---
product_id: 13371525
title: "The Trouble with Being Born"
price: "$29.75"
currency: USD
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 11
url: https://www.desertcart.us/products/13371525-the-trouble-with-being-born
store_origin: US
region: United States of America
---

# The Trouble with Being Born

**Price:** $29.75
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- **What is this?** The Trouble with Being Born
- **How much does it cost?** $29.75 with free shipping
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## Description

The Trouble with Being Born [Cioran, E. M., Howard, Richard, Thacker, Eugene] on desertcart.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Trouble with Being Born

Review: Brilliantly written, insightful, wickedly funny - First things first - Cioran writes absolutely beautiful prose. I don't think any philosophical writer since Montaigne has really written this well (apart from the novelists who treat philosophical themes like Dostoevsky and Sartre). I really cannot adequately convey the beauty of some of the existential musings of Cioran properly. He's a great stylist. A cautionary note - Cioran is extremely well-educated in Western Philosophy, Christianity and Buddhism. Because of that, this is not really a book for someone who doesn't have strong grounding in philosophy (or at the least Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and Hegel) and some familiarity with religion. Additionally, the philosophy types should know that this book is not really philosophy in the Western Sense. It's written more like Eastern Philosophy. It's entirely aphorisms. That said, if you can bear with it, this is one of the best things I've ever read. The clarity of thought and sheer brilliance of the aphorisms are unmatched apart from Lao Tzu and McLuhan. Cioran is grimly pessimistic and has an extremely mordant sense of humor. He also explores the human condition and the recalcitrant nature of existence and art. If Nietzsche had a sense of humor and lived amidst French existentialism, he'd have written this book. Cioran is a bit more of an irrationalist (and a Buddhist .... and a Christian) than Nietzsche, though (and a bit less of an anti-egalitarian). Case in point: "Sometimes I wish I was a cannibal - less for the pleasure of eating someone than for the pleasure of vomiting him." For me, Cioran has always been like reading Final Exit, having sex in a graveyard, or reading Nietzsche. There's something oddly life-affirming (at least in his later books - after the turn away from Schopenhauer towards Nietzsche and Buddhist studies) in his gleefully pessimistic meditations on death, decay, nihilism, and Buddhism, unlike say Schopenhauer, who is consistenly dour about everything due to his extreme narcissism. To put it in other terms, Cioran has a sense of (self-consciously absurd) pessimistic humor that is roughly in line with the modern goth subculture. If you spent your formative years listening to the Sisters of Mercy, you'll know what I mean. By all means, not a book for everyone but highly recommended for recovering goths, literary types, artists, existentialists, and theology and philosophy types with a sense of humor, or students studying 20th century Pessimism.
Review: A "fun" way to cope with life - desertcart - can you fix your mobile app please make it more user friendly??? Anyway, it's a great book 👍

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #12,479 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #5 in French Literary Criticism (Books) #9 in Social Philosophy #20 in Modern Western Philosophy |
| Customer Reviews | 4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars (1,257) |
| Dimensions  | 5.5 x 0.7 x 8.25 inches |
| Edition  | 1st |
| ISBN-10  | 1611457408 |
| ISBN-13  | 978-1611457407 |
| Item Weight  | 13.8 ounces |
| Language  | English |
| Print length  | 224 pages |
| Publication date  | February 1, 2013 |
| Publisher  | Arcade |

## Images

![The Trouble with Being Born - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71x4P48YjlL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Brilliantly written, insightful, wickedly funny
*by M***E on May 3, 2009*

First things first - Cioran writes absolutely beautiful prose. I don't think any philosophical writer since Montaigne has really written this well (apart from the novelists who treat philosophical themes like Dostoevsky and Sartre). I really cannot adequately convey the beauty of some of the existential musings of Cioran properly. He's a great stylist. A cautionary note - Cioran is extremely well-educated in Western Philosophy, Christianity and Buddhism. Because of that, this is not really a book for someone who doesn't have strong grounding in philosophy (or at the least Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and Hegel) and some familiarity with religion. Additionally, the philosophy types should know that this book is not really philosophy in the Western Sense. It's written more like Eastern Philosophy. It's entirely aphorisms. That said, if you can bear with it, this is one of the best things I've ever read. The clarity of thought and sheer brilliance of the aphorisms are unmatched apart from Lao Tzu and McLuhan. Cioran is grimly pessimistic and has an extremely mordant sense of humor. He also explores the human condition and the recalcitrant nature of existence and art. If Nietzsche had a sense of humor and lived amidst French existentialism, he'd have written this book. Cioran is a bit more of an irrationalist (and a Buddhist .... and a Christian) than Nietzsche, though (and a bit less of an anti-egalitarian). Case in point: "Sometimes I wish I was a cannibal - less for the pleasure of eating someone than for the pleasure of vomiting him." For me, Cioran has always been like reading Final Exit, having sex in a graveyard, or reading Nietzsche. There's something oddly life-affirming (at least in his later books - after the turn away from Schopenhauer towards Nietzsche and Buddhist studies) in his gleefully pessimistic meditations on death, decay, nihilism, and Buddhism, unlike say Schopenhauer, who is consistenly dour about everything due to his extreme narcissism. To put it in other terms, Cioran has a sense of (self-consciously absurd) pessimistic humor that is roughly in line with the modern goth subculture. If you spent your formative years listening to the Sisters of Mercy, you'll know what I mean. By all means, not a book for everyone but highly recommended for recovering goths, literary types, artists, existentialists, and theology and philosophy types with a sense of humor, or students studying 20th century Pessimism.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A "fun" way to cope with life
*by A***L on December 9, 2025*

Amazon - can you fix your mobile app please make it more user friendly??? Anyway, it's a great book 👍

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ An easy book to read more than once.
*by S***H on June 23, 2025*

One of my favorite books of all time. He makes sense of the world through a very sullen lens, a lens some people relate to very well. It's depressing, but helped me more than any motivational poster ever could. He talks about life, death, birth (and the tragedy of it), art, and people. If you're one to annotate books for fun, you'll be highlighting and scribbling in the margins the whole time.

## Frequently Bought Together

- The Trouble with Being Born
- A Short History of Decay
- The Temptation to Exist

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*Product available on Desertcart United States of America*
*Store origin: US*
*Last updated: 2026-03-02*