompanied by a touch of arrogance. A phenomenon stranger still: that sensation of superiority when one describes a figure one admires. In the middle of a sentence, how easily one believes oneself the center of the world! Writing and worship do not go together: like it or not, to speak of God is to regard Him from on high. Writings is the creature's revenge, and his answer to a botched creation.
"Except for music, everything is a lie, even solitude, even ecstasy. Music, in fact, is the one and the other, only better."To have seen one's youthful idols crushed by a brutal war followed by a half century of exile, one could expect to be pessimistic, even suicidal. Reading his book, however, I noticed shafts of light breaking through the gloom. Perhaps, being an Eastern European myself, I understand the doom and gloom of my Hungarian forebears who had the misfortune of living smack in the middle of one of the two main invasion paths into Europe (or, conversely, into Russia). Most of the "German" dead at Stalingrad were actually Romanians and Hungarians, who were dragooned into fighting for the Master Race.
"In Vedic mythology, anyone raising himself by knowledge upsets the comfort of Heaven. The gods, ever watchful, live in terror of being outclassed. Did the Boss of Genesis behave any differently? Did he not spy on man because he feared him? Because he saw him as a rival? Under these conditions, one understands the great mystics' desire to flee God, His limits and His woes, in order to seek boundlessness in the Godhead."
"I had gone far in search of the sun, and the sun, found at last, was hostile to me. And if I were to fling myself off a cliff? While I was making such rather grim speculations, considering these pines, these rocks, these waves, I suddenly felt how bound I was to this lovely, accursed universe."
Excédé par tous. Mais j’aime rire. Et je ne peux pas rire seul.
L’ironie, cette impertinence nuancée, légèrement fielleuse, est l’art de savoir s’arrêter. Le moindre approfondissement l’anéantit. Si vous avez tendance à insister, vous courez le risque de sombrer avec elle.
Le dernier poète important de Rome, Juvénal, le dernier écrivain marquant de la Grèce, Lucien, ont travaillé dans l’ironie. Deux littératures qui finirent par elle. Comme tout, littérature ou non, devrait finir.
N’avoir rien accompli et mourir en surmené.
Comment ai-je pu me résigner un seul instant à ce qui n’est pas éternel ? � Pourtant cela m’arrive, en ce moment par exemple.
L’homme va disparaître, c’était jusqu’� présent ma ferme conviction. Entre-temps j’ai changé d’avis : il doit disparaître
Après tout, je n’ai pas perdu mon temps, moi aussi je me suis trémoussé, comme tout un chacun, dans cet univers aberrant.
Tout se dégrade depuis toujours. Ce diagnostic une fois bien établi, on peut débiter n’importe quelle outrance, on y est même obligé.