Tears and Saints by Emil M. Cioran

Tears and Saints Reviews

• 
  BlackOxford

  Dangerous Failures
  
  As I have mentioned elsewhere, mystics are the bad boys (actually, more likely girls) of religion (
  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ). They ignore established theology, berate spiritual authority, and prefer their own personal rituals to public displays. Mystics are therefore often considered heretical and banished to the margins of organised religion. They are wilful failures, socially and politically. And, according to Cioran, that is precisely how they achieve their goal: power.
  
  Christian mystics are especially intrigued by power. Think about it: Jesus’s dictum that “the last shall be first” is a Machiavellian political instruction for how to beat the system. By withdrawing from the race for power, one is rewarded with... Power! It takes an immense physical as well as mental and spiritual effort to achieve an maintain the required level of mystical fanaticism. But the payoff is equally immense: existence detached from that which is most desired, and power over it.
  
  For Teresa of Avila what was most desired was sex. For Catherine of Siena it was authority over men. For Ignatius Loyola it was authority period. For Bernard of Clairvaux it was the impulse toward violence. Each of these desires is satisfied by being denied. All are symbols of the divine that are rejected as not-God in the tradition of mystical negative theology. The ultimate failure of the denial is the achievement actually sought, the union with that which is most desired.
  
  That is to say, mystics are consumed by their own enthusiasm (literally en theos , their ‘being in God’). This is the source of their strength, of their authority, of the influence of their commands. They are without shame in their exercise of their divinely mandated mission to save the world through their own failure. They have nothing to gain but also nothing to lose. There is nothing more to be achieved; and everything has already been lost. They are free. “Detachment is a negation of both life and death. Whoever has overcome his fear of death has also triumphed over life. For life is nothing but another word for fear.”
  
  And, somewhat annoyingly, they flaunt that freedom to the rest of us. “The world of saints is a heavenly poison that grows ever more virulent as our loneliness increases. They have corrupted us by providing a model that shows suffering attaining its goal.” What they give us is not a path to paradise but “a graveyard of happiness.” The only defence against this poison, in light of mystical “metaphysical indiscretions,” is despair. “The Christian demon. Has woven its nest in money, in sexuality, in love. It has caused humanity so much trouble, that from now on superficiality should undoubtedly be looked upon as a virtue.”
  
  I’m determined to maintain my own superficiality at all costs.
• 
  Andrei Tamaş

  Dacă -religios fiind- citești "Lacrimi și sfinți" și nu devii sceptic, înseamnă că n-ai înțeles nimic!
  Întotdeauna m-am întrebat asupra orientării spirituale a lui Cioran, căutând detalii în opera sa (subiectivă în fiecare virgulă!!!) și am ajuns la concluzia lui Ţuțea: "Cioran este (DOAR) certat cu Dumnezeu!"
• 
  Greg

  Note: What follows is convoluted. It only sort of makes sense to me when I read it, but it made much more sense in my head as I wrote this.
  
  "Blue skies make us sadder than gray skies because they offer us hope which we do not have the courage to entertain."
  For this line alone this book is worth five stars. Finally someone else who understands the anxiety of spring (not a rational anxiety for someone who also awaits the warm nice days of spring). Actually I could keep quoting great lines from the book, many of which I jealously wished I had thought of first.
  This book is meditation on the role of tears and saints (especially women) and their relation to the world and God. Well that's kind of what some of the book is about. The book is written mostly in epigrams, a la Nietzsche; and even though there are some disparaging remarks made about Freddy in the book, the whole work reads a lot like Nietzsche. Also like Nietzsche it's very easy to miss the point of what Cioran is trying to make.
  "Heaven irritates me. In it's Christian guise, it drives me to despair."
  The book is filled with little gems like this. Heaven, God and despair mix around, and as the book moves on the saints begin to become mentioned less and the authors own relation with God begins to take center stage. But what exactly his relation with God is can be very difficult to figure out. He's a believer who seems to not want to believe. He's a skeptic who feels the need to passionately believe. He's a solipist who wants to duke it out with God - mano y mano. He's also a romantic who finds the proof of God's existence in the music of Bach.
  "Had we thought about it a little, we could have made God happy. But now we have abandoned him, and he is lonelier than at the beginning of the world."
  Tears and Saints works best as a meditation on ones personal relationship with God. And it does this in a way that's especially wonderful in the current climate of vogue Atheism and maniacal Evangelicalism. I don't know about other people, but I have no interest in live in the world of Daniel Dennett (having not read his book I'm really in no position to say this, but I like to hold fast to my semi-educated opinions, and having read some of Dennett's (I might be misspelling his name, but oh well), books I have a good feeling that the man is a dullard, and one of many examples of just what is wrong with professional philosophers (this too is covered in this book, and by Nietzsche), especially those of the Anglo / American variety), and I also don't want to live in the death obsessed end times drooling co-dependent world of the born-agains. Between these two camps there can be a happy middle of moderate believers, and they are fine and good upstanding people, or you can look at the person who finds happiness to be a disease and melancholy a normal state and that is the person who is seen in this book.
  My review is not doing justice to this book. It's fucking beautiful, that's the best I can say about it. It's a book for people who would identify with the Outsider talked about by Colin Wilson - and a book that I would like to think would be a great thing for people to read in our spiritually retarded times (I mean this nicely of course, I mean when you get the uneducated in two camps warring over science neither of them really know much about but only the party line of the side they are on, then you know that we are doing good (in case if you have actually read this far and don't understand where these little asides come from, I'll state that I don't like organized religion, or blind belief, be it about God or Science, and furthermore I've read my Adorno well enough to make me very mistrustful of science, or practical reason, not that I don't believe what science says, I do believe in evolution and gravity, but looking at the world 'scientifically' robs the world of everything good in it and basically leaves all that is shit and calls it progress (so says I typing on my computer and posting to the internet)). So as I was saying it would be great for people to read this book, but I don't think people would get it and find themselves lost in the idea that conflicting ideas can hold sway and rage in a person and it's only in the space opened up between the conflict, the void, nothingness, Lacan's Real, that the truth, or what is important, or what really matters, or maybe just reality, or maybe if it's your fancy God actually resides and hides itself from any direct attempt to access it. But maybe it's in this space of inner and metaphysical conflict lies something important that can't be easily put into words.
  "Children scare me. Their eyes contain too many promises of unhappiness."
• 
  Özgür Atmaca

