By far the most indecipherable book I have ever read (except perhaps for the Old Testament, and I have also read that book from start to finish) would be ‘Being and Nothingness’ by Jean-Paul Sartre. Talk about being largely incomprehensible! I defy anyone to make full sense out of it.
Some passages work, like those concerning good and bad faith, but mostly the text just snakes and winds until it disappears inside itself and loses the reader entirely. I am not even going to bother reproducing examples since they would only bore the blog-reader to distraction, suffice to say that only if you are absolutely sure concerning your ‘thing-in-itself’ and its attendant ‘facticity’ is there any chance of you taking the thousand hours or so required to follow the author’s mangled brainwork. – And this coming from the guy who has attempted to elucidate his ‘Key of Love’ theory throughout much of his work i.e. me.
Having gone to so much effort in forming his convoluted sentences, JPS reaches the conclusion: “I exist, that is all, and I find it nauseating.”
Bon chance!
You may discover the antidote for any residual twentieth century ennui below:
