My dear Emil Cioran said, in these Notebooks,—published posthumously,—that what left of a thinker is his temperament. What a beautiful observation! And I notice that, when I think of Cioran, what I remember is exactly his temperament. Impossible not to smile. In these Notebooks, where the human dimension of a philosopher who conceded several of his best pages to pessimism—or who, as Fernando Savater said, had the vocation of a heretic—are exposed practically all the scenes that come to my mind when I think of Cioran. There are almost a thousand pages that endow his work with a very rare coloring: it is the philosopher writing to himself, on one page, commenting on Buddha and Jesus Christ, on another, accesses of rage he has experienced in grocery stores, or unusual situations he has lived through. How can one not smile when seeing a wise man, after some editor rejects a preface on Valéry that cost him long hours of work, exclaiming to himself “I will have my revenge!”; or when seeing an athlete say that, returning from a twenty-kilometer walk, a girl offered him a seat on the train; or even, when seeing a master of sarcasm relate that, while talking to Jean-Paul Sartre, he heard from the Frenchman that his “Romanian grammar” was very good… I think of Cioran and what I remember from him is the supreme humor, which stands out above all his other intellectual qualities. Cioran, perhaps my favorite friend to accompany me through the darkness of thought, is also one of those who can most easily bring a smile to my face.
Notebooks, by Emil Cioran