  Cioran’ın en sağlam eserlerinden diyebilirim. “Umutsuzluğun Doruklarında” isimli kitaptan sonraki 1936 yılında yazdığı 2. Kitabı budur. Cioran’ın " Varolma Eğilimi” isimli kitabından sonra tehlikeli bulduğum bir diğer kitabı da sanırım bu oldu. Tehlike, fikir karmaşası yaratması ve kendiyle düştüğü tezatlıklarını keskince kabul etmesinden kaynaklanan durumlardan bahsediyorum.
  Okumam gereken son bir kitabı kaldı, sonra bu genel keskinlik, cioran kaosu ve genel bakışla alakalı detaylı bir yazı yazacağım.
  Bu kitapta özellikle, Tanrı, Müzik ve Acı’ya dair inanılmaz keskinlikte bir dil kullanmış. İronik Mizahi dili ilk defa Cioran’da gördüm. Tüm –şey’lere karşı inanılmaz bir öfkesi var hatta öfkesinden sürekli tekrara düştüğü konular var.
  
  Kitabın sunuş kısmında, Bombalar altında kalan Lübnanlı bir kadının ve intihar eşiğine gelmiş bir hayranının, Cioran keskinliği ve felaketin ortasında güç veren gel-git cümleleriyle tutunuşlarından bahsediyor.
  Paradoks ve Fikir karmaşaları bu kitapta daha da ortaya çıkıyor.
  Cioran’la alakalı bir başka sevdiğim tanımda; “ Ucubelik boyutuna ulaşan pervasızlığı" kısmıydı..
  
  Kitapta onarılması mümkün olmayan boşluk duygusu, sessizliğe övgü gibi kitabın genel ruh halini anlatan durumlar mevcut ki aslında finale geldiğinizde avucunuzda tam da bu tanım kalıyor.
  
  Çürümenin Kitabından önce en fazla müzikle içli dışlı anlatım yaptığı kitap sanırım bu.
  Cioran kitaplarının ne kadar sert ve etkili olduğunu aslında kendi cümleleriyle şöyle de özetlemiş;
  “ Ben hiç ağlamadım çünkü gözyaşlarım düşüncelere dönüştü” aslında o düşüncelerin de kelimeler ve kitaplara dönüştüğünü varsayarsak, elinizde kontrolsüz, endişe bunalımları, kendine karşı savaş, boşluk duygusu, delilik zirvesi, melankoli bunalımı gibi içinizi soğuran ne varsa ortaya çıkıyor.
  Cioran, “kitap rahatsız etmiyorsa eksiktir “ diyor. Bu minvalden yazınca da kendisini okurken bir çok yerde nefes alma ihtiyacı ve kendisine itinayla lanet etme düşüncesine kapılıyorsunuz.
  Kitaptan sevdiğim birkaç alıntıyla bitireyim yazıyı;
  “Bir veda sistemi olan müzik; hareket noktası atomlar değil, gözyaşları olan bir fiziği hatırlatır.”
  “Adem’in günahı, cennetin tek tarihsel olayıdır.”
  “Bach, Tanrısal filizlenmedir.”
• 
  Ruxandra (4fără15)

  O lectură absolut superbă, pentru oricine ar vrea să îl descopere pe Cioran! De citit neapărat pe fond muzical clasic, fiindcă numai aşa o veţi putea savura cu adevărat.
  
