Cosmic Pessimism (Univocal) Paperback – Illustrated, August 1, 2015

I was so bummed when it was over. His writing is a soothing balm to the soul. I am also reading Infinite Resignation which is equally good. I almost don't want to read it because I don't want it to be over.

Somebody needs to leave a review of this book, even if it means breaking the pessimism that zero reviews implies.This is quite a short book—it just took me about an hour and a half to read through it at a leisurely pace. The text structure is as if Mr. Thacker compiled notes of pessimism he jotted down while he rode the train to work. Instead of providing an exegesis on fundamental pessimism, this book(let?) contains the musings of a pessimist. If you're looking for mind-numbing philosophical profundity, this may not be the book for you. If, however, you're a pessimist interested in the perspective of another pessimist, buy this book.

1

If you've read Nicolas Chamfort and/or Arthur Schopenhauer and/or Giacomo Leopardi and/or E. M. Cioran, this little book will be just like chewing a gum ball of pessimism until the flavor runs outs. I'd call the content Pessimism Light.The author's writing here is often poetical, as if he were Anais Nin trying to evoke H. P. Lovecraft's imagery of graves and gloom. Lyrical and overtly eloquent, the writing lacks the gravitas and austerity of more deep-seated, experienced pessimists, and almost none of the author's own epigrams or aphorisms work or ring true. Still, it serves well as an easy introduction to the serious subject of pessimism with a capital P.Many other authors, besides those mentioned in the first sentence of this review, are mentioned or discussed to one degree or another in this tiny book, and that feature makes for another positive aspect of the book. The author admits to being a bibliomaniac, which is just fine with me. As a consequence, the author gave me another (minor) author of pessimism to read and enjoy: Edgar Saltus. The reason other more famous pessimists do not extol yet other pessimists in their own writings may be due to the fact that these men are not bibliomaniacs, just bibliophiles.If you have some acquaintance with Nietzsche and his appreciation of Schopenhauer, then Eugene Thacker's little work, particularly towards the last few pages, will peak your interest.This work, as a whole, offers nothing earth-shaking or ground-breaking (and he got Schopenhauer's death all wrong. Schopenhauer did not die in his sleep, as the author said. He was sitting upright on the sofa fully dressed when he died). But only Schopenhauer, Leopardi, and Cioran are capable of such mind-bending feats.

Eugene Thacker's Cosmic Pessimisim is - a charming book. Really, it is. Well, at least as far as books on pessimism go. I mean, don't get me wrong, all the deep, dark notes are here, from the reflections on doom and gloom, musings on failure, fatality and futility, as well as some nice meditations on hate, spite, and dislike to round it out. But Thacker is too much of a scholar to let the pathos of misery to take over the book, and all the bite-sized pieces of pessimist thought (aphorisms, poetic one-liners and historical anecdotes make up the (very) slim bulk of the volume) come across less as calls to despair than insights into a world-view able to be admired from afar. How else to take a book that opens with a wonderfully direct 'We're Doomed', if not with a small smile?Even better, of course, is the fact that Thacker is well aware of this. In fact, Cosmic Pessimism comes across as a book that performs the very futility it tries to convey, and indeed is all the more successful for it. Everything here feels just a little bit throw-away, as if notes scribbled down then left to fend for themselves, strung together because oh, well, what does it matter? Think here of Marvin the paranoid android, the perennially depressed robot from Douglas Adams's ' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ': intelligence abound (Thacker's studied his Schopenhauer, his Nietzsche, his Cioran), yet put to use for affirming nothing less than the uselessness of it all - all the while being totally lovable. Or at least fun. Not the usual words associated with pessimism - let alone 'cosmic pessimism' - but such is the achievement - or is it failure? - of Thacker's little tract.

I'm confused, is this guy a pessimist or a frustrated optimist....it not being clear. He seems to really dislike Schopenhauer, the greatest pessimist. It is an easy read, short, so the author saves one from his befuddlement. If this is a book about pessimism, it missed it target.

Garbage. Currently this 50 page book is listed for 11.99 What's worse, the author is not taking the subject seriously. Obviously there is some gallows humor, which is fine and welcome, but the entire project falls flat. Neither the serious parts nor the comedic parts achieve what the author intends. Both fail. The author seems to be trying to capture the H.P. Lovecraft, E.M. Cioran, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche kind of pessimism, but in actuality, these other authors took the subject seriously and cared deeply about depressive states, even when they were being funny. E.M. Cioran, for instance, has an amazing sense of humor, but it's not the cheap, millennial, poser-sort-of-"play-acting" Eugene Thacker is doing. I admire this author's other books, which really are serious and worth reading, but this work, of merely 50 pages is a total disappointment and a waste of money.

This is concise and overpriced at 69 very short pages which includes some drawings and blanks, and certainly it's focused on pessimism. But it doesn't add or subtract much from existing works by master pessimists. Thacker is capable of much more, but here he ends up coming across as a second rate Cioran at best.