Anathemas and Admirations [Paperback]

E M Cioran (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Cioran's absolute, dark pessimism is, paradoxically, invigorating, even inspirational. Readers who have yet to encounter the Romanian-born thinker (author of The Trouble with Being Born , etc.), who lives in France, will find in these aphorisms and essays one of the century's most fertile, profound minds. Decision-maker in an existential void, master of the stunning bleak aphorism (e.g., "To have accomplished nothing and to die overworked"), Cioran meditates ruefully on modern cities, insomnia, music as an illusion, friendship, neighbors, the "age-old slavery" of women and the possible disappearance of our species. Clusters of fragmentary thoughts and impressions alternate with terse essays on such figures as Mircea Eliade, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Joseph de Maistre, Henri Michaux, Paul Valery and Borges. Like his friend and fellow exile Beckett, Cioran "lives not in time but parallel to it," a detachment transformed into wisdom in this meditative maelstrom.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

This miscellany from Cioran's past 40 years will be useful not because he wrote it but because he has insights on better-known figures like Valery, Borges, and Beckett. Romanian born (in 1911), and Paris based since 1937, Cioran has observed and survived Europe since his twenties and has outlived many members of his generation. If the unpleasant persona created here is accurate, it could explain some of his popular neglect. He makes himself out to be a snorting curmudgeon most people would prefer to avoid. Yet when his attention is elicited, usually his affection is also. The result can be a series of touching and insightful recollections of Beckett or Michaux or Eliade. He is able to enter the Other's subjectivity and assess sympathetically both the public personality and the real person. He uses French, which he claims is a restricting but beloved straitjacket, with a taut correctness that Howard's English impressively transcribes.
- Marilyn Gaddis Rose, SUNY at Binghamton
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 264 pages
• Publisher: Arcade Publishing (September 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1559704616
• ISBN-13: 978-1559704618
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,128,390 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A desillusioned, but brave look at the meaninlgessness, September 17, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Anathemas and Admirations (Paperback)

Although Ciorans general views on human existance are, typically enough, dark and desilussioned, his ideas and his voice are tremendously funny.Which should warn most of the readers, I suppose: this is not a book for energetic, life-craving people. But this Roumanian, who lived a lonely life in Paris, makes excellent reading in spite of what one might call an overall negative - and highly selfcritical- atitude to human existance. For Cioran, human weaknesses are not only prevailing human grandour, they also carry more "weight", as they are simply more truly human than the later. And how funny he is! I Can`t quote, unfortunatelly, as I don`t have the book with me, but Anathemas` short and poignant passages will make you laugh - that is if your attitude to life lets you pass through the books` initial (and apparent) gloominess. Give it a chance, and you might confirm some of your anxieties or soothe your apathy, only this time in company of great intellectual force, and with a scornfull, yet benevolent smile for the feeling of desilussionment.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Old Man Warms Up, January 10, 2000

By 

"rgelling" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Anathemas and Admirations (Paperback)

Compared to his early, tortured writing this collection of later pieces is warm and funny. Not to say that Cioran has dropped his nihilistic stance, but a laconic, slightly more personal and witty voice predominates. My favourite book from Cioran.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a most original thinker/iconoclast, June 2, 2007

By 

Matt Hill "PARATAXIS and THE CLOUD RECKONER" (Santa Cruz Mountains, Ca) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Anathemas and Admirations (Paperback)

This collection of cryptic and oblique pronouncements are from a man who is someone other than the "connoisseur of despair". Cioran's erudition is vast; this is not some guy who whips off nihilism like it was some intellectual flash-in-the-pan.

These laconic and sometimes witty, sometimes caustic aphorisms alternate with terse personal essays on friends and influences: Valery, Samuel Beckett, Mircea Eliade, Henri Michaux, Borges, and Scott Fitzgerald (?!).

Some of these thoughts and fragments seem like non-sequiturs generated in the darkness of lonely insomnia plagued Parisian nights. Many are so obtuse that comprehension is left scratching its head. Still, like one who finds a gold nugget in the streambed, the rare saying makes the search all worth while. Here are a few of the nuggets I found:

"Our place is somewhere between being and nonbeing - between two fictions"

"To die is to change genre, to renew oneself . . ."

"Writing is the creature's revenge, and his answer to a botched creation"

Extracts: A Field Guide for Iconoclasts