  "Omenirea s-a dispensat de Dumnezeu de când i-a răpit atributele de persoană. Încerând să asigure Atotputernicului un domeniu de influenţă mai mare, l-a scos, fără voia ei, din imediatul viziunii noastre. [...] De ce nu-l vom fi lăsat noi mic şi umil, în modestia lui cerească, şi l-am falsificat sub îndemnul unui orgoliu nemăsurat? Niciodată n-a fost mai puţin actual ca acum, când e totul. E înfiorător ce puţin a mai rămas din Dumnezeu! Ne-am primit pedeapsa, fiind prea generoşi cu el. Acel ce l-a pierdut ca persoană nu-l va mai regăsi niciodată, oricât l-ar căuta în alte forme de iluzii."
• 
  Hakan

  İsmine hep rastladığım ama hiç okumadığım Romen düşünce adamı Cioran’ı ilk kez okudum. Bu kitabı da 25 yaşında yazmış. Üst perdeden üslubunu herhalde bu gençlik heyecanına atfetmek gerekir. Sonradan bu yaklaşımını olgunlaştırdı mı bilemiyorum. Kitabın konusu da daha ziyade Tanrı düşüncesi ve teolojik, felsefi tartışmalar. Aforizmalardan oluşan bir metin olması biraz okuma kolaylığı sağlıyor. Ama Cioran beni ne “öğreten adam”vari üslubuyla ne de ele aldığı konularla cezbetmedi. Müzik üzerine, özellikle de Bach hakkında dile getirdikleri bu kitabın benim ilgimi uyandıran tek unsuru oldu.
• 
  Bogdan Liviu

  Carte scrisă pe când avea 25 de ani şi se afla la Braşov -preda filozofie într-un liceu-, era absolut singur, cocoţat în cabana de pe vârful dealului, Livada Poştii, cântând imnuri lacrimilor şi discutând cu sfinţii... Singurătatea din care s-a născut această carte se manifestă în fiecare rând, o carte despre care Jenny Acterian spunea că: "este poate cea mai tristă carte din câte s-au scris".
  Citiţi-o noaptea, în linişte deplină, pe cât posibil - necesită o intimitate colosală pentru a putea fi captată, gândiţi-vă la îmbrăţişarea unei adieri de vânt solitare, recent abandonată de o noapte fără lună.
  Pentru a vă face o idee, iată cum se încheie cartea (care e mai mult un urlet ambalat în rugăciune):
  Doar Dumnezeu să se roage pentru acela în care n-are ce să mai moară...
  
  
  Observatii despre carte din Caietele (1967-1972) lui Cioran:
  
  Corectând şpalturile la Lacrimi şi sfinţi în vederea reeditării, trec, cu fiecare pagină, de la admiraţie la dezgust. Ce individ! Mă văd la Braşov, în cabana de pe vârful dealului, Livada Poştii, scriind inepţii despre Dumnezeu, despre sfinţi şi despre mine însumi. Şi-mi amintesc de refrenele sfâşietoare ale slujnicelor unguroaice. De altfel, nu le-am uitat în cartea mea.
  Mai e şi cultul pentru Rilke, pe care îl aşezam pe vremea aceea mai presus de toţi poeţii. Ne demodăm mai puţin prin dezgusturile decât prin entuziasmele noastre. Aproape toţi poeţii din care am citat şi-au pierdut „situaţia“ pe care o aveau la vremea aceea. Nu trebuie să ne raportăm decât la Dumnezeu. Dar chiar şi el se demodează.
  28 ianuarie. Sunt pe cale să termin corectura şpalturilor la Lacrimi şi sfinţi. Ultima parte e mai bună decât prima. Sunt însă îngrozit de atâta tristeţe, de atâta cruzime, de atâta disperare. Cum am putut să sufăr în aşa hal? Când mă gândesc că am scris această carte acum treizeci şi cinci de ani, şi că de atunci am îndurat suferinţe morale şi fizice la fel de mari ca înainte, mă încearcă un sentiment faţă de propria mea persoană în care intră tot ce vrei, de la milă la orgoliu. (Şi îmi mai spun prosteşte că, dacă aş fi scris această carte într-o limbă cunoscută, n-ar fi trecut neobservată. Dar să ne oprim aici.)
  
