“The task of man is not over until…” (August 22, 2009)
Elie Cioran, originally from Romania, wrote in French and became French. In his childhood, Cioran kicked human skulls, dug out of nearby cemetery, for football games with his companions. By the age of twenty Cioran lost the ability to sleep and lived an insomniac; “The French language appeased me as straight jackets appease the crazy” confessed Cioran.
Elie detested institutions, parades, and the enthusiasm of the masses. “As long as there is one God standing, then the task of man is not over” wrote Cioran. This post is not about Cioran who said “Without God everything is a void; and God is the supreme void.” This post is not about the void; I am suffering enough of this harsh plague. This post is not about God; that would be a long story. I have never advanced an inch reading about God; I avoid reading on that subject: The more I read the more I retrograde considerably emotionally and morally.
“We are all practical jokers: we manage to survive our problems and miseries” Cioran went on; I guess that I share his feelings. It follows to resuming his idea “the risk of having a biographer has never dissuaded anyone for hiring one” said Cioran. I am leaning that this sentence might be the subject of this post. If you are disgusted with your memoir then why hire someone to vomit all over you?
It seems that Cioran was the briefest and the least humanist of the rebels; he refused the Morand prize extended by the French Academy. “I have known all sorts of degenerations, including success. We live in the fake as long as we have not suffered. However, it does not follow that we enter into the real when we start to suffer; we just regret the fake. Yes, for over two thousand years Jesus is exacting his revenge for not dying on a sofa”
Reading or being in literature is simply a matter of pleasure. If you read for hidden messages among the books, for a cause, or for just research then you are not friend of literature; you have better make literature a job and get paid. If you read as means of gathering information and a source for enhancing your story telling prowess in society then it is fine but you are no friend of literature.
I love to read in the original language such as French, English, and Arabic. Translated works leave me with the carcasses that are the main stories, but the texture, flavor, and smell of the author’s style is lost. I don’t care for the stories: they are the same with a twist. I like to know the author and his culture. I hate to see authors’ photos on the book jackets: I like not to get biased in reading a book and comprehending the spirit and culture of the author.
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