CIORAN Emil M. (1911-1995).

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  4. Lot n° 37 
Lot n° 37
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Estimation :
8000 - 10000 EUR
CIORAN Emil M. (1911-1995).
TWO autograph notebooks; 2 spiral notebooks (29.7 x 21 cm, Joseph Gibert), blue and red, numbered III and IV, of 89 (+1) and 76 leaves, mostly double-sided. Important notebooks of thoughts and reflections of the first draft which will feed Aveux et anathèmes (1987), but which are for the most part unpublished. Written mainly in blue ballpoint pen, with corrections in red or green, these two notebooks follow on from the diary books, but all chronological notation has disappeared. On the cover of notebook III, Cioran crossed out the opening date of the notebook: "From August 4, 1980 to". Many entries have been crossed out, often in red, or are marked in the margin by crosses, or by inverted S's, which are sometimes also question marks indicating a doubt as to a possible previous use; sometimes again Cioran asks the question "already? A few rare sheets have been cut out for re-use of the text; others have texts pasted and inserted in the notebook. Let's quote the first entries of notebook III (the words in square brackets have been crossed out): "No day without a test(s) for anyone who is not lucky enough to be armoured against man. What makes friendship interesting is that it is an inexhaustible source of disappointments, and thus of fruitful surprises which it would be foolish to want to do without. You can only console someone by going along with his [despair] affliction, and that to the point where [the despairing] afflicted is tired of being so // There is a satiety not only of pleasures but [of sorrow] also of pain and even of grief. Unhappiness, whatever it may be, is a promotion. And it flatters us. So the gods, or the demons, [or fate] take care of us. And if it [is] not them, [it will be] it is chance, and it will always be that. [If there is a Providence, how did it allow the metropolises? Only a Monster could have willed this swarming of the fallen]. The obsessed and the dilettantes. We find in these two notebooks a quantity of thoughts and aphorisms that Cioran will take up again in the six chapters of Confessions and Anathemas, generally marked with a red cross, here in their primitive version, often already overloaded with corrections that chisel and perfect the aphorism. Thus we find in book III a first very corrected version of the reflection on Joseph de Maistre in the chapter Face aux instants, and in book IV a very corrected version of the opening words of the Aveux et anathèmes. Let us quote here in book III the first version, very different from the final text, of the thought on the Goldberg Variations (chapter Face aux instants): "The Goldberg Variations having [so] stirred me beyond the bearable I felt the need to go out and walk around. General sunshine. In Luxembourg, I closed my eyes and gave myself over to the echo that this 'superessential' music (to speak like the mystics) aroused in me. There was nothing left but a contentless fullness which is the only way to conceive of God or what takes the place of God.
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