Interview: Emil Cioran

(freely translated in english from dutch)

Beyond Nietzsche

by Fred Backus

December 14, 1994 - appeared in No. 50

Last year, E. M. Cioran published Bitter syllogisms, translated by Huug Caleis, from De Arbeiderspers. At the same publishing house, Drawn & Quartered will appear next spring, in the translation of Rokus Hofstede. The French magazine 'Magazine Litteraire', from December, contains a more than twenty page 'file' about Cioran. E. M. Cioran, the most pessimistic thinker of this century, is spending his last days in a Paris nursing home. Before he got there, he unloads once more. About Muslims, Jews and Christians. And about the uselessness of life. The last interview.

At the Shadow side from a garden of a nursing home in the center of Paris, a small, dead-tired old man is waiting under a cap - staring into nothingness. All power seems to have withdrawn from his body; speaking words is almost impossible, it costs too much air. Only his eyes react to his visitor, alternating with delighted wonder and ironic self-pity. Would he be able to speak at full strength - even if only for a few seconds - he would exclaim with a mixture of aggression, pride and self-mockery: "This is the irony!" Now, exhausted, trapped in the ruthless ethics of medical aid, surrounded by loving grief, comes out in a whisper: 'Vous me devez supprimer ...', as an unanswerable plea to his companion Simone: 'Take me away.'

Four Years ago, we had spoken to each other the last time, almost a whole day. Many of his friends, acquaintances, kindred spirits have recently dead. Michaux, Beckett ... A few years before he made a walk with them, in the Jardin de Luxembourg. He was then almost eighty years old, an unthinkable survivor, who on the age of twenty-two, described himself as "the most destructive creature in all history; an apocalyptic monster full of flames and darkness, animated by power and despair '. Anyone who engages in his work is confronted with that destructiveness and despair in a way that has thrilled many readers to throw it into the stove: this is all true, but I do not want to know! What is he? The biggest, most aggressive pessimist in history? A hysterical fanatic without conviction? A mystic? They do not know. This hybrid spirit, this brilliant stylist, who jumps from one extremity to the other in his radical skepticism, is primarily a prophet of the hopeless, a 'voyeur of nothingness' (Edward Said), a misanthrope transformed into energetic fire. bears witness to a bewildering scholarship that shatters everything, like a murderous sniper, for whom no thought is safe.

His voice had already lost strength, and now and then it sounded tired. Sometimes his memory left him for a moment. "How is your hotel?" He asked. I said, "It is between shop windows full of Freud and Heidegger." 'Unbelievably that interest in Heidegger', he reacts immediately. "You know, Heidegger could never have been a Frenchman. Why? Because of the language. Rivarol has pointed out that the probite, the integrity of language, is typical of the French style feeling. It is a kind of built-in security that does not know German. Heidegger's genius was especially his language-creating power. His profundity was a premeditation. His thinking was a preconceived In-Tiefe-Machen, and that leads to the forcing of the language, to the avoidance of common expressions, at any price. '

You do not believe in Heidegger?
'No absolutely not. Heidegger managed to turn himself out everywhere and obscure any impasse by using the most unusual, often irritating phrases and Worterfinderei. Such a thing is inconceivable in French. Vaugelas, one of the most important linguists of the seventeenth century, would not even have allowed the king to make new words. One should not think about how he would have gone against the popularity of Heidegger in France. A foreign philosopher who would create innumerable new words ... It is really absurd. '

Do you still write?
'No not anymore. Many people do not want to believe that, but ... I could have died long ago, and there's no point in thinking about the books that people could have written. Most writers write too much, they often have to correct themselves later. That's no use. " 

 Do you still write for yourself?
'Yes and no ... Occasionally, but without conviction. I have changed inwardly, and writing is a feeling. I am no longer me. My work is the work of negation. I have become tired of criticizing life, to insult the rest of the universe. You never know, of course, but I do not believe that I will return to literature.
I have never written much. This has not only to do with my views on authorship, but also with the problem of language. I was 37 when I started to write French. That is actually much too late. In Romania, French was fairly common, but that is not enough for a writer. I have made a terrible battle with French. It was an adventure, a conflict between me and the language. I have said, "I will overpower that language." Perhaps that gave my life a meaning ... I thought I would write one or two books, it turned out to be ten. "

