Am I just too stupid to get this book? I mean I do get the majority of it but some statements just leave me baffled. Is it just that it's been translated from French or am I not at the level where I can fully comprehend a book like that?
Book's called The Trouble with Being Born by E. M. Cioran by the way.
>inb4 yes u r too stupid
>inb4 kill urslef
Seriously, how do I come to comprehend this kind of literature? I also appreciate his work but don't completely agree with his ideas sometimes...
Has anyone ever dabbled with Cioran?
>>7837233
Sometimes you will, without realizing it, read a word without actually understand what it means. When you see a word that you don't use often, ask yourself, "what is the definition of this word?" If you can't answer confidently, look it up in the dictionary. As you're reading, do this for every word that you don't use in commonplace vernacular. As you do this you will likely realize that your vocabulary isn't quite as strong as you thought.
>>7837248
This is damn good advice actually anon, thank you. I do that with words I flat out haven't come across before but I should absolutely start doing as you've said. Thanks again anon.
>>7837248
Not Op, but looking at the extract I don't think this has much to do with vocabulary.
I'm a pleb but is that extract referring to some absurdist notion?
>>7837265
You're right that the vocabulary in that excerpt isn't particularly daunting. However, just as an example, I read the second sentence and realized that I can't clearly define what "abhorring" means. And because of that singular lapse in knowledge, the entire meaning of the sentence is lost to me.
>>7837265
The entire book seems to be made up of these little snippets of thoughts from the author, it isn't consistent narrative or anything like that which makes it a bit more difficult for me to fully grasp some sections.
>>7837291
I believe they're called aphorisms.
>>7837233
you dont understand that passage ?
>>7837280
Uh really, abhor means hate,
>>7837233
The important part is at the bottom. He's talking about a kind of depersonalization, or derealization. Experiencing the world from a step removed, and saying that a certain bit of knowledge causes this derealization.
>>7837296
I'm sorry yes, aphorisms. (Please excuse me, English isn't my first language).
>>7837345
It's one of the passages I found a little difficult to understand, yes. In my own pleb words, I think the knowledge he talks about is a kind of existential epiphany but the more debilitating kind, that he doesn't exactly struggle to find meaning in the mundane tasks of everyday life but no longer really understands the need for that drive, and doesn't intend to figure it out either. He seems almost satisfied in his... I don't know if it's confusion. It seems like the wrong word to use here, but as certain as his words are I feel like there is an element of confusion there... That's just my interpretation though, I think I completely missed the mark...
>>7837384
>There is a kind of knowledge that strips whatever you do of weight and scope
skepticism/doubt ("knowledge") makes life less meaningful ("weight and scope")
> Pure to the point of abhorring even the notion of an object
doubting even something as axiomatic as the subject/object distinction (or maybe just "objects" in general)
> it translates that extreme science according to which doing or not doing something comes down to the same thing
this is pretty obscurant. seems to mean that doubt nullifies the feeling of agency
the rest just repeats what the feeling of doubt does to a person - i.e. makes one "destitute of the present".
Bumping because I am interested in reading this, I am currently reading "on the Heights of despair" by Cioran and having similar problems.
>>7837887
The Trouble with Being Born is more "straight to point". Since it's only aphorisms it's very pleasant to read.
>>7837906
>pleasant to read
that sure is a funny thing to say about a book by such author with such name and I even remember an anon emphasizing how the despair you feel from reading it is not worth it.
I wonder if I should read them translated in my language.
>>7837233
note this is an absolutely french way of speaking. any good french translation will remind you of this. prose or poetry.
but just reading this paragraph alone it's pretty obviously talking about stuff like knowing how small we are compared to the universe is or how the sun will blow up and anything else that makes our lives feel insignificant. pretty basic grade school nihilism and not amazingly rendered in my opinion.
>>7838100
I fucking hate french grammar, I don't know how to tackle it even if I know Italian and English I get stranded and feel like I can't see the rules or patterns.
>>7838100
I agree with the fact that his aphorisms aren't always of an equal value...
>>7838077
I don't know if you should, it's up to you!
I don't really know how to say it in good English. Cioran is very comforting if you already felt what he may approach. Depending of the book (I think the later the better), the fact he does not pass you any easy consolation may seem to be rigorous or severe, but for me it's the exact contrary. Given this "despair" you're talking about, receiving a bad consolation about it is almost an insult. Whereas hearing someone talking about how he meets you on this point is rather a kind feeling.
>>7838140
that is a very interesting point, but I am still not sure how should I read it, I wonder if I should take it as a material of study, analyze each page and ask myself if I understood its meaning.