  Sunt „întors pe dos“ de Lacrimi şi sfinţi, de singurătatea care se desprinde din ea. Încă puţin, şi aş izbucni în plâns. (Nu cartea m-a întors pe dos, ci amintirile pe care le-a trezit în mine. E vorba acolo, la un moment dat, despre bradul ce se înălţa în faţa cabanei în care locuiam pe înălţimile de la Livada Poştii. Dintr-odată, imaginea acelui brad, a cărui amintire o pierdusem cu desăvârşire, mi-a apărut cu o extraordinară claritate. Aceste amănunte ne răscolesc şi declanşează emoţiile, nu frazele mai mult sau mai puţin frapante.)
• 
  Maria Ionela Dan

  ' Incercat-am sa înțeleg de unde vin lacrimile. Și m-am oprit la sfinți Nu prin sfinți au intrat ele în lume, dar fara ei nu știam că plângem din regretul paradisului.
  Așa este făcut omul: ori se anulează in divinitate ori o provoacă"
• 
  Jale

  Elias Canetti'nin İnsanın Taşrası'nı okuyor gibi hissettim zaman zaman. Birçok cümlenin altını çizdim ve en güzelleri de;
  
  "Yaşamaktan yorulmak tek çarem olacaktı; ama sıkılmayı başardığım sürece böyle bir çareye rahat yüzü göstermeyeceğim."
  
  "Boyun eğmekten daha büyük bir kötülüğü var mıdır aklın?"
  
  "Gözün görebileceği alan sınırlıdır, göz her zaman dışarıdan görür. Ama dünya, yüreğin içinde olduğu için bilgiye ulaşabilme konusunda tek yöntemdir içebakış. Yüreğin görsel alanı? Dünya, artı Tanrı, artı hiçlik. Yani her şey."
  
  "Öte yandan müzik, eşsi bir teselli sanatı olarak öteki bütün sanatlara göre çok daha fazla yara açar içimizde. Müzik zevklerin mezarıdır, bizi gömen bir mutluluktur."
  
  "Sesli coşkunun sınırlarındaki tanrısallığı Bach'ın bir fügünün içimizde -anılarla- çoğalmasından daha iyi anlatabilecek bir şey yoktur."
• 
  Derodidymus

  cioran ma apropie mai mult de dumnezeu decat orice rugaciune
  si in acelasi timp ma departeaza tot mai mult de lume
  dupa o carte de cioran visezi sa o iei la goana pe un camp si sa ajungi in nestire
  ca planta niciodata ca om
  dumnezeu a lasat pe cioran pentru ca nici macar in momentele de ura fata de divinitate, de instrainare fata de tot ce e sfant, sa nu fim departe de El. ci prin cioran sa ne reapropiem de suflarea primordiala
  doamne iarta ma
• 
  soulAdmitted

  "C'è nella vita una specie di isterismo di fine primavera"
  
  La gloriosa incoerenza che è per quest'uomo lo scrivere rende il leggerlo un'esperienza eccessiva. In senso letterale, non letterario. Il problema è poi riconfinarsi.
• 
  Shona

  I’m in my Romanian insomniac philosopher era , drifting through semi-dark swamps of my own lucid dream designs. Not self indulgent in sadness enough to be only a poet nor as fucking apathetic as most analytical philosophers are. Cioran’s right that we want to self-destruct to compete with TIME itself, defy the way we seem to be born for the slaughterhouse. Of course we want more than that! And so I’m also drawn to saints and mystics, sex and death, the thanos/eros merry-go-round, where sublimation shrouds suffering in spasmodic screams of bliss. No; I lie there is no shroud. The veil is ripped wide open. God spears me through the heart.
  
  I must have been branded with invisible stigmata at birth. All my organs and their meat and matter machinery transubstantiated into fire. Ever-flowing flames. I want to kill everything that is non-cosmic inside of me. Metaphysics are a mirror game. We need illusions to survive but if God is real I want to taste his tears!
  
  I know why when faced with the choice of playing the artificial roles of mother, saint or whore Teresa of Avila and Catherine of Siena chose devotion to the divine disease that festered in their bodies and their inflamed, infernally astute brains. Their fervour has me palpitating and I too want to be pulverized like stardust.
  
  These angel-faced mystics want to devour the world and so do I. Bite down on the seething void, juice of the universe dripping down my chin. They are Lilith reincarnate. Inverted and enslaved by chains of her own design. Their ferocious will to power disguised by the blank white light of sacred nothingness.
• 
  Nicolae

  "Un om sanatos nu isi aduce aminte nimic"
  
  "Orice razvratire este ateista. Inaderenta la un infinitezimal al creatiei este o dezintegrare din infinitul divin. Anarhia nu a intrat in planul Creatiunii.Stim doar foarte bine ca in paradis se lafaiau numai dobitoace. Cand una dintre ele nu a mai acceptat aceasta conditie, a renuntat la fericire si s-a facut om.Pe aceasta razvratire initiala s-a construit intreaga istorie. Si pana astazi orice razvratire s-a indreptat impotriva lui Dumnezeu... "
  
  "Absolutul este o tonalitate specifica a tristetii."
  