Did you expect people to characterize you as the best French stylist?
'No not at all. I also do not believe that it is true. But you know, I've rewritten everything that I have writed at least three times, and the difference between the first, second and third versions was always very big. The first time you are ... satisfied. Only later on will the shortcomings become visible. I have always asked Simone to read my texts, to hear how they sound. This was very important in the beginning. You hear whether something is good or not. The style issue is very problematic. It is the problem of Klarheit. I read a lot of German in my youth, but I wanted my style to have nothing to do with German, nothing heavy, nothing grundlichs. " 

I read in Liberation that you were very enthusiastic about the revolutions in Romania.
'It was horrible. I let myself be swept away by the opinions of people that I trusted and who assured me of the good intentions of Iliescu and associates. It is irony at it's summit. All my life I refused to allow an interview to a French newspaper. I never wanted to have anything to do with it. After the fall of Ceausescu, a journalist called me and had me tempted into a terrible mistake: I sided with the revolution. Idiotic!'

Perhaps because it was your original homeland?
'No. Romania has no sense for me anymore. I have been away for more than half a century. Moreover, my childhood in Romania was a tragedy without end. My mother always cried because of me. If I had not left Romania, I would have committed suicide. Paris saved me. I promised to write a thesis here. I did not do it, but I never felt guilty. Romanians generally believe in nothing, that is their only merit, the only positive thing about them. To write a thesis, you must attach faith to a philosophical jargon. That is too much honor for life. Life does not deserve a philosophical depth.
Translated into normal language, a philosophical text is emptied very quickly. ' 

You have always distrusted East Europe, especially Russia. Is this fragmented empire still a danger?
'I believe that it was the ambassador of the Netherlands who asked Ivan the Terrible through an interpreter why he persecuted so many people and had them murdered. Iwan replied: "Tell this idiot that anyone who does not kill the Russian, will be killed by him." That is the tradition of Russia, and it still exists. "

You do not believe that democratization continues in Russia?
"No, maybe for a moment, with the help of foreign capital. The Russians have no talent for democracy, for freedom. That freedom must have a limit, and can therefore only fail. The problem is where that limit lies. But it will not go well, it will end again in dictatorship. ' 

In Russia, as you once said, the orthodox church has great significance again.
'Yes, that can have consequences for the Russian delusion of grandeur. In that respect, we may speak of happiness that they also have to deal with the problem of the Muslims. The Russians are a very religious people. It was very stupid to try to destroy that. Religion is positive. Someone who can believe in God is not yet finished, not yet exhausted. I also believe that Gorbachev understood that too little. He was, how shall I say, very cynical, but especially irreligious. For me, that explains his unpopularity. '

In your books, in your worldview, the American continent plays no role, as if it were a negligible superpower.
'America does not have the problem of Europe. The country has nothing big. France and England were impressive in the past. America does not, it has nothing mysterious. It is a country without major defeats. Maybe they will, but I am not fascinated by it, not like Russia. "

They see themselves as the last world power: without the Americans, no Gulf War.
"That was an abnormal war, in every respect. Actually, it was not a war but a comedy. Only America could do so stupidly and therefore compromise itself, without any historical awareness. In the eyes of Arabs, Americans are only stupid rich people. And they're right. The only intelligent people in America are Jews, they control public opinion, but also force them into their politics. If America had not won that war in one blow, it would have become catastrophic. I fear that in an event of great losses, the American people would become very anti-Semitic, and wondered: why did we have to do this for Israel? Why not allow Saddam to get rid of for a million dollar by some adventurer? Nobody had blamed America. Now they have achieved a military victory, but psychologically America has lost. " 

What do you mean?
"The Arab problem still exists, it is one of the biggest problems of the future. Especially for Europe. The Arabs are already conquering France. They hate the French. They multiply incredibly, that is historically unavoidable. Many of them are already saying: this country is ours. '

With these kinds of statements you risk being typed as a right-wing extremist, as a sympathizer of Le Pen.
"About fifteen years ago I was friends with the sister of the foreign minister. Shocked, I told her about my experiences with all those foreigners in the Paris area. "You are a racist!" She said, and broke contact. Until a few years, she also saw it. Everyone sees it now, this grotesque, but it is too late now.
A year or so ago, there might was something to do about, with strict measures. No, that has nothing to do with racism, it is all much more complicated. It is all part of the suicide of Europe, out of guilt.
Spenglers 'Untergang des Abendlandes' is probably a very prophetic book. At that time it was despised, nobody wanted to believe it. The world will become intolerable, much faster than people think, I am absolutely convinced of that. ' 

The Arabs will also remain a threat to Israel?
'Doubtless.'

