On the Heights of Despair

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Cioran revised The Transfiguration of Romania heavily in its second edition released in the 1990s, eliminating numerous passages he considered extremist or "pretentious and stupid". In its original form, the book expressed sympathy for totalitarianism, [13] a view which was also present in various articles Cioran wrote at the time, [14] and which aimed to establish " urbanization and industrialization" as "the two obsessions of a rising people". [15]

True confessions are written with tears only. But my tears would drown the world, as my inner fire would reduce it to ashes.A regret understood by no one: the regret to be a pessimist. It's not easy to be on the wrong foot with life

Danish neofolk musician Kim Larsen re-enacted Cioran's choking arms photograph on the cover of the 2021 album Your Love Can't Hold This Wreath of Sorrow. But, braggart demons, we postpone our end: how could we renounce the display of our freedom, the show of our pride? Heroes abound at the dawn of civilizations, during pre-Homeric and Gothic epochs, when people, not having yet experienced spiritual torture, satisfy their thirst for renunciation through a derivative: heroism.What we want is not freedom but its appearances. It is for these simulacra that man has always striven. And since freedom, as has been said, is no more than a sensation, what difference is there between being free and believing ourselves free? As incompetent in life as in death, I loathe myself and in this loathing I dream of another life, another death. And for having sought to be a sage such as never was, I am only a madman among the mad. Bradatan, Costica (28 November 2016). "The Philosopher of Failure: Emil Cioran's Heights of Despair". Los Angeles Review of Books . Retrieved 8 January 2018. 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 a metaphysical revelation.

In 2007, Cioran was the main character of a Romanian play called “A Paris Loft with a View on Death” that was staged by Romanian and Luxembourgian actors. On May 2010, Emil Cioran’s book “A Short History of Decay” was part of the Penguin Books project entitled Ten extraordinary Central European Classics. As long as I live I shall not allow myself to forget that I shall die; I am waiting for death so that I can forget about it. On the Heights of Despair was written in a bout of depression and insomnia, conditions from which Cioran suffered throughout his life: "I've never been able to write otherwise than in the midst of the depression brought about by my nights of insomnia. For seven years I could barely sleep. I need this depression, and even today before I sit down to write I play a disk of Gypsy music from Hungary." [10] The book's title derives from a phrase that was commonly used in Romanian newspapers of the period to begin the obituaries of suicides, e.g. "On the heights of despair, young so-and-so took his life...". [11] [12]The dark, existential despair of Romanian philosopher Cioran's short meditations is paradoxically bracing and life-affirming. . . . Puts him in the company of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard."— Publishers Weekly, starred review Cioran, Emil (1992) [Originally published in 1934]. On the Heights of Despair. Translated by Zarifopol-Johnston, Ilinca. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226106717. Ornea, Z. (1995). Anii treizeci. Extrema dreaptă românească. Bucharest: Fundației Culturale Române. ISBN 973-9155-43-X. OCLC 33346781. Regier, Willis (2005). "Cioran's Nietzsche". French Forum. 30 (3): 84. doi: 10.1353/frf.2006.0012. JSTOR 40552402. S2CID 170571716– via JSTOR.

You are forgiven everything provided you have a trade, a subtitle to your name, a seal on your nothingness. In this sense, Cioran’s work is an endlessly circling meditation on that “dark night of the soul,” of a world emptied of idols. It is a study of caducity and a dogged reflection on the world’s failure to meet our measure. This world was created from God's fear of solitude. In other words, us, the creatures, have no other meaning but to distract the Creator. Poor clowns of the absolute, we forget that we live dramas for the boredom of a spectator, whose claps have never reached the ears of a mortal. In 1995, Cioran died of Alzheimer's disease [29] and was buried at the Montparnasse Cemetery. [1] Major themes and style [ edit ]No one has the audacity to exclaim: "I don't want to do anything!" — we are more indulgent with a murderer than with a mind emancipated from actions. In 1933, he published his first book entitled “On the Heights of Despair”, which won the Prize of the Royal Academy for young writers. It was the first of only two literary prizes that Cioran did not reject. Read romania-insider.com's review of Cioran's 'On the heights if despair' here.