Being and Time

⚖The case for it

A hammer disappears into your hand while you use it and only becomes an object when it breaks. That passage is where readers say the method clicks, and where the invented vocabulary starts earning itself, since Heidegger “could not have said what he wanted in easier language.” Thrownness, being-toward-death, das Man, the everyday self that does what one does: readers cite that last one as the section that stays with them longest and changes what they notice about conformity. It rewards block-scheduled reading rather than a page a night. Readers who “slowly neglect other distractions and set aside solid block of time” describe reorientation rather than information, and more than one simply says “there’s no substitute for reading it.” The frustration, for fans, is the payoff.

— the honest librarian

✕The case against

Readers accuse Heidegger of hiding behind coinages instead of writing sentences, one telling him to “GET OVER YOURSELF and distill ideas into real words,” another comparing the experience to “trying to follow recipe written by Gertrude Stein.” It is long, dense, and terminologically alien all at once. Division Two’s temporality material is where attempts die, and multiple reviews are framed as a second or third try. A commentary is functionally required, since going in cold the text reads as alien and needlessly complicated, and more than one reader now tells newcomers “don’t read this first.” The book was never finished, and his Nazi Party membership stays in the room for readers who will not bracket it.

— the honest librarian

12h

honest hours

17

sittings