In 'La tentation d'exister' from 1956 you do not hint at all believing in the future of Israel. You only call Israel a 'provisional' fatherland.
'Yes, the fate of the Jews is exceptional, and even uncompromising with the help of compromises. The Jews are the only historical people that have not fallen prey to decadence. One of the reasons is the absence of a fatherland. A homeland is a kind of sleeping aid. The Jews have always been watchful wherever they were. That still applies. Their walk around the world has something unearthly. They attach to this world, but they do not belong in some way. It is incredible how many civilizations they have traversed, how much they have left their mark on it. And yet they do not belong there. Their desire for the utopian is a memory projected in the future. I believe that it is not possible to turn history back two thousand years. I believe it is their destiny to keep running their heads against the wailing wall - while they long for paradise. " 

You say that they are the first people to 'colonize heaven', but that their religion fills them with pride and with shame at the same time.
"By placing their God in heaven they have erased all other gods, all other myths. But I believe that the Jews are tired of their own God. "

You go very far in your predictions. You foresee that they will ever confess to Christianity.
"You know, that's the only prophecy that I'm really proud of. Christ was a Jew. They have betrayed him. If everyone has left Christianity, the Jews will confess, they will take Christ back to them, and they will be hated again, and persecuted, for that reason. I really believe that it will go like this. "

From childhood on you attacked Christianity. In what way does your criticism differ from Nietzsche's?
'Nietzsche's criticism was only world-historical, almost civil. I have entered into a personal confrontation with Christianity. I have never been a true Christian, although my father was a priest, but I still wanted to free myself from Christianity.As long as my powers allowed it, I went further into it. Four times I experienced an ecstasy similar to that of the great mystics. I have tried to understand the saints from the inside. That is why you can say that I have gone further than Nietzsche. My negation is on a different level than his own. His philosophy is something like an erotic letter from a weak brother. He wanted to have influence. Not me, absolutely not. I have only described what I experienced. I do not have any pretensions. "

You have "tried" Buddhism.
'Buddhism has always fascinated me, but it's nothing for me. I am too tense, too nervous. Moreover, I can not deny myself everything. That is a delusion. In the past, when I came home drunk, I read sermons from the Buddha all night, but I can not control myself as he wishes. I can not live without sex, without sensual life. I once went to a monastery ... three days, I could not stand it any longer.
I am not in control of my nature. I am a Buddhist who constantly makes concessions. ' 

Nowadays even a Buddhist with television, I see ... Do you follow the world news now through the TV?
"Sometimes I look, but usually not. I got it as a gift from a friend. I would not buy a television by myself. You have to know something, but I believe that it is not spiritually good to see the latest news. It is humiliating, depressing, in the worst sense of the word. For me it hardly makes sense, I am no longer among the people. As long as you do, you have to know a little bit about what is going on.
But that need for the latest news ... It is just like the Apostrophe program. The whole of France spoke about it. The latest literary news was the talk of the day. This is not good for a people with a literary tradition. Pivot, the presenter of the program, has invited me repeatedly, but I have always refused.
I do not want to say in a stupid way whether television is good or not. But it has something un-nice, I do not like it. It would be better if one did not want to see everything. But it is inevitable. That depravity! " 

Do you believe in any change, any progress?
"Progress was a religion, not anymore. Les progressists ... they do not believe in it anymore. There is another belief, something will change. History will get a different rhythm. Man is an adventure that is impossible to end well. If that is not true, then I am the last idiot. In my eyes, man is a depraved animal. Man was an animal. Not anymore. He is no longer an animal, but no human being either. I do not know what he is, at least not a tragic creature, that would be "too beautiful". A genius? A criminal? A corrupt animal? I do not know. But I do know that he has no future. I'll give it to you on a note if necessary. People will perish. " 

You see every turn negative?
"... Everything is corrupt. The multiplication of this animal would have some meaning if it were a rare species. But it just keeps on reproducing, incredible, people, people, everywhere! And life loses its charm. "