School in Italy teaches philosophy and I like it very much, but with the vast amount of authors and out of 3 schools I have been, we do not actually read what the author wrote only what has transpired from them as understood by scholars.
If I go and read about Spinoza on Stanford Phi, they write it quite well what he meant in my opinion but I have not actually read it.
The result is, I think, one who might not actually grasp it without help, oh the sweet irony of studying Kant like this.
>>7837233
hes saying nothing about nothing desu
>>7837233
here's my shitty translation, its doesn't give you the whole thing but I think you'll see what he's saying with what I've written as a reference point:
>There's a certain way of thinking that makes everything meaningless. Thinking that way, one immediately dislikes the idea of things outside of oneself. This way of thinking also employs the most extreme interpretation one can make about the relativism of the universe, much to the satisfaction of the thinker: nothing has any meaning, nothing is worth working for, etc. This way of thinking thus deserves to be called posthumous, because it causes the thinker to belittle and put into nihilistic perspective every event in his life.
>>7838171
About the reading, I think it's very important to always return to the texts. So I think intro and commentaries are great to dive into something (by example, when you're beginning to study, to basically know wherefrom are people responding to each other, what are the main issues of their times or works, etc.). But one's got to dive into it anyway! And even more with philosophical texts, which obviously have many levels of reading. It's very easy to get imprisoned in one's analysis of an author, thus reducing his or her work without really approaching it. In other words (and in tautology), when reading commentaries, you do not read the original author...
That doesn't mean you shouldn't read commentaries either, since it's also a very good way of misreading (that's sadly a big risk in "autodidact" reading). You're speaking about Kant, I think it's very easy to get lost without a good teacher, that's a good example. What I believe is one has to make these books, these people, discuss with each other.
As for Cioran, that may seem paradoxical given what I just said, though I may approach him less as a philosopher I should "work" on, than as a dear writer who I like to read.
It is maybe not the same level of "exigency" in the reading. By example, I will not necessary check authors he's talking about. This is not where is my pleasure of reading him. (Though that doesn't keep me back from re-opening his books and discover new things each time).
Since he speaks a lot about anguish, death, insomnia and so on, I very much read him because he takes me from the guts. It doesn't really allow me to engage only "intellectually/cerebrally" with the book. That doesn't mean I don't read him critically, though I do not wish to "analyse" it when I read it (not that I despise this approach, I've got it with other books)
All in all, one more time, one's got to "dive" into the book to begin with. I think it's not a bad idea to have a first "warm read", reading it with attention, but not trying to analyse each page already. There's plenty of time for that once you read him once. So I'd suggest you to just read him as a "story" (if one dares to call it that) before trying to "study" it (if you still want to do so then).
Anyway, The Trouble With Being Born is very generous even in its first read. The aphorisms' form makes it very "talkative". It's up to you to see how it grasps you.
>>7838239
Maybe that could help >>7837233 . Also, I think this is the kind of things in this book which are very much understandable once you have read the rest of the book, which is often much more gentle to understand.
Here's the French, for anyone interested to compare the prosody, since >>7838100 spoke about it :
>Il existe une connaissance qui enlève poids et portée à ce qu'on fait : pour elle, tout est privé de fondement, sauf elle-même. Pure au point d'abhorrer jusqu'à l'idée d'objet, elle traduit ce savoir extrême selon lequel commettre ou ne pas commettre un acte c'est tout un et qui s'accompagne d'une satisfaction extrême elle aussi : celle de pouvoir répéter, en chaque rencontre, qu'aucun geste qu'on exécute ne vaut qu'on y adhère, que rien n'est réhaussé par quelque trace de substance, que la « réalité » est du ressort de l'insensé. Une telle connaissance mériterait d'être appelée posthume : elle s'opère comme si le connaissant était vivant et non vivant, être et souvenir d'être. « C'est déjà du passé », dit-il de tout ce qu'il accomplit, dans l'instant même de l'acte, qui de la sorte est à jamais destitué de présent.
>>7837233
I have actually read the English translation of the also-aphoristic "All Gall is Divided" and struggled slightly, so my thoughts are relevant here. I also have some understanding of the sentiment of the english quote in the OP.
Reading the above tiny volume was the first time in years that my /vocabulary/ had been tested. I actually got pissed at these cute words sometimes, but I did look them up (phthisis? aphrenia? [sic?]) They were always just fancy ten-dollar words for more familiar words. It actually reminded me of being a younger reader, at some point you have to just force yourself through the text, but when something is really strange, look it up.
