Drawn and Quartered

By Emil M. Cioran

Book Overview

In this collection of aphorisms and short essays, E.M. Cioran sets about the task of peeling off the layers of false realities with which society masks the truth. For him, real hope lies in this task, and thus, while he perceives the world darkly, he refuses to give in to despair. He hits upon this ultimate truth by developing his notion of human history and events as "a procession of delusions," striking out at the so-called "Fallacies of Hope." By examining the relationship between truth and action and between absolutes, unknowables, and frauds, Cioran comes out, for once, in favor of being.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1611456967
• ISBN13: 9781611456967
• Release Date: November 2012
• Publisher: Arcade Publishing
• Length: 200 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Cioran is my spiritual doppelganger

Paul Williams once said that, after hearing a Bob Dylan tune called JUST LIKE A WOMAN, he wanted to mail it to everyone. I feel the same way about Cioran's stuff. And coincidentally enough, Emil touches on this very topic in DRAWN AND QUARTERED: "To send someone a book is to commit a burglary---a case of breaking and entering. It is to trample down his solitude, what he holds most sacred, for it is to oblige him to desist from himself in order to think about your thoughts."

Two Books In One

This is a good introduction to Cioran. It's split into two major sections, the first being a collection of brilliant short essays and then another section of aphormisms. I believe the essays are among the finest he ever wrote and the aphormisms are also excellent, if not quite as profound as those in The Trouble With Being Born.