One can still fall in love.
"Yes, but you fall in love within a hell - and even that will not be possible for long. This negative animal destroys everything. It is not the culture, or I know what. It is man himself, and of course ... science. It is responsible for people to no longer die. Go to a hospital. It is a catastrophe. Only old people who should not live anymore. One prolongs lives that have no meaning anymore. The result is that young people can no longer find a home. That is the criminal of the doctors. The results of science are extraordinary, but they all have a negative downside - that is history, that is the universal irony. In principle everything seems positive, but if you look deeper ... Distrusting everything is the only way to not ridicule yourself. '

Was that not always the case?
'Of course. But science has aggravated everything. When you read the Bible you see that everything from the beginning was already corrupt, that this impossible adventure was foreseen, that there was no other way out. Paradise was impossible, it was too uninteresting. "

Yet there are people who are still reasonably happy.
"Yes, a single individual. The fate of humanity is indescribable. People feel that. But yes, there are always eccentrics. You simply have people who visit a cemetery and walk away whistling. What else do you want to do in that situation, in which everything is clear? '

You never write about living together with a woman.
"No, that only makes sense if it is absolutely negative, otherwise it will not work.
It is impossible to write: I am so happy with my wife. That is unliterary. "

It is often enough wrong nowadays.
"It does not work anymore. Marriage was inevitable as long as the woman was dependent. It was her salvation. Nowadays the women work in the office, that's a lot for a wedding. For me personally, the rule always applied: everything except to marry! Marriage would have been a disaster for me. To have to earn money, to be busy all day for someone else, for nothing in this world! Even though the passion would be great. I did not think about it. Marriage is a dangerous undertaking. I have seen a lot of ending up in a catastrophe. ' 

Yet you have been living together for thirty-five years.
"I capitulated. I have to admit to myself that I can not live without a woman. I have been living as a husband for thirty-five years, but without being married. I have always thought: if life is justifiable, then only by freedom. Fortunately Simone thinks so too. '

I was at the tomb of Beckett. How was he in his last months?
"Oh, I did not visit him anymore. He was ill for more than two years in a very bad condition. He was ... how shall I say it? In the last period he was no longer the Beckett I had known. One can say: that really was not a failed life. What I so highly respected in him was his unqualifiedness. Unimaginable. People always had the impression that he had just arrived in the city, although he had lived here for more than half a century. He was really a foreigner. He did not like the English, but he himself behaved like that. He was very warm, absolutely unaffected by Paris, which pleased me very much. He was not a social person, but he could be very nice, had a lot of charm. '

What would he have thought of all that posthumous attention?
"He would have rejected it as grotesque. He was not the man. He was a great writer. Yet I fear that one will say: he was overrated. I have thought about it for a long time, and I can not say exactly why, but one will consider him overestimated, fantastically overrated. I say that with regret, we were very good friends. He used to support me financially, his wife even more. "

Was she nice?
'Absolutely not. She was unbearable! She scorned everyone, had no friends. Everyone was uninteresting, or idiotic. I have always admired Beckett that he was with this woman. It was a very curious relationship. They always behaved as if they did not know each other, never went somewhere together. It is hardly imaginable that two such incompatible people have lived together for so long. Later on they separated from each other, living in two apartments. '

Rue Casimir Delavigne, Rue Monsieur Le Prince, we walk to the Jardin de Luxembourg, the conversation does not stop, goes on and on. Cioran takes me to a path, far right.
"We have renamed this avenue with some friends to Beckettallee, here he always walked, here he was never disturbed." Then we say goodbye, as if nothing is wrong.
Only a few years later we see each other again, in another garden, that of a nursing home. A wordless encounter; hands that grasp, no longer letting go.
Simone reads from a pile of mail. "This letter," she says, "is from a reader who wants to correspond about French with Joseph de Maistre in relation to ... and so on."
Cioran frowns his gaze, leaving everyone in limbo or hearing what has been said. Then, in a whisper, he says, waving: 'Pff, pas urgent', and chuckles, infectiously ... 'Pff, pas urgent!'

Original text.

