Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #205742 in Books
• Published on: 1999-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 128 pages

Synopsis
The French maverick philosopher shares his thoughts on the contradictions and confusions of human life.

Customer Reviews

A guide for depressives
This is both the funniest and acute of philosophy books. Cioran was a Rumanian who moved to France in the 1930s. This was his second book written in Frenc and, in my view, it is his best. Typically Cioran is either darkly humourous or just bleak. But he manages to cut through the vanities of modernity. The book is a series of aphorisms on solitude, anxiety, depression, love, music and religion. Cioran details the futility of much of human effort, but, perversely in doing so he shows that we humans can create something delicate and precious just by existing. The book also contains one of the most sublime liones in all of European letters: 'In a world without melancholy, nightingales would belch'.

My only gripe is the title. A literal translation from the French would be 'Syllogisms of Bitterness', which would fit the mood much better than the rather arch choice of the translator. However, this is but a small point.

This is a book to reasure and to return to again and again.