In an acidic little book ( De la France , translated by Alain Paruit. L'Herne), Emil Cioran, gave an answer to the French malaise. He explained how attached he was to boredom, but he distinguished two kinds of boredom: that which opens "its doors to infinity", "as an extension in the spiritual of an immanent emptiness of being" and that which he thinks as one of the most important evils of France, its boredom “devoid of infinity”. He calls it "the boredom of clarity." […] the fatigue of things understood”.
Category: Literature
Notes on The Child of Voluptuousness
Notes on L'Enfant de Volupté by Gabriele D'Annunzio.
P 58. Between the obelisk of the Trinity and the column of the Conception, I suspended in ex-voto my catholic and pagan heart.
She laughs at his sentence. He had a madrigal on his lips about his suspended heart; but he did not utter it, for he disliked prolonging the dialogue in this false and light tone and thus spoiling his intimate enjoyment. He was silent.
Onfray's Eavesman Screams
So Onfray read a book revealing the fabric of Ernst Jünger… Michel Vanoosthuyse: Fascisme et literature pure .
It reveals – the self-proclaimed philosopher of sensuality always tells us – that Jünger was always a fascist and that he spent years, a large part of his life, half a century, erasing the traces of those fascist years. Anyone who rubbed shoulders with Ernst Jünger, even from afar, can only smile at these declarations. Ernst Jünger fabricating his life for posterity is grotesque. Jünger has always been the antithesis of this Machiavellian character whom Onfray believed he had flushed out in the course of a book. Finally realizing that this book by M. Vanoosthuyse was published by Agone editions ended up making me smile, one could hope that M. Vanoosthuyse would spend more time learning from Jünger than carrying out a witch hunt around himself. The back cover is thus singularly lacking in inspiration since it ends with these words: “what is covered by the entry of an author with a fascist past into 'pure' literature. “Kesako? Jünger would be the only right-wing author (I summarize here the thought of these left-wing gentlemen who give the fascist a yes or a no) to enter the literature? What is pure literature? Left-wing literature? It starts badly for the Agone editions which from the back cover do not show great editorial mastery...
As for Onfray, we understand throughout the article that only one thing worries him and in this perspective we could understand it - it is freedom, the extraordinary freedom of Jünger at any age, at any time until in his last days. Michel Onfray understands nothing about Jünger's freedom. So not understanding anything, he wants to hate her. He wants to show that it is a subterfuge. And Jünger spent half a century shaping it.
Because it must still have been the effort of a lifetime for Michel Onfray to be had. That it took this book to be denialized as he admits. We can only laugh, Michel Onfray is a maker when he wants. And he takes us for pumpkins. Who will believe for a single second that he ever loved Jünger? If Onfray says he loves Jünger, it's because he's showing off. He looks good. He holds forth. He means. I am. I think. Broad-mindedness. Ecumenism. Introspection. Critical mind. Tolerance again. Tolerance always. Good conscience. Yes, it is more than that. Michel Onfray will be able to spend several lives erasing the traces, it will be easy to exhume all the times he has pretended.
It's a shame, Michel Onfray also knows how to say certain things that do not belong to his clan, his camp, his political family. He sometimes knows how to slip through the cracks and recognize honesty in his adversaries. But he always has to let himself go, he always has to curl up, mediate so that he deceives… So much mess. It is difficult to understand how Michel Onfray can find any interest in Michel Vanoosthuyse's very small book… The impression given is equivalent to that of a beautiful dog with shiny hair rolling around in the mire.