  "Este indiferent ce mod de distrugere iti alegi. Unul se ingroapa intr-o biblioteca, altul intr-o carciuma. Rezultatul este acelasi."
  
  "Spune-mi cum vrei sa te prabusesti, ca sa-ti spun cine esti."
• 
  Francisca

  "¿Qué hay después de Dios? Habrían descubierto probablemente una música, y con ella lágrima de las que se alzan lirios..."
• 
  Eadweard

  En el Juicio Final sólo se pesarán las lágrimas.
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  Cuando el comienzo de una vida ha estado dominado por el sentimiento de la muerte, el paso del tiempo acaba pareciéndose a un retroceso hacia el nacimiento, a una reconquista de las etapas de la existencia. Morir, vivir, sufrir y nacer serían los momentos de esa involución. ¿O es otra vida lo que nace de las ruinas de la muerte? Una necesidad de amar, de sufrir y de resucitar sucede así al óbito. Para que exista otra vida, se necesita morir antes. Se comprende por qué las transfiguraciones son tan rara.
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  El límite de cada dolor es un dolor aún mayor.
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  Quien ha superado el miedo puede creerse inmortal; quien no lo conoce, lo es. Es probable que en el paraíso las criaturas desaparezcan también, pero no conociendo el miedo de morir, no morirían, en suma, nunca. El miedo es una muerte de cada instante.
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  El cristianismo entero no es más que una crisis de lágrimas, de la que sólo nos queda un regusto amargo.
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  Nadie prepara ya su muerte, nadie la cultiva, de ahí que se escabulla en el mismo momento en que nos arrebata. Los antiguos sabían morir. Elevarse por encima de la muerte fue el ideal constante de su sabiduría. Para nosotros, la muerte es una sorpresa horrible.
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  Hay quien se pregunta aún si la vida tiene o no un sentido. Lo cual equivale a preguntarse si es o no soportable. Ahí acaban los problemas y comienzan las resoluciones.
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  Dios creó el mundo, fue por temor de la soledad; ésa es la única explicación de la Creación. Nuestra razón de ser, la de sus criaturas, consiste únicamente en distraer al Creador. Pobres bufones, olvidamos que vivimos dramas para divertir a un espectador cuyos aplausos todavía nadie ha oído sobre la tierra... Y si Dios ha inventado a los santos -como pretexto de diálogo- ha sido para aliviar aún más el peso de su aislamiento.
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  Comenzamos a saber lo que es la soledad cuando oímos el silencio de las cosas. Comprendemos entonces el secreto sepultado en la piedra y despertado en la planta, el ritmo oculto o visible de la naturaleza entera. El misterio de la soledad reside en el hecho de que para ella no existen criaturas inanimadas. Cada Objeto posee su lenguaje propio que desciframos gracias a silencios inigualables.
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  Sin Dios todo es noche y con El hasta la luz se vuelve inútil.
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  Cada vez que nuestro cansancio del mundo adopta una forma religiosa, Dios es un mar en el que nos abandonamos para olvidarnos a nosotros mismos. La inmersión en el abismo divino nos salva de la tentación de ser lo que somos. Otras veces le descubrimos como una zona luminosa en el extremo de un retroceso interior, lo cual nos consuela bastante menos, pues encontrándole en nosotros disponemos de El en cierto modo. Tenemos un derecho sobre El, puesto que el asentimiento que le damos no excede de las dimensiones de una ilusión. Dios como un mar y Dios como una zona luminosa alternan en nuestra experiencia de lo divino. En ambos casos el único objetivo es el olvido, el irremediable olvido.
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  El destino histórico del hombre consiste en llevar la idea de Dios hasta su final. Habiendo agotado todas las posibilidades de la experiencia divina, ensayado a Dios en todas sus formas, llegaremos fatalmente a la saciedad y al asco, tras lo cual respiraremos libremente. Hay sin embargo en el combate contra un Dios que ha encontrado su último refugio en ciertos repliegues de nuestra alma, un malestar indefinible, malestar originado por nuestro temor a perderle. ¿Cómo alimentarse con sus últimos restos, cómo poder gozar con toda tranquilidad de la libertad consecutiva a su liquidación? ----
  
  
  
