Is there a single writer harder to understand?

Not only is it pretty, but it has heft. So far as 'meaning' is concerned it's hit or miss, perhaps depending on 'where you are' not only in your power as a reader, but in your life. Anyone interested in giving him a chance should begin with his selected LATER works, Notes from the Air. I found myself unable to stop reading them whether I understood them or not (over an xmas holiday at my folks'). Then go back and check out some of the earlier stuff like the frankly mad Tennis Court Oath or the utterly fantastic Double Dream of Spring.

I just got a copy of pic related. I've been reading it from the beginning.

Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror was easily understood, but basically everything else of his has been difficult.

I generally prefer to read authors chonologically - to get a sense for how they developed; in Ashbery's case, however, I may take your advice.

Fuck you

Heidegger

mein negger; and zizek

Fenimore Cooper.

Why are you upset?

Dawg, I've been thinking bout reading him for a while. Is he really difficult? How?

I cannot visualize Heidegger other than sitting on the bench outside his Black Forest house, alongside his wife, who all her life totally dominated him and who knitted all his socks and crocheted all his caps and baked all his bread and wove all his bedlinen and who even cobbled up his sandals for him. Heidegger was a kitschy brain….. a feeble thinker from the Alpine foothills, as I believe, and just about right for the German philosophical hot-pot. For decades they ravenously spooned up that man Heidegger, more than anybody else, and overloaded their stomachs with his stuff. Heidegger had a common face, not a spiritual one, he was through and through an unspiritual person, devoid of all fantasy, devoid of all sensibility, a genuine German philosophical ruminant, a ceaselessly gravid German philosophical cow, which grazed upon German philosophy and thereupon for decades let its smart little cow-pats drop on it….

Heidegger is the petit-bourgeois of German philosophy, the man who has placed on German philosophy his kitschy nightcaps, that kitschy black night-cap which Heidegger always wore, on all occasions. Heidegger is the carpet-slipper and night-cap philosopher of the Germans, nothing else.

mainly due to his style being intensely boring and overly purple.
I find Melville far easier due to be engaging.
If you mean difficult as in opaque, like circuitous philosopherspeak, then I would say Deleuze.
I spent a couple hours reading Difference and Repetition in the doctor's office, waiting, a few months ago, had a headache for two days after.
And I can take some good circuitous bullshit, like Frank Ruda or some others, but damn son, this guy is OPAQUE as fuck

habermas

Me

Club subdue hand I did men heir amend JFK's I Nehru four bevy ebbs meld locos men and jerk Memel ripen men eggs beheld pro profit kg or logo lucidly couch icky chic lucky cog lucky to it of tzitzit cog oh oh oh oh oh oy oy ouch NFL of ipso twigs lush of pH click JVP whisky study is it dogs luck coco NFL BC pick of yogic godly of high of you flux of judo of it dogs oy do you flux lucky cog click JVP if link knock icon go chick public on combo kg of terai taught digit digit digit it's I hourly ppm public pub on book on obj public obj obj obj IDG UCSF skid sushi gaudy tsk I gig sighs thy I to kcal cm BMG public publicly cough foot flick if lucky flu stuff study tzitzit sushi tsk guy's it did gig tooth odor your of got gory I yogi of Godot if stay hesitate usury surge where yeah surrey kg lack NKVD lb lb MHC lough BBC CBGB GHG look polio polio look look look polio polloi pop pop pop pop pop pop pool pop pop pop pool poll poll KKK CBBC CBBC BBC CBBC CBBC BBC CBBC CBBC CBBC CV www was was was was www was sqq was www wawa Zizz www was www was www was www was www was www we DeeDee were were were seaweed were seeded see referred referred referred referred free refer tort try try try try try try try try ft ppg onion you couch drs it is first aria stood useless IPN CH body Halsey flu florist useful sh do Haskell FM dish's an an uphill PCI ionic if smash day an Dustin think giving yin egg anxiety Kohinoor in snag advanced Dr Ubuntu Molopo immunity YB UNICEF FCC ex ex was was was was www everything UK UK Molopo m in HB HB FCC FCC FCC ex ex was Starkey what's caverns venturing bikini knifings FCC FCC ecstasy thy to go go BNP no go go cut dry DT see see w SSR dry CH go no loop Ku by by by Dr see see crux TTY hung Kofi Fido of of the of of the knock cut guy cut in HB HB HB HB HB HB HB HB HB HB HB HB HB HB mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm.

...

>feel like I understand it while reading
>try to rephrase it in my own words
>can't even start

Really? Do you have the right traductions? I read him in spanish, but he's not that difficult imo, I can't understand a word from Hegel though.

Well, it appears that all he is doing here is rehashing the speech act work of Austin and Searle and suchlike, and merely laying on the signature obfuscatory Continental patina. Not very interesting.