OP, Cioran was a professional (and correct) sadboy. What he has been saying, with so many frustrating clauses and references, is that life's a bitch and then you die. He himself would have assented to that summation if it were properly presented to him. He just made it his business to capture the idea in various ways, and in pretty language, name-dropping others along the way.
>>7838424
Though, do you like him?
(Because I pretty much agree with you, and I like him all the same)
As for the vocabulary, Cioran was certainly cunning enough to use a very specialized vocabulary, sometimes quite old-fashioned (he speaks a lot about the fact that writing in French is something particular, as his mother-tongue was Romanian). Though, I believe perhaps your feeling comes from the fact that a lot of words are translated as "roughly" as possible from French, where they are not as "shocking". By example, "phtisie" is not common, but it's not a surprise either in French literature vocabulary...
>>7837233
It just means you've never had the knowledge he's talking about OP. If you don't get that paragraph you're probably not going to relate to Cioran's stuff
>>7837233
I don't know anything about the book you're reading, but I'm pretty sure that the 'knowledge' he speaks of is nihilism.
>>7837233
No, you are not stupid. This is just dull and repetitive thinking from a morbid Romanian, rendered into rambling French, and translated badly into English.
>>7837770
Pure as in encompassing all objects in a singular field, thereby excluding any possibility for comparison or relevance by a lack of reference.
And without comparison or relevance or reference there can be no measurement.
Thus "Pure to the point of abhorring even the notion of an object."
Though I think the author is fundamentally wrong in his stance.
Cioran always struck me as maudlin
>>7837233
>"It's already in the past," he says about all his achievements, even as he achieves them, thus forever destitute of the present
The author is clearly talking about nihilism. I'd drop it if I were you.
>>7837375
>>7837770
>>7838239
>>7838344
That's the "confusion but not" bit I was lost on. Perfect interpretation, thank you.
>>7838100
>>7838107
I did wonder if some of it was due to translation. I've read some Arabic to English and vice versa translated books and I find this is very often an issue. Reading the original text and comparing the two always leaves you a bit frustrated. Whether grammatically or the meaning and so on, somethings are just very difficult to translate properly.
>>7838515
It's the grammar and use of language that I'm stuck on really.
>>7838557
>>7840626
But I right there beside him you see. I've picked him up in order to see if there's anything about it I don't agree with, and there have been some things but for the most part, I'm right there.
>>7840547
In what sense do you mean he's wrong? About the fact of "being in a nihilistic stance", or about how he's rendering this feeling?
>>7840669
Yes, translation is an hard work, and always a different one than the original. In what I read from Cioran in English from French, often it's a lot of word-to-word, but when doing so some poetry is lost... It's a hard compromise between sense and prosody (even more given the fact that a prosody is pretty much untranslatable, one's got to find a new one when translating)
>>7838288
Then I shall finish "on the heights of despair", I also happened to have found some of Cioran's books in Italian, my worry is that, while I love English, studying a bit of french from english I noticed how much simplied it tends to be.
>>7841004
My favourite english poem (so far, because I have yet to read dozens of authors) is "Darkness" by Byron, it feels stricking, direct and nicely written and tied.
So I searched for a translation in italian, it felt like watching Byron's body being poked and struck without care....but then again I enjoy an italian translation of the Ilyad dating back to the "800" much more than the english one I saw recommended here which seemed rather steryle and devoid of its verses.
To finish this matter on translation I shall remind everyone of how often the trouble with Camut's "The Stranger" translation comes up, that says it all.
>>7841918
You mean the Italian version is "poorer" than the English one, both compared to the French? I'm a bit lost...
And once again I think I share your opinion about translations, each case is very unique. Speaking of this, I recently got Cioran's Notebooks. You could actually see him day after day, changing one word or its place in the sentence order into such or such aphorism, until the final one you could read in the other books. You could see how he was really trying them, until they were matured. I have no idea of the quality of the English translation, I wonder if this a thing that could be rendered.
I liked On the Heights of Despair very much, but I still prefer The Trouble with Being Born. In my opinion, it's very much more striking, very powerful. He's very much less sacrificing to his old idols in his later works (by example, an essentialism about nations that he tends, in a way, to ultimately "dismiss"). I feel it reinforces the statements he could make, as if he was approaching the core of his matter in a purer way. And the aphoristic form is also a form by itself which tend to this striking expression.
>>7837233
Having read both the French original and the Polish translation, I must say that the English one is absolutely devoid of the charming, old-timer insanity Cioran radiates.
>>7841004
I believe he is fundamentally wrong because his deliberating and mulling over of the implications of pure (complete) knowledge is paradoxical to itself.
It is no longer pure when it can be judged.