  
  La religión es una sonrisa que planea sobre un sin sentido general, como un perfume final sobre una onda de nada. De ahí que, sin argumentos ya, la religión se vuelva hacia las lágrimas. Sólo ellas quedan para asegurar, aunque sea escasamente, el equilibrio del universo y la existencia de Dios. Una vez agotadas las lágrimas, el deseo de Dios desaparecerá también.
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  ¡Imposible amar a Dios de otra manera que odiándolo! Si probáramos su inexistencia en un atestado sin precedentes, nada podría nunca suprimir la rabia -mezcla de lucidez y de demencia- de quien necesita a Dios para aplacar su sed de amor y con más frecuencia de odio. ¿Qué es El si no un instante en el umbral de nuestra destrucción? ¿Qué importa que exista o no si a través de El nuestra lucidez y nuestra locura se equilibran y nos calmamos abrazándole con una pasión mortífera?
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  ¡Esa necesidad de profanar las tumbas, de animar los cementerios en un apocalipsis primaveral! Sólo la vida existe, a pesar del absolutismo de la muerte. Eso es algo que saben los campesinos, ellos que fornican en los cementerios, ofendiendo con sus suspiros el silencio agresivo de la muerte. La voluptuosidad sobre una lápida mortuoria, ¡qué triunfo!
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  El único argumento contra la inmortalidad es el aburrimiento. De ahí proceden, de hecho, todas nuestras negaciones.
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  La ironía es un ejercicio que revela la falta de seriedad de la existencia. El yo convierte el mundo en nada, pues la ironía sólo proporciona sensaciones de poder cuando todo ha sido abolido. La perspectiva irónica es un subterfugio del delirio de grandeza. Para consolarse de su inexistencia, el yo se transforma en todo. La ironía se vuelve seria cuando se eleva a la visión implacable de la nada. Lo trágico es el estadio último de la ironía.
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  Cuanto más leo a los pesimistas, más aprecio la vida. Tras leer a Schopenhauer, reacciono como un novio. Schopenhauer tiene razón cuando afirma que la vida no es más que un sueño.
  
  Pero incurre en una inconsecuencia grave cuando, en lugar de estimular las ilusiones, las desenmascara haciendo creer que existe algo fuera de ellas. ¿Quién podría soportar la vida si fuera real? Siendo un sueño, es una mezcla de encanto y de terror a la cual sucumbimos.
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  No creo haber perdido una sola ocasión de estar triste. (Mi vocación de hombre.)
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  La conclusión de toda religión: la vida como una pérdida de alma.
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  Cuanto más atrevidas son las paradojas sobre Dios, mejor expresan su esencia. Las propias injurias le resultan más familiares que la teología o la meditación filosófica. Dirigidas contra los hombres, serían irremediablemente vulgares o no tendrían consecuencias; el hombre no es en absoluto responsable, dado que su creador es la causa del error y del pecado. La caída de Adán es ante todo un desastre divino. El Creador ha proyectado en el hombre todas sus imperfecciones, su podredumbre y su decrepitud. Nuestra aparición sobre la tierra debería salvar la perfección divina. Lo que en el Todopoderoso era «existencia», infección temporal, caída, se canalizó en el hombre, así Dios ha salvado su nada. Gracias a nosotros, que le servimos de vertedero, El se halla vacío de todo.
  
  ...De ahí que cuando injuriamos al cielo, lo hagamos en virtud del derecho de quien lleva una carga ajena. Dios sospecha lo que nos sucede y si envió a su Hijo para que nos quitara de encima una parte de nuestras penas, lo hizo no por compasión, sino por remordimiento.
• 
  Whit

  This was a birthday present from Caspar so I have to start this review by thanking him and saying Yes! I adore it. First you recommend Gravity and Grace and now THIS you are creating a monster.
  
  Anyways WOAH. Cold and terror. A treatise on the nature of Mysticism and Sainthood. What do saints mean for the christian faith? How do they impact secular culture? Flannery O'Connor wld say that we are Christ haunted, Cioran would say we are hounded by his saints.
  
  "all the theological treatise put together are not worth a single sentence from saint Teresa"
  
  Tears are the language of the christian God. Mystics and saints, through Weilian Decreation, return to the language before language, the time before time, to slide back into the blackness. AH I think of Louise! God is not the light but the darkness behind it. Julian of Norwich talks about The Great Mystery. The plan that exists beyond human comprehension that only God knows. Here, Cioran wrestles with that notion (interestingly no Julian cited - not unsurprisingly tho). Tarkovsky is a welcome companion - The Zone - God as nuclear waste. Christ as the ultimate Ghost. Sainthood is horror. For those struggling with Simone Weil this wld not be a poor companion. Decreation.
  
