Perhaps, but colorfully so. Adorno's wrong about most things but I nonetheless love the Minima Moralia, yet another book written in the 'aphoristic style'.
La Rochefoucauld and Nietzsche. I also like Oscar Wilde’s aphorism collections, “Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young” and “A Few Maxims For The Instruction Of The Over-Educated.”
Not him but Cioran repeats himself a lot when you read the entire work as a unit and are paying attention. He mentions at least once or twice in most books how much nicer it would be to be a plant than to be man, or to be a rock than to be a plant, thereby executing a lifelong repetition of an observation already made (more or less) by de Maistre. He also repeats little conceits or personal anecdotes across certain writings. To a point, this is a legitimate technique because his early Romanian stuff was very obscure at the time and he wanted to introduce himself to a French audience in the postwar period, so he felt free to recycle his "material" (to borrow the stand-up comedy term) for a new audience. But as he aged it gets a little tedious. Old men have a way of repeating their life stories.
Personally I quite liked History and Utopia, especially for its Odyssey of Rancor, although that's a collection of short essays which don't count as the aphoristic blurbs. A Short History of Decay is also a good deal better than the other popular one, The Trouble with Being Born, but the former is a long collection of fragments each averaging about a page, and thus not the pithy aphorisms either.
Let me put it another way. I immediately re-read Odyssey of Rancor because I was so impressed with it, although that's a twenty page essay. The only piece where I took this immediate trouble. The only other work I'm seriously considering re-reading at this point is A Short History of Decay. IMO Cioran is at his best when he is writing some fragment or conceit which runs for a page or two, as opposed to a multi-page essay or a single-line aphorism, the thread's subject. These three forms of short writing are his specific subgenres, and they are spread throughout his work in a very even and diffuse manner. Certain books (Drawn and Quartered, The New Gods or: The Evil Demiurge) even divide time between the essays and the very short aphorisms, in two parts.
>IMO Cioran is at his best when he is writing some fragment or conceit which runs for a page or two, as opposed to a multi-page essay or a single-line aphorism, the thread's subject.
Yeah, I noticed that as well. His strength really is the short form.
They (the remarks contained in the work) aren't really aphoristic, you are correct. Unless one wants to isolate some particular cute observation within the work. The work itself is basically an obscure essay of literary criticism, especially on his French contemporaries and immediate forebears. In Poesies, Lautreamont begins to defend conventional morality, in contrast with what he had written in his famous Maldoror. The Poesies therefore can be read as a draft veering towards Lautreamont's intended complementary work on the good, which would have been a pendant to Maldoror.
11 months ago
Anonymous
I’ve always felt like Poesies is the closest we have to a key for Maldoror
Schop
Of these, Nietzsche for sure.
Pascal
>inb4 wittgenstein
debord
Nietzsche and Cioran remain unparalleled.
Cioran is wrong about everything.
Perhaps, but colorfully so. Adorno's wrong about most things but I nonetheless love the Minima Moralia, yet another book written in the 'aphoristic style'.
Imbecile.
>Talebposter calling anyone else an imbecile
I thought your kind went the same way as Guenon and F. Gardner
La Rochefoucauld and Nietzsche. I also like Oscar Wilde’s aphorism collections, “Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young” and “A Few Maxims For The Instruction Of The Over-Educated.”
Davila is the king of reactionary (his choice of label, not mine) zingers.
Cioran, Gracian, Pascal, Rochefoucauld, Dávila and Porchia are the ones I like. Cioran is my favourite.
What's your favorite Cioran book?
Not him but Cioran repeats himself a lot when you read the entire work as a unit and are paying attention. He mentions at least once or twice in most books how much nicer it would be to be a plant than to be man, or to be a rock than to be a plant, thereby executing a lifelong repetition of an observation already made (more or less) by de Maistre. He also repeats little conceits or personal anecdotes across certain writings. To a point, this is a legitimate technique because his early Romanian stuff was very obscure at the time and he wanted to introduce himself to a French audience in the postwar period, so he felt free to recycle his "material" (to borrow the stand-up comedy term) for a new audience. But as he aged it gets a little tedious. Old men have a way of repeating their life stories.
Personally I quite liked History and Utopia, especially for its Odyssey of Rancor, although that's a collection of short essays which don't count as the aphoristic blurbs. A Short History of Decay is also a good deal better than the other popular one, The Trouble with Being Born, but the former is a long collection of fragments each averaging about a page, and thus not the pithy aphorisms either.
Let me put it another way. I immediately re-read Odyssey of Rancor because I was so impressed with it, although that's a twenty page essay. The only piece where I took this immediate trouble. The only other work I'm seriously considering re-reading at this point is A Short History of Decay. IMO Cioran is at his best when he is writing some fragment or conceit which runs for a page or two, as opposed to a multi-page essay or a single-line aphorism, the thread's subject. These three forms of short writing are his specific subgenres, and they are spread throughout his work in a very even and diffuse manner. Certain books (Drawn and Quartered, The New Gods or: The Evil Demiurge) even divide time between the essays and the very short aphorisms, in two parts.
>IMO Cioran is at his best when he is writing some fragment or conceit which runs for a page or two, as opposed to a multi-page essay or a single-line aphorism, the thread's subject.
Yeah, I noticed that as well. His strength really is the short form.
No one beats Aalewis.
Edgy
Pascal, La Rochefoucauld, Chamfort, Gracián
Add Joubert
And Lichtenberg
Lichtenberg, Gracian, Goethe
What does Amazon mean by this Lichtenberg price? It’s a Penguin
it's an old edition hence the absurd price. get pic rel.
I think if I spend that much money on Penguin I’ll appreciate it more. I’m going to go for it
You do what you have to, champ.
>The Gay Science
>Prelude in Rhymes
>and an Appendix of Songs
I didn't know Lil Nas X wrote a book.
Sarah Manguso
Picrelated some examples
Heraclitus
Chuang Tzu
Lautreamont's Poesies and Shestov's All Things Are Possible
Based
>Lautreamont's Poesies
How are these aphorisms?
They (the remarks contained in the work) aren't really aphoristic, you are correct. Unless one wants to isolate some particular cute observation within the work. The work itself is basically an obscure essay of literary criticism, especially on his French contemporaries and immediate forebears. In Poesies, Lautreamont begins to defend conventional morality, in contrast with what he had written in his famous Maldoror. The Poesies therefore can be read as a draft veering towards Lautreamont's intended complementary work on the good, which would have been a pendant to Maldoror.
I’ve always felt like Poesies is the closest we have to a key for Maldoror
I will never understand why Italian authors are so underrated
that's spanish though
Spanish is an Italian dialect.
Surprised no one mentioned this book.
See
Another one who hasn't been mentioned yet: Stanisław Jerzy Lec.
That green one is a great cover art