'Das Kapital,' I think, is very difficult to read, and for me, it was not very influential.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The great work must inevitably be obscure, except to the very few, to those who like the author himself are initiated into the mysteries. Communication then is secondary: it is perpetuation which is important. For this only one good reader is necessary.
I cannot understate the ability to handle classical texts such as Shakespeare.
One of the influences of Kafka over later writers is not so much in the content of his work as in its form.
The poetic prose that most interests me is that of Henri Michaux.
I think that a lot of things are hard to read if you're not in the vocabulary flow of that particular discourse. I sometimes forget that even though the words I'm using are fairly ordinary words, the concepts around which they cluster, which are the long concepts of literary tradition, may not be familiar to an audience.
Anything based on ancient texts is difficult for a modern reader to get their head around.
Without a knowledge of mythology much of the elegant literature of our own language cannot be understood and appreciated.
The best translations are always the ones in the language the author can't read.
I was not influenced by composers as much as by natural objects and physical phenomena.
I could never see a book written in a foreign language without the most ardent desire to read it.