On the Heights of Despair in Existentialism

Jul 25, 2013 orendak rated it it was amazing

Like many other books, this one is anything but an escape. It impugns reality and swirls it around with words like chaos, insomnia, love, death, suicide and the like. This is one of the most provocative books I have ever read. It is very hard to give a review on this dark, extensional author who is commonly known as the “king of pessimists”.
This was the first book I read by Ciroan, the then 22 year old Cioran managed to keep me up till 5 in the morning with shivers. “There is always a serious da Like many other books, this one is anything but an escape. It impugns reality and swirls it around with words like chaos, insomnia, love, death, suicide and the like. This is one of the most provocative books I have ever read. It is very hard to give a review on this dark, extensional author who is commonly known as the “king of pessimists”.
This was the first book I read by Ciroan, the then 22 year old Cioran managed to keep me up till 5 in the morning with shivers. “There is always a serious danger in repressing something which requires objectification” (he mentions in the beginning of the book) and this is exactly what he did. He picked up topics we have shunned down somewhere deep inside our head because of the agony, confusion or dismay they would cause. He embodied those words- made them sound way grave than I expected and pieced me with every word. He often asks more questions than he answers and they are more than enough to get your heart racing with feelings of caducity, fragility and emptiness. Nothingness, lyricism, the absurd, the world and I – Cioran probed the reality of existence. The iterate use of statements that implied the simulacra of a ‘life’ created by the world is nothing but an illusion. He urged the way of solitude, restlessness, madness and the ‘indirect animals’ we already are.
In spite of all this, it is so ironically life-affirming and inspiring. I will never be able to be the same after reading this book; also I have read it nearly every night since.

“Love your unhappiness and hate your
happiness, mix everything up, scramble it all! Be a snowflake dancing in the air, a
flower floating downstream! Have courage when you don't need to, and be a coward
when you must be brave! Who knows? You may still be a winner! And if you lose,
does it really matter? Is there anything to win in this world? All gain is a loss, and all loss is a gain. Why always expect a definite stance, clear ideas, and meaningful words? I
feel as if I should spout fire in response to all the questions which were ever put, or
not put, to me”
...more

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Feb 22, 2014 Jackal42 rated it it was amazing

Shelves: human-condition

The darkly profound and insightful writings from the soul of a man overburdened with an excess of conciousness. Delivering a consistent melancholic vividness, an atmospherically heavy-metal ambiance, this work charts the authors irreconcilable battle with the terrors of human life. A horrific struggle stemming from an over-reflexive sensibility transcending the limits, of normal existential defence. Emil Cioran sees too deeply, he sees the travesty of lived existence and suffers profoundly, he s ...more

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