  A dismissal of philosophy? No... thats reductive. But certainly an admission that metaphysics must lean on God. Nietzsche comes out of this looking alright (well actually), Pascal is kind of trampled on but I have gotten used to that through Simone. Descartes and Germans get kind of ripped to shreds (sorry Ed).
  
  AND MORE MORE! Louise Glück is the most obvious comparison in this book. Much regarding the death of the "I" which could be applied to poetry:
  
  "according to mystics God alone can say 'I'"
  
  "few are the poets who know the genealogy of tears. for if they knew it they would no longer say 'I' but 'God'"
  
  I have too many thoughts buzzing and buzzing about. Much much of this to be seen in my dissertation and beyond I feel. Wine. Sacrifice. Thorns. Mary Magdelene. It does me no good to be good to me n-
  
  mysticism is the eruption of the absolute into history
• 
  Angela.

  This book was a series of statements [loosely] tied to themes of religion that Cioran did nothing to qualify. Definitely thought-provoking, but oh-so frustrating. There are numerous ideas in this book that can each be expanded into its own piece of work, however Cioran only states them as fact and gives no clarification. Some of his claims seem to have no basis, but he just makes them and moves right along. This book would be good for a philosophical or theological writer with a mental block- they would find plenty of concepts that need to be explored further.
  
  P.S. It is very evident from this book that although Cioran claims a sort of freedom through a hatred of God, he is actually tortured by his doubt. Comes with the territory.
• 
  Peyton

  "Shakespeare and Dostoevsky leave you with an insufferable regret: for having been neither a saint nor a criminal, the two best forms of self-destruction."
  Banger book. Cioran is extremely quotable, but his aphorisms are substantial and thought-provoking, not just pithy sayings. Very compelling even when you don't agree with what he's saying. Also worth mentioning that the UChicago Press edition that I have is great, I can't compare it to other English versions since it's the only one I've read, but I really liked the introduction, and there are also brief explanations of the saints Cioran mentions at the end of the book. Visually pleasing, too.
• 
  g

  Es algo terrible que el escepticismo, la melancolía y la lucidez se parezcan tanto entre sí. El llanto y la santidad. La beatitud y la tristeza. Intuiciones tan agudas como insoportables. El insomne rumano devenido francés transita espacios del lenguaje que muestran las miserias del lenguaje mismo y el horror de la intuición ontológica. Su apología de la música es claramente mística. Los aforismos de Cioran son una especie rara de paraíso infernal.
• 
  Bogdan Liviu

  "Ratarea poate să apară după 25 de ani, vârsta la care începe răspunderea în fața propriului tău destin. Când nu realizezi nimic din chemările imperativiului tău ideal, când deviezi de la destinația ta primordială, decăderea continuă te plasează într-o distanță de viață care frizează o idioțenie inspirată. Ratarea nu apare decât pe ruina unor mari ambiții și aspirații."
• 
  Mustafa Şahin

  Dinler, Tanrı, azizler, gözyaşları, müzik, yalnızlık, ölüm ve daha bir sürü konu hakkında etkili düşüncelerin ve ifadelerin yer aldığı bir kitap. Şimdi Cioran'ın neden Çürümenin Kitabı isimli bir eserinin olduğunu daha iyi anlıyorum, her ne kadar henüz okumamış olsam da.
• 
  Ermina

  Ludost. Sioran se zeza sa svecima, sa sveticama (vidno erotski!), a onda kaže da su nam itekako potrebni jer se zbog njih osjećamo tako malim. Ima ničeanskog kod Siorana, pa mi je valjda zbog toga toliko smiješan. Ali, ima i onog što on preuzima od Ničea, pa ga izvrće, a i to mi je smiješno.
  Da ne gledam sadržaj kao filozofski stav, onda čista petica samo na stil i ljepotu slika koje stvara.
• 
  Eric

  Most interesting when writing about specific saints, I wish there had been more of that in this.
• 
  Matt

  It would be inaccurate to call Emil Cioran, who described life as "too full of death for death to add anything to it," as a bearer of sweetness and light. He was also, in all probability, not much fun at parties.
  
  Tear and Saints, Cioran's examination of saints (read: mystics), existence, God, and only tangentially, music, is an aphoristic work of existential and pessimistic philosophy, following after Nietzche in style and bitterness. As he writes of God late in the book, Cioran is possessed by "such fierce longing to press God on my heart as if he were a loved one in the throes of agony, to beg of him one last proof of his love only to find myself with his corpse in my arms!" Cioran stands outside the church, hating it with the vehemence only a spurned lover could feel, unable to either reconcile or move on.
  
  Yet, in his frustrated invectives, Cioran is often insightful, and if you can bear his pessimism and his heresies (which seem to be more emotional than reasoned), Tears and Saints can be a worthwhile read, with fine prose, bursts of genuine humanity, and a lucid (if external) look at the phenomenon of faith.
  
