tacodog's review against another edition
5.0
No one has bars like Cioran, and there are some absolute heaters in The Trouble With Being Born. There’s something I find almost uplifting about his cartoonish morosity.
“What I know at sixty, I knew as well at twenty. Forty years of a long, a superfluous, labor of verification.”
“What I know at sixty, I knew as well at twenty. Forty years of a long, a superfluous, labor of verification.”
cherdan's review against another edition
4.0
A Exploration into Death, Birth, and Being
Cioran’s form throughout this book is short form wisdom collated by subject (from what I can tell) into chapter. Cioran has a lot of wisdom to dispense and his comparisons to contemporaries like Nietzsche allow a sort-of meta commentary on nihilism in general. What I loved about this was the observations made of those who become doom-obsessed and fail to realize that the idea of nothingness is liberating, not oppressing. While Cioran definitely finds himself at times indulgent in his negativity, I feel this negativity surrounding society and social structures is more reminiscent of old man shaking his fist at cloud. Harmless, albeit a touch unnecessary. Overall, he does a good job remaining objective in his poignant and sometimes humorous observations.
Cioran’s form throughout this book is short form wisdom collated by subject (from what I can tell) into chapter. Cioran has a lot of wisdom to dispense and his comparisons to contemporaries like Nietzsche allow a sort-of meta commentary on nihilism in general. What I loved about this was the observations made of those who become doom-obsessed and fail to realize that the idea of nothingness is liberating, not oppressing. While Cioran definitely finds himself at times indulgent in his negativity, I feel this negativity surrounding society and social structures is more reminiscent of old man shaking his fist at cloud. Harmless, albeit a touch unnecessary. Overall, he does a good job remaining objective in his poignant and sometimes humorous observations.
lidya111's review against another edition
5.0
Every single sentence in this book was utterly perfect. So much more than 5 stars.
sreymey's review against another edition
2.0
His style of writing is great but the point of his views are bad, like an example:
"Aristotle, Aquinas, Hegel—three enslavers of the mind. The worst form of despotism is the system, in philosophy and in everything."
"Aristotle, Aquinas, Hegel—three enslavers of the mind. The worst form of despotism is the system, in philosophy and in everything."