- Hardcover: 128 pages
- Publisher: University of Chicago Press (1 May 1992)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0226106705
- ISBN-13: 978-0226106700
- Product Dimensions: 2.3 x 1.5 x 0.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 874,958 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Product Description
Born of a terrible insomnia--"a dizzying lucidity which would turn even paradise into hell"--this book presents the youthful Cioran, a self- described "Nietzsche still complete with his Zarathustra, his poses, his mystical clown's tricks, a whole circus of the heights." On the Heights of Despair shows Cioran's first grappling with themes he would return to in his mature works: despair and decay, absurdity and alienation, futility and the irrationality of existence. It also presents Cioran as a connoisseur of apocalypse, a theoretician of despair, for whom writing and philosophy both share the "lyrical virtues" that alone lead to a metaphysical revelation. "No modern writer twists the knife with Cioran's dexterity...His writing ...is informed with the bitterness of genuine compassion."--Bill Marx, Boston Phoenix "The dark, existential despair of Romanian philosopher Cioran's short meditations is paradoxically bracing and life-affirming...Puts him in the company of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard."--Publishers Weekly, starred review "This is self-pity as epigram, the sort of dyspeptic pronouncement that gets most people kicked out of bed but that has kept Mr. Cioran going for the rest of his life."--Judith Shulevitz, New York Times Book Review Emil M. Cioran (1911-1995) is the author of numerous works, including The Fall into Time, A Short History of Decay, and Tears and Saints..
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Cioran is one of the most interesting nihlist philosophers of the twentieth century. As well, On the Heights of Despair is no disappointment. While his pessimism is sometimes disheartening, the grace of his words lends heavily to his credit. Whether one agrees or disagrees with his thoughts, no one can disparage the dynamics of his books. What is even more impressive is, in an almost Conrad-esque fashion, he so eloquently composes in a language that is not even his own. Though he is quoted as saying "I have no nationality", it is still impressive that a boy from a small village in the Carpathians, schooled in the cloying presence of a Orthodox priest, could so beautifully write in a foreign language. On the Heights of Despair is not a book you want to miss.
Format:Paperback
I studied The Trouble With Being born at university and having rediscovered Cioran again I thought I would try another book with a similar title. The maxims are slightly longer than his later writing but it is incredible to think this was written by a man in his very early 20s. The glorious bleakness is presnet and if you loved The Trouble With being Born you will be pleasantly surprised with such early material.
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14 reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
A more Scopenhauerian than Nietzschean book
4 Nov 2005
Format:Paperback
This exhilarating and euforic book is one of the masterpieces written by Emil Cioran. "On the heights of despair" is for us postmoderns what St. Augustine's Confessions must have signified for the medieval reader. This work is truly an account of the fragmented and disordered European consciouss of between wars: not an abstract one, but a particular and individual conscious that faces the glory of absurdity. Although many people have reviewed this book as Nietzschean, I would say it is rather Schopenhauerian, since its pessimism hadrly leaves any room for Zarathustra's dancing and joyful way of being. Anyways, I think anyone intrested in thinkers such as Camus, Sartre, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Feuerbach, Stiner, Nietzsche, should read this book.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
The best place to begin is the beginning
29 Jan 2005
Format:Paperback
This is Emile Cioran's first book, written in his native Romanian language and published when he was but 23 years old. Much of what he would later express so masterfully in his adopted French language is on display here, not in embryonic form, but in the most incendiary and extreme form of nihilistic regard for human existence in this world. This is the kind of book that one would have expected Nietzsche to have written if he had really been a nihilist, but Nietzsche was only ever content to talk about the abyss, whereas Cioran in his first book is already reporting to us from the abyss.
The literary technique that he employs is a darkly expressive one, dependent upon what I found to be an absolutely explosive vocabulary, and by means of them he describes one extreme state of mind after another and careens through wildly speculative ruminations on life, creativity, and human fate. His outlook is so searingly negative at times that a kind of reverse light appears to emanate from it, and one has the impression that he only writes with the wish to destroy what is of value in order that he might thereby find what is of some lesser and thus higher value...and only for the short span of our mortal admiration.
The literary technique that he employs is a darkly expressive one, dependent upon what I found to be an absolutely explosive vocabulary, and by means of them he describes one extreme state of mind after another and careens through wildly speculative ruminations on life, creativity, and human fate. His outlook is so searingly negative at times that a kind of reverse light appears to emanate from it, and one has the impression that he only writes with the wish to destroy what is of value in order that he might thereby find what is of some lesser and thus higher value...and only for the short span of our mortal admiration.
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Opinion of Cioran, On the Heights of Despair.
23 Mar 1998
Format:Paperback
Cioran is one of the most interesting nihlist philosophers of the twentieth century. As well, On the Heights of Despair is no disappointment. While his pessimism is sometimes disheartening, the grace of his words lends heavily to his credit. Whether one agrees or disagrees with his thoughts, no one can disparage the dynamics of his books. What is even more impressive is, in an almost Conrad-esque fashion, he so eloquently composes in a language that is not even his own. Though he is quoted as saying "I have no nationality", it is still impressive that a boy from a small village in the Carpathians, schooled in the cloying presence of a Orthodox priest, could so beautifully write in a foreign language. On the Heights of Despair is not a book you want to miss.
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