At One O'Clock In The Morning - Poem by Charles Baudelaire

Alone, at last! Not a sound to be heard but the rumbling of some belated and decrepit cabs. For a few hours we shall have silence, if not repose. At last the tyranny of the human face has disappeared, and I myself shall be the only cause of my sufferings. At last, then, I am allowed to refresh myself in a bath of darkness! First of all, a double turn of the lock. It seems to me that this twist of the key will increase my solitude and fortify the barricades which at this instant separate me from the world.

Horrible life! Horrible town! Let us recapitulate the day: seen several men of letters, one of whom asked me whether one could go to Russia by a land route (no doubt he took Russia to be an island); disputed generously with the editor of a review, who, to each of my objections, replied: 'We represent the cause of decent people,' which implies that all the other newspapers are edited by scoundrels; greeted some twenty persons, with fifteen of whom I am not acquainted; distributed handshakes in the same proportion, and this without having taken the precaution of buying gloves; to kill time, during a shower, went to see an acrobat, who asked me to design for her the costume of a
Venustra; paid court to the director of a theatre, who, while dismissing me, said to me: 'Perhaps you would do well to apply to Z------; he is the clumsiest, the stupidest and the most celebrated of my authors; together with him, perhaps, you would get somewhere. Go to see him, and after that we'll see;' boasted (why?) of several vile actions which I have never committed, and faint-heartedly denied some other misdeeds which I accomplished with joy, an error of bravado, an offence against human respect; refused a friend an easy service, and gave a written recommendation to a perfect clown; oh, isn't that enough? Discontented with everyone and discontented with myself, I would gladly redeem myself and elate myself a little in the silence and solitude of night. Souls of those I have loved, souls of those I have sung, strengthen me, support me, rid me of lies and the corrupting vapours of the world; and you, O Lord God, grant me the grace to produce a few good verses, which shall prove to myself that I am not the lowest of men, that I am not inferior to those whom I despise.

TO STAY ALIVE by Michel Houellebecq

TO STAY ALIVE A method By Michel Houellebecq. Translated by Richard Davis.


FIRST, SUFFERING "The universe cries. The concrete blocks of a wall bear a record of the violence with which they have been struck. Concrete cries.
Grass moans between the teeth of animals. And man? What shall we say of man?"
The world is suffering unfolded. At its origin it is a node of suffering. All existence is an expansion, and a crushing.
All things suffer into existence. Nothingness vibrates with pain until it arrives at being, in an abject paroxysm.
Beings diversify and become complex without losing anything of their original nature. Once a certain level of consciousness is reached, the cry is produced.
Poetry derives from it. Articulate language, equally. The first step for the poet is to return to the origin; that is, to suffering.
The modalities of suffering are important; they are not essential. All suffering is good. All suffering is useful. All suffering bears fruit. All suffering is a universe.
Henri is one year old. He is lying on the floor. His diapers are dirty. He is bawling. His mother is walking back and forth, her heels clicking against the tiles of the floor,
looking for her bra and her skirt. She is in a hurry to go to her evening rendezvous. This little thing covered with shit, moving around on the tiles, exasperates her.
She begins to cry herself. Henri bawls all the more. Then she goes out. Henri has got off to a good start in his career as a poet.
Marc is ten years old. His father is dying of cancer in the hospital. This pile of worn machinery, with tubes going down the throat, and intravenous drips: this is his father.
Only his eyes are alive; they express suffering and fear. Marc suffers too. He too is afraid. He loves his father. And at the same time he is beginning to wish that his father would die, and to feel guilty about it.
Marc has work to do. He should cultivate in himself this suffering, so particular and so fertile: this Most Holy Guilt.
Michel is fifteen. He has never been kissed by a girl. He would like to dance with Sylvie, but Sylvie is dancing with Patrice, and she is manifestly enjoying it.
He is frozen. The music penetrates to the deepest core of his being. It is a magnificent slow dance of surreal beauty. He never knew he could suffer so much. His childhood, up until now, had been happy.
Michel will never forget the contrast between his heart, frozen with suffering, and the overwhelming beauty of the music. His sensibility is being formed.
If the world is composed of suffering, this is because it is, essentially, free. Suffering is the necessary consequence of the free play of the parts of the system.
You ought to know this; you ought to say it.
It will not be possible for you to transform this suffering into a goal. Suffering is, and by consequence can never become a goal. In the wounds which it inflicts upon us,
life alternates between the brutal and the insidious. Know these two forms. Study them closely. Acquire a complete knowledge of them. Distinguish that which separates them,
and that which unites them. Many contradictions will then be resolved. Your voice will gain in force, and in amplitude. Given the characteristics of the modern era,
love can scarcely manifest itself anymore. Yet the ideal of love has not diminished. Being, like all ideals, fundamentally atemporal, it can neither diminish nor disappear.
Whence a particularly striking discordance between real and ideal, and a particularly rich source of suffering.
The adolescent years are important. Once you have developed a sufficiently ideal, noble, and perfect sense of love, you are done for.
Nothing, henceforth, will suffice.
If you do not date women (whether through shyness, ugliness, or for some other reason), read women’s magazines. You will experience suffering that is almost equivalent. Go right to the bottom of the absence of love. Cultivate self-hatred. Hatred of oneself, contempt for others. Hatred of others, contempt for oneself. Mix it all up. Form a synthesis. In the tumult of life, always be the loser. The universe is like a discotheque. Accumulate frustrations in great number. To learn to become a poet is to unlearn how to live.
Love your past or hate it, but let it remain present to you. You should acquire a complete knowledge of yourself. Thus, little by little, your deep self will detach itself from you, and slip beyond the sun, while your body will remain in place, swollen, blistered, irritated, ripe for new sufferings.
Life is a series of destruction tests. Pass the first of them, and fail the later ones. Ruin your life, but not by much. And suffer, always suffer. You should learn to feel the pain in every one of your pores. Each fragment of the universe should be a personal injury to you. And yet, you must stay alive—at least for a certain time. Timidity is not to be looked down upon. It has been considered the sole source of inner wealth; this is not far wrong. In fact, it is in the moment of delay between will and act that interesting mental phenomena begin to be manifest. The man for whom this delay is absent remains little more than an animal. Timidity is an excellent point of departure for a poet.
Develop in yourself a profound resentment toward life. This resentment is necessary for any veritable artistic creation.
Sometimes, it is true, life will appear to you as simply an incongruous experience. But your resentment should never be far, never out of reach—even if you choose not to express it. And return always to the origin, which is suffering.
When you provoke in others a mixture of horrified pity and contempt, you will know that you are on the right track. You can begin to write.

