. Provocative assertions like "The importance of insomnia is so colossal that I am tempted to define man as the animal who cannot sleep," a line from "Man, the Insomniac Animal," corresponded directly to my immeidate experience and had a perverse allure) was a Hitler enthusiast in the 1930s. According to Marta Petreu's account in An Infamous Past: E.M. Cioran and the Rise of Fascism in Romania
, Cioran later both acknowledged and more importantly rejected his embrace of fascism as a young man (in his twenties) describing it as "unacceptable." Nonetheless, I suspect that from now on I'll never read Cioran with as much appreciation.I discovered Cioran's writing haphazzardly, picking up On the Heights of Despair on the philsophy shelves of the Border's on Clark Street in Chicago. For those who haven't read any, here's a small sampling. The Temptation to Exist opens with an essay titled "Thinking Against Oneself" that begins with this insight:
Almost all our discoveries are due to our violences, to the exacerbation of our instability.
On a related note I'm disturbed by the way the author of this article, Carlin Romano, portrays Paul de Man as a more 'tainted' figure than Cioran. From what I know about de Man's journalistic activities as a young man in World War II Belgium, and from what I've read some of this work, de Man was not really 'pro-Nazi' and his essays could be reasonably described as opportunistic pieces that tried subtly to distance themselves from the strong anti-Semitism of the day.
One thing is certain. De Man's wartime prose was not hate filled in the way that Cioran's prose was. That doesn't mean de Man's decision to write for a collaborationist newspaper was justified, nor should we excuse him for attempting to bury his wartime past. I'm not condoning de Man's actions or the decisions he made. That said, it is a gross distortion, I think, to condemn him as a fascist and leave it at that. And to construe the essays found in brilliant texts such as Allegories of Reading to be an ellaborate deconstructionist ruse designed to excuse his wartime writings is twisted.
1 comment:
Dear Dean,
Plaese do not criticize Cioran on his interest in Fascism. You have to see that the 30-ties disturbing times. Political, ideological, socially. And fascism seemed to at least give a strong new view upon things. Many of the greatest minds of these times, like for instance Martin Heidegger (1889 - 1976) was for a short time attracted to fascism. It was at the time impossible to prodict the attrocities that it caused. Also, later, many earopean intellectuals were attracted to Communism, somewhat naive. But you cannot keep thinking about these people as the onces that 'agreed' with all the horror. It is just not that simple. In the case of Cioran, please keep reading him. His prose is wonderful, and you wouldn't wanna miss him!!!
Al the best, from Rotterdam, Holland,
Leonart@gmail.com
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