The thinking of it removes the pure aspect of the knowledge; dirties it with comparison and objectification and classification.
What it comes down to is that the author defines a purity in which he is inclusive, but at the same time he disassociates himself by attempting to observe it.
This very act is contrary to his belief and positions himself as fundamentally wrong, or I should say dissonant, to his revelation.
In fact, because he is attempting to observe pure knowledge then he is acknowledging that there is a separation in which the knowledge can be judged pure against.
Separation does not exist within pure knowledge, infinity is included, and there are no lines to divide and make relative.
I don't know if this makes any sense, I tend to ramble, but this is how I feel.
>>7842449
I quite share your opinion about this lost charm in the English translation.
>>7842855
Indeed when he is speaking of this "knowledge", he couldn't claim this purity in the sense you see it (an absolute one, kind of immanence, neutralizing any "feedback"on it). He is not becoming a Buddha or anything like that of course, and anyway the knowledge he's talking about is far too bitter for that.
But you could also see it another way. That is Cioran writing about his nights, he's got to impress a certain feeling into words, and those words will have quite a "delay" time. He tries to offer a somehow significant rendition of this experience, writing and thus talking to others. The experience he's talking about is a very lonesome one, so of course once he starts to talk about it, he alters it already. He's not entirely in this state anymore. He could just evoke it with more or less nostalgia.
Trying to "properly communicate" about those things is vain, this is not how they give themselves. Nonetheless I think he is able to well evoke this experience, and remind it with good form to anyone who felt this kind of things. It's a matter of talking to an Other, trying to throw a bridge above the abyss, and this concern is about this "talking to", "speaking with", which in my sense is a very different thing than simply "communicate".
There are other aphorisms in the same book heading in this general direction (non-communicability of such experience, and nonetheless the need to speak about them, since he writes about them anyway) :
>Suddenly feeling that you know as much as God about anything and everything and quite as suddenly seeing this sensation vanish...
or :
>When you know quite absolutely that everything is unreal, you then cannot see why you should take the trouble to prove it.
Which is also very much taking hold in the problematic you ( >>7842855 ) were talking about. It is very aporetic and somehow it's still very true. He is trying to speak about things one cannot speak, because the very essence of the language is towards the Other, and this movement is in opposite with the nihilist one.
>>7843998
>>7837233
Cioran wrote near the end of his life that he hadn't learnt anything new since he was 20 didn't he? If this is the case what is the point of reading beyond the Heights of Despair, is not just reiterations or more explanations and arguments for his perspective?
>>7846104
When he's talking about this "non-learning", he talks about things that never "get old", and were already known before. Though, Heights and Trouble are absolutely not the same book, really. Indeed, he's got a pretty stable stance about life (pessimistic, to say it very badly); though both its expression and its refinement evolved in his work. And he got old, which is significant given his topics. On the Heights of Despair is still very much passionate about a lot of things, where this passion is less frequent and more object-less in his later works. All in all, you don't really expect to meet another man, but it's still another writing, another poetry (he was very engaged regarding this subject).
Also, I don't think one reads Cioran to be "convinced", or to really follow an argument... I don't think anybody with a fundamentally "optimistic" nature would ever find anything in this reading. It would be only intellectual, and would have no real meaning (or at least no felt one).
It's another order, in the sense he writes only for people who are already in the same mood. It's rather a work of variations around this mood.
>>7846180
I got an enormous amount out of Heights of Despair, I experienced exactly what he was talking about in my late adolescence. I am sure I could find little bits of text I wrote from those years expressing the same sentiments, of course less eloquently. I am not as pessimistic as him on the whole, but almost everything he said in the whole text resonated very strongly with me.
I ask because I started to read some other book he wrote, this one in French, and it seemed like, well, the same thing. Then I found that quote and wondered if it was worth reading his later books.
From what you're saying I think that maybe I will have to be older to appreciate his later works.
>>7846192
That's possible! I kind of understand your fear to read the same thing again. One more element, maybe, is that Heights was written in Romanian then translated, where Trouble was directly written in French. So if you're interest in the aesthetic side, that's worth its weight.
>>7843998
>>7846104
The repetition is a fair point, and it can be explained in Cioran's own words. As he himself said, writing was simply a therapy, a literal one-man r9k stream of consciousness, which he then had the decency to go back and edit with a good prose sensibility. In other of his own words (cribbing the wiki now), "I've invented nothing, I've simply been the secretary of my own sensations."
So, you are free not to read too much of Cioran, if you don't want. After all...
it doesn't matter, none of this matters in the long view. :^)
good thread
>>7837233
You're not depressed enough is the problem.