TO ARTICULATE
"A force becomes movement once it enters into action and develops in time."
If you do not succeed in articulating your suffering within a well-defined structure, you are done for. Suffering will swallow you whole, from the inside, before you have had the time to write anything at all.
Structure is the sole means of escaping suicide. And suicide resolves nothing. Imagine if Baudelaire had succeeded in his attempt at suicide, at twenty-four. Believe in structure. Believe in the ancient metrics, equally.
Versification is a powerful tool for the liberation of the inner life.
Do not feel obliged to invent a new form. New forms are rare. One per century is already a brisk pace. And it is not necessarily the greatest poets who are at the origin of them. Poetry is not a reworking of language,
not essentially. Words are the responsibility of society as a whole. Most new forms are not produced from scratch, but by slow deviation from an antecedent form. The tool is adapted, little by little;
it undergoes light modifications; the novelty which results from their conjoined effect generally does not appear until the end, once the work is written.
It is entirely comparable to the evolution of speciesYou will emit, at first, inarticulate cries. And you will often be tempted to regress to that stage. This is normal.
Poetry, in reality, precedes articulate language, though not by much. Plunge again into inarticulate cries, each time you feel the need. It is a rejuvenating bath.
But do not forget: if you do not manage, at least from time to time, to emerge from it, you will die. The human organism has its limits.
At the height of your suffering, you will not be able to write. If you feel you have it in you to do so, try all the same. The result will probably be bad—probably, but not certainly. Never work.
Writing poems is not work; it is a charge. If the use of a specific form (the alexandrine, for example) requires an effort, renounce it. This type of effort never pays off.
The same cannot be said of the general, on-going, and consistent effort to overcome apathy. This is indispensable. On the matter of form, never hesitate to contradict yourself.
Bifurcate, change direction as often as necessary. Do not try too hard to have a coherent personality; this personality exists, whether you like it or not.
Neglect nothing which could possibly procure for you a modicum of equilibrium. In any case, happiness is not for you; this has been established, and for quite some time.
But if you can manage to grasp one of its simulacra, do so. Without hesitation. In any case, it will not last.
Your existence is nothing more than a tissue of sufferings. You think you can manage to lay them out in a coherent form. Your objective, at this stage: to live long enough to do it.

