Emil Cioran X
Set X of my translations-variations of Emil Cioran’s untranslated notebooks, covering the period May 28 1964 — October 29 1964.
Previously:
Cioran I / Cioran II, Chazal / Cioran III, Chazal II / Cioran IV / Cioran V / Cioran VI / Cioran VII, Shestov I / Cioran VIII, Shestov II / Cioran IX, Shestov III
This week, my essay on why every short story is a mistake was published at The Republic of Letters and my short story about being tortured in a basement was published at The Metropolitan Review. No paywalls; please read if you’re interested / share if you get something from it.
May 28 1964
If I paid any attention to my ‘thoughts and feelings’, I would immediately cease all attempts at interpersonal communication and scream help from morning to night.
I remember reading somewhere that every sadness could be traced to a ‘slowing down of the blood.’
Every tragedy begins in haste; or rather, everything done in haste sets off another tragedy. (Regarding Hitler, Stalin commented: he’s a capable man, but he doesn’t know how to wait.)
June 1 1964
Loafing around in bed — as if supervising my corpse. One day, I will adopt this posture for eternity —
Every God has refused me.
June 11 1964
This evening we dined out again. After exposing yourself to the ruminations of strangers, you understand how fatigue can degenerate into murder.
I repent of all the bad things I do, and of all the good.
How to mock a corpse: resurrect it.
The more unimaginable a religion, the more likely it is to endure. Here Christianity has surpassed itself; one can go no further into the inconceivable.
To acquire a reputation for wisdom, prophesy disappointment.
June 30 1964
X’s answer is always the same, no matter what question you ask him. Well then: he’s solved the problem of life.
Psychoanalysis will one day be completely discredited, that much is already clear. And it will leave in its wake nothing but the desecration of all innocence.
You open the “psychoanalysis” Wikipedia page and see only a massive white space. At the very top is written, in tiny Times New Roman font: the ceremony of innocence is drowned.1
‘Comedies of self-acceptance’ — a new genre of the novel. The mere fact they exist is a world-historical tragedy.
If you overcome one of your flaws, then it wasn’t a flaw, merely a prompt. Your flaws remain (for example: you are delusional).
“How badly nature made me,” a sickly woman once said to me. No, it’s nature herself that is badly made, I should have replied.
I am capable of three things: blasphemy, epilepsy and hymn.
Men can live without prayer, but not without the concept of prayer...