  Cioran's central focus is the renunciation of the world by mystics, best summed up in his aphorism "saints live in flames; wise men, next to them."
  
  For Cioran, the saint's love of suffering is a perversity, and yet, he is fixated on them. Attempting to make sense of mystic's renunciation, he posits a "voluptuousness of suffering," insanity in the form of a will-to-power aimed either (Cioran alternates) vertically towards heaven or towards an escape from the self in a sort of annihilation, an imperialistic drive towards ecstasy. This will is what makes saints remarkable, and why he cannot forgive them, or Christ, who inspired their love of suffering. As he puts it, "without their madness, saints would merely be Christians."
  
  Is Cioran right? Perhaps partially. His emphasis on the individual will in pursuit of God seems a worthy reminder for contemporary Christianity, which often seems to ignore the will, either because it assumes the regenerated will is correctly oriented without critical individual effort, or because it fails to see the importance in the orientation of the will at all.
  
  Going further, the tension between affirmation and renunciation of creation that Cioran describes so well is, so far as I can tell, still inadequately reckoned with by the (protestant) church. How would 2019 evangelicals make sense of St. Rose of Lima, who (it is said) took a vow of perpetual virginity, who only slept two hours a night to have more time to pray, and made herself a crown with small spikes inside to cause her constant pain, a reminder of Christ's crown of thorns?
  
  I am not inclined to follow her example on those three counts and would be rather inclined, with Cioran, to see that self-destructive behavior as unhealthy or perverse; to see the renunciation of sex and sleep as rejections of two of God's good gifts, masochistic, and as a challenge to the goodness of the created order bordering on Gnosticism. (And going further then Cioran, there's something privileged about in her rejection of conventional roles within society, and yet, relying on her family to feed and cloth her while she chases the experience of God.)
  
  And yet, as Arch Llewellyn wrote in his review of Tears and Saints "whether God exists or not, the saints are facts," and must be reckoned with, particularly in an age when the transcendent seems closed off, and conventional understanding of faith seems more and more immanent. As Richard Beck
  has written, "when we don't have direct, personal experiences with the sacred and divine—experiences that move, stun and shake us—faith becomes unsustainable. We come to lean on secondary structures—God talk and morality—that eventually collapse without the foundation of religious experience."
  
  I don't know if it is possible to follow St. Rose's path now, even if I wanted to, or if the heights of her mystic experiences are still scalable. Or, if they were, if I would ever be ready to pay the cost in pain and suffering necessary to reach them. But Cioran has helped me ask the question, in his depressive, bitter, stylized way, and there's something worthwhile in the asking. And for that, I'm grateful to him.
• 
  Justin Evans

  A model little text: the translation reads very nicely, the introduction is informative and suggestive rather than restrictive and pedantic, and Cioran's aphorisms are stimulating.
  
  "Divine infinity thus equals all the moments of loneliness endured by all beings."
  
  "The greatest piece of good luck Jesus had was that he died young. Had he lived to be sixty, he would have given us his memoirs instead of the cross."
  
  "A philosopher is saved from mediocrity either through skepticism or mysticism, the two forms of despair in front of knowledge. Mysticism is an escape from knowledge, and skepticism is knowledge without hope. In either case, the world is not a solution."
• 
  Nicoleta Coman

  “Nu crede nimeni în Dumnezeu decît pentru a evita monologul chinuitor al singurătății. Ne-am putea adresa altcuiva? El pare bucuros de orice dialog și nu se supără că l-am ales pretex teatral al mîhnirilor solitare.”
  
  “Este indiferent ce mod de distrugere îți alegi. Unul se îngroapă într-o bibliotecă, altul într-o cîrciumă. Rezultatul este același. Modul de autodistrugere dovedește ceva numai pentru felul unui om. Spune-mi cum vrei să te prăbușești, ca să-ți spun cine ești. Adică, spune-mi cu ce-ți umpli singurătatea: cu cărți, femei, ambiții.”
• 
  Sasha

  Emil Cioran is a true master when it comes to combining his almost poetic narration I the form of prose in order to deeply dwell on some essential ontological questions which have troubled mankind since the dawn of civilisation. Writing on Saints, Mystics, Gods, Sainthood and whoredome he successfully disects what troubles the modern man beyond redemption: What if there is nothingness after death?
• 
  Maurizio Manco

  "Chi potrebbe sopportare la vita, se fosse reale? Sogno, essa è mescolanza di terrore e di incantamento alla quale si cede." (p. 79)
• 
  Tea Pop

  "Let God pray for the man in whom there is nothing left to die." - one of the most unforgettable final lines I've ever read.