>>7837233
I believe most people have answered your question at this point OP but I just wanted to point out that some pieces of literature only become more comprehensible as we mature. There may be certain ways in your thinking that are getting in the way but may gradually free up as you get older/grow.
I can say that the image you provided in the OP I probably would not have understood 5 years ago, but I feel I understand it perfectly now and it's a very depressing notion while at the same time enlightening; it doesn't really go anywhere (except state an abstract concept of life) but you cannot argue against it either. Overall thanks for the thread; I'm going to look up more by Cioran.
>>7846180
About the topic of non-argumentation, and the conclusive aspect of Cioran's aphorism :
« I can express nothing but results. My aphorisms aren't really aphorisms ; each one of them is the conclusion of a whole page, the final full stop of a small epileptic seizure. [...]
I drop it all and I give only the conclusion, as in a court, where there is, at the end, nothing but the verdict : sentenced to death. It's my way of proceeding, my formula. »
(interview of Cioran with Fritz J. Raddatz, 1986)
>>7848215
I really believe >>7837233 was more on a question of grammar or reading practice, rather than a "misfiting" about the topic. All in all I feel what you may mean by that (even if I wouldn't really talk about maturity, some people are deeply reluctant to this precise kind of sensitivity...)
I share your opinion about the enlightening and "nowhere to go" parts, quite less about the depressing one. Does it give you the blues when you read it, or did you already had it before engaging the reading?
>>7848215
The notion is only depressing when one dwells on moments past.
When you do that, you remove yourself from the present moment unfolding, you become dissonant with the natural flow of the universe, and allow for illusions of darkness to manifest.
Darkness is only relative to other moments past that were perceived as light.
When engaging with the moment (not deliberating, because then you remove yourself) there is no space for comparison, thereby there is no space for darkness.
The notion is illuminating for those who see the virtue of being, and depressing for those who see the virtue of not-being.
You are being as you read this, so it should be illuminating, but when you try to hold on to what has expired (the moments past) then you are identifying with the not-being, thereby depressed in dissonance.
>>7837233
nah
>>7850173
I think you will have some trouble convincing anyone with a keen interest with Cioran that the "illusion of darkness" is opposite to "the natural flow of the universe"!
Of course, I grasp what you mean by this nostalgia of not-being, but I have some trouble with what you said about dissonance. For me, this word is deeply rooted in an objectivist way of grasping psyche. This implies considering the adequacy between what a subject thinks/feels about the object, and the object which is reality itself. To say it bluntly, I don't think this way of addressing the problem fits with an in-reading of Cioran's work. It's rather an epistemic reading (to decide of the true or false value of such or such statement).
Whereas Cioran tries to interest us to a very particular reality where object and subject collide, which is the reality of one's mind (where the question is : what do I happen to feel ?). Ultimately, it seems to me he tries to makes us feel the matter of such or such sentiment, idea, etc. - no care given to the fact it could be "true" or "false". That's what I'm perceiving when Cioran writes :
> « There is no false sensation. » (in The Trouble With Being Born)
This point was about a Cioran's in-reading point of view. About a more epistemic one (roughly speaking, knowing if Cioran fails to report a reality), there is also an "immanence" thing in your post that bothers me.
- You seem to link dissonance to darkness, and "immanence" to an enlightenment. If I follow your argument, the dark/light dualism should only hold in a situation of dissonance. Though, in your post, "immanence" is still linked to an enlightenment ; whereas if I follow you, there should be nothing. If you really want to use dissonance and immanence in the same conceptual apparatus, the only way I see for them to fit is for immanence to include and resolve dissonance, otherwise it doesn't work (I don't think it absolutely should, one could also not use the concept of dissonance !) ;
- Then in the same time and contrary to the first point, you consider the possibility of an immanence that could be quite unhappy" ("for those who see the virtue of non-being"). Why would you consider this one to be false? What you call nostalgia may as well be a form of immanence, as you're suggesting it in the end of your post. If you think about immanence as the fact of being "thrown to the world", a nostalgic sentiment may as well be a modality of being. In others words, for a psychic reality, nostalgia is a very present feeling ;
- Last, you're linking the fact of being nostalgic and the fact of having the blues as if it was the only possible marriage. If an immanent feeling isn't reduced to simply be a plain one (nirvana-like), one could imagine a lot of reasons to have the blues. Cioran explore this scale in a lot of digressions (by example, he happens to differentiate nostalgia from melancholia, etc.)
last bump
>>7838077
i fell for the meme and bought the book. theres nothing profound in his aphorisms; he repeats the same trivial reducto ad absurdum nonsense over and over again. fails as literature and philosophy.