TO SURVIVE
"The literary career is all the same the only one where you can make no money without looking ridiculous."
(Jules Renard)
A dead poet does not write. Whence the importance of remaining alive. This simple reasoning will sometimes be difficult for you to adhere to. In particular during periods of prolonged creative sterility.
Your clinging to life will appear, at these times, painfully pointless; in any case, you will not be writing.
To this, only one reply: ultimately, you know nothing about it. If you examine yourself honestly, you will have to agree. Strange cases have been known to occur.
If you are no longer writing, this is perhaps a prelude to a change of form. Or a change of theme. Or both. Or it is perhaps, in effect, a prelude to your creative death. But you know nothing about it.
You will never really know this part of yourself which compels you to write. You will know it only through contradictory forms which merely approach it. Egotism or devotion? Cruelty or compassion?
Any of these possibilities could be argued for. Proof that, ultimately, you know nothing about it; thus, do not behave as if you did. Before your own ignorance, before this mysterious part of yourself, remain honest and humble.
Not only do poets who live to an old age produce more work overall, but old age is the seat of particular physical and mental processes, of which it would be a shame to be ignorant.
That said, survival is extremely difficult. One could consider adopting what could be called Pessoa’s strategy: find a little job, publish nothing, and await death peacefully.
In practice, one would be going forward to meet significant difficulties: the feeling that one is wasting one’s time, that one is not in one’s place, that one is not being esteemed at one’s true value. . .
All this would rapidly become unbearable. Drinking would be difficult to avoid. In the end, bitterness and acrimony would lie in wait at the end of the road, soon to be followed by apathy and irreversible creative sterility.
This solution, then, has its disadvantages, but it is generally the only one. Do not forget psychiatrists, who have at their disposal the power to grant sick-leave.
However, a prolonged stay at a psychiatric hospital is to be proscribed: too destructive. One should use this only as a last resort, as an alternative to destitution.
The mechanisms of the welfare state (unemployment payments, etc.) should be taken full advantage of, as well as the financial support of friends who are better off.
Do not cultivate excessive guilt with regard to this. The poet is a sacred parasite.
The poet is a sacred parasite: like the scarabs of ancient Egypt, he can thrive upon the body of wealthy societies in a state of decay. Yet he also has his place at the heart of frugal and strong societies.
You do not have to fight. Boxers fight, not poets. All the same, it is necessary to publish a little bit; this is a necessary condition for posthumous recognition to take place.
If you do not publish a certain minimal amount (be it only a handful of texts in some second-rate review), you will go unnoticed by posterity—just as unnoticed as you were during your life.
Even the most perfect genius must leave behind a trace; leave it to the literary archaeologists to exhume the rest.
This can fail; it often fails. You should repeat to yourself at least once a day that the important thing is to do your best.
Studying the biographies of your favorite poets may be useful to you; this may permit you to avoid certain errors. Never forget that as a general rule,
there is no good solution to the problem of material survival, although there are many very bad ones.
The problem of where you spend your life will generally not present itself; you will live where you can. Try simply to avoid overly noisy neighbors,
who are capable quite by themselves of bringing on a definitive intellectual death.
A little professional experience can provide some knowledge, usable eventually in a later work, about the functioning of society. But a period of destitution,
where you would plunge into marginality, can provide other kinds of knowledge. The ideal is to alternate.
Other realities of life—such as a harmonious sex life, marriage, and children—are both beneficial and fruitful. But these are almost impossible to attain: as far as art is concerned, they are virtually unknown territories.
In a general way, you will be tossed back and forth between bitterness and anguish. In both cases, alcohol will help.
The important thing is to obtain the few moments of remission that will permit the realization of your œuvre. They will be brief; make an effort to seize them.

Have no fear of happiness; it does not exist.

