/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19064369]

How difficult is Walter Benjamin?

[Anonymous No.19064592]

>>19064369
I don't understand why the nazis killed him.

[Anonymous No.19064600]

>>19064369
It only took me two drinks and some compliments about his attire but YMMV

[Anonymous No.19064842]

Quite difficult, read Buck-Morss

If you understand Negative Dialectics okay you can probably understand Benjamin. Not to say read ND first or anything, just saying ND is a straightforward presentation of a dialectical mode of thinking similar to Benjamin's. If you already basically "get" that mode of thinking, such that a text like ND, which both presents and presupposes it in a more formal manner than Benjamin will, isn't indecipherable to you, you can probably read Benjamin easily.

[Anonymous No.19064869]

>>19064369
It depends on the era; his shorter work (ie the stuff in "Illuminations") is pretty straightforward, but the Arcades Project and other later writings become more fragmented, more like a diary or commonplace book we happen to be reading than something explicated for our benefit.

[Anonymous No.19064876]

>>19064369
Not difficult, even when he talks about a theme you don't know.
Avoid Passages, or keep it for last, because it's unfinished.

>>19064592
He killed himself when the Spanish government decided to kick him out.

[Anonymous No.19064923]

Not particularly if youre familiar with marx & engels and kabbalah. Marcelo Tari’s book There Is No Unhappy Revolution talks a lot about Walter Benjamin, particularly his On Violence, so read that also.