Emile M. Cioran

The Trouble with Being Born

E. M. CIORAN

'Not to be born is undoubtedly the best plan of all. Unfortunately it is within no one's reach.' In The Trouble With Being Born, E. M. Cioran grapples with the major questions of human existence: birth, death, God, the passing of time, how to relate to others and how to make ourselves get out of bed in the morning. In a series of interlinking aphorisms which are at once pessimistic, poetic and extremely funny, Cioran finds a kind of joy in his own despair, revelling in the absurdity and futility of our existence, and our inability to live in the world. Translated by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and critic Richard Howard, The Trouble With Being Born is a provocative, illuminating testament to a singular mind.

Oscar Kömpel

E. M. Cioran

In this volume, which reaffirms the uncompromising brilliance of his mind, Cioran strips the human condition down to its most basic components, birth and death, suggesting that disaster lies not in the prospect of death but in the fact of birth, "that laughable accident." In the lucid, aphoristic style that characterizes his work, Cioran writes of time and death, God and religion, suicide and suffering, and the temptation to silence. Through sharp observation and patient contemplation, Cioran cuts to the heart of the human experience. “A love of Cioran creates an urge to press his writing into someone’s hand, and is followed by an equal urge to pull it away as poison.”—The New Yorker “In the company of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard."—Publishers Weekly "No modern writer twists the knife with Cioran's dexterity. . . . His writing . . . is informed with the bitterness of genuine compassion."—Boston Phoenix

Faith Ho 

inner emo tumblr gal talking: 
there's something so beautiful abt cioran's writing - at first i thought i had the wrong book because it just seemed like a whole lot of aphorisms but that brings out his voice so well, and isn't cliche/empty at all. it feels like poetry. he captures the strangeness of being human and the tensions that exist in that very condition so well. 

there were so many lines that i highlighted (in kindle) because i Felt them. 10/10 book for finding eloquent expressions for existential experience. don't have defining quotes bcos i really highlighted so many but just a sample: 

"the feeling of being everything and the evidence of being nothing." 
"no longer wanting to be a man... dreaming of another form of failure."
"when you know yourself well and do not despise yourself utterly, it is because you are too exhausted to indulge in extreme feelings." 
"if it is true that by death we once more become what we were before being, would it not have been better to abide by that pure possibility, not to stir from it? what use was this detour, when we might have remained forever in unrealised plenitude?" 

there's something so bizzarely comforting about his cynicism and pessimism. 

this was my insomnia cure book so id read a chapter every time i couldnt sleep because there's nothing like existential despair at 12am to put one to sleep. the vibes - immaculate. 

done with being born, time to move onto despair next!

laila

Emil Cioran

De l'inconvénient d'être né

Lucie

In The Trouble with Being Born, the author strips the human condition down to its most basic components, birth & death, believing that disaster lies not in the prospect of death but in the fact of birth, "that laughable accident."

The Trouble with Being Born

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