STRIKE WHERE IT COUNTS "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."
(II Timothy 2:15)
Do not pursue knowledge for its own sake. All that which does not precede directly from emotion is, in poetry, of no value. (The word "emotion" should be understood, of course, in the broadest sense.
Certain emotions are neither agreeable nor disagreeable; this is in general the case with the feeling of strangeness.) Emotion abolishes the causal chain. It alone is capable of making possible the perception of things in themselves. The transmission of this perception is the object of all poetry.
This shared goal of philosophy and poetry is the source of the secret complicity which links the two. This does not manifest itself essentially through the writing of philosophical poems;
poetry must discover reality in its own, purely intuitive ways, without passing through the filter of an intellectual reconstruction of the world. Much less through philosophy expressed in poetic form,
which is most often nothing other than a miserable dupery. Yet it is always among poets that a new philosophy finds its most serious, most attentive, and most fruitful readers. Likewise,
only certain philosophers will be capable of discerning, of bringing to light, and of using the truths hidden in poetry. It is in poetry, almost as much as in direct contemplation—and much more
than in antecedent philosophies—that they will find material for new representations of the world.
Respect philosophers; do not imitate them. Your path, unfortunately, lies elsewhere. It is indissociable from neurosis. The poetic experience and the neurotic experience are two paths which cross,
intersect, and most often end up merging; this by dissolution of poetic ore in the bloody torrent of neurosis. But you have no choice. There is no other way.
Your unceasing working over of your obsessions will end up transforming you into a pathetic wreck, consumed by anguish and devastated by apathy. But, I repeat, there is no other way.
You must attain the point of no return. Break the circle. And produce some poems, before crushing yourself into the ground. You will have glimpsed immense spaces. Every great passion opens up a prospect on eternity.
Ultimately, love resolves all problems. Likewise, every great passion leads ultimately to a zone of truth. To a different space, an extremely painful one, but from which one can see far, and clearly.
Where purified objects appear in all their clarity, their limpid truth. Believe in the identity of the True, the Beautiful, and the Good.
The goal of the society where you live is to destroy you. You have the same goal with regard to society. The weapon that it will use is indifference. You cannot allow yourself to have the same attitude. Attack!
All societies have their points of least resistance, their wounds. Put your finger on the wound, and press down hard.
Delve into the subjects that no one wants to hear about. The other side of the scenery. Insist upon sickness, agony, ugliness. Speak of death, and of oblivion. Of jealousy, of indifference, of frustration,
of the absence of love. Be abject, and you will be true.
Belong to nothing. Or else belong, and then immediately betray. No theoretical engagement should hold you up for very long. Militancy makes one happy, and yours is not to be happy.
You are on the side of unhappiness; you are the dark adversary.
Your mission is not, above all, to propose, neither is it to construct. If you can do this, do it. If you end up with insupportable contradictions, say so.
Because your most profound mission is to delve toward the True. You are the grave-digger, and you are the cadaver. You are the body of society. You are responsible for the body of society.
You are all responsible, in equal measure. Embrace the earth, you scum!
Determine innocence, and guilt. First in yourself; this will furnish you with a guide. But also in others. Consider their behavior, and their excuses; then judge, in all impartiality.
You have not spared yourself; spare no one. You are rich. You know Good, you know Evil. Never renounce the separation of the two. Do not get bogged down in tolerance, that poor stigma of the age.
Poetry is capable of establishing definitive moral truths. You should hate liberty with all your force.
The truth is scandalous. But without it, nothing has any worth. An honest and naïve vision of the world is already a masterpiece. Compared with this prerequisite, originality matters little.
Do not preoccupy yourself with it. In any event, a certain originality will necessarily emerge from the sum of your defects. Of that with which you are concerned, simply say the truth; simply say the truth, neither more nor less.
You cannot love the truth and the world. But you have already chosen. The problem now is to adhere to this choice. I urge you to keep up your courage. Not that you have the least cause for hope.
On the contrary, know that you will be very alone. Most people come to terms with life, or else they die. You are living suicides.
As you approach the truth, your solitude will increase. The edifice is splendid, but deserted. You are walking through empty halls, which send back to you the echo of your footsteps.
The atmosphere is limpid and invariable; the objects seem turned to statues. At times you begin to weep, so cruel is the clarity of your vision.
You would love to turn back, into the fog of ignorance, but ultimately you know that it is already too late.
Continue. Have no fear. The worst is already past. To be sure, life will tear you apart again, but, from your point of view, you do not really have that much more to do with life.
Remember this: fundamentally, you are already dead. You are now face to face with eternity.

© 1997 Flammarion pour le texte original.
© 2000 Richard Davis pour la traduction anglaise. Tous droits réservés.