Overrated authors thread

Marx's greatest literary work is undoubtedly 'Scorpion and Felix,' which is basically what would happen if a dramatard read too much Hegel.

"Clearly on the moon, on the moon lie the moonstones, falseness in the breast of women, sand in the sea and mountains o, the earth," answered a man who knocked on my door, without waiting for me to ask him in.

I quickly pushed my papers to one side, said that I was very glad not to have made his acquaintance before, since I thus had the pleasure of making it now, that in his teaching there was great wisdom, that all my doubts were stilled by his words; but the only thing was that however fast I spoke, he spoke still faster, hissing sounds poured forth from between his teeth, and the whole man, as I perceived with a shudder on closer perusal and inspection, appeared a shrivelled lizard, nothing but a lizard, that had crawled out of crumbling masonry.

Oh, vain is all our striving, our yearning is folly, until we have determined which is right and left, for he will place the goats on the left hand, and the sheep on the right...

So define for me which is right and left, and the whole riddle of creation is solved, Acheronta movebo, I shall deduce for you exactly on which side your soul will come to stand, from which I shall further infer which step you are standing on now; for that primal relation would appear to be measurable with the help of the Lord's definition of where you stand, but your present position can be judged by the thickness of your skull. I am dizzy -- if a Mephistopheles appeared I should be Faust, for clearly each and every one of us is a Faust, as we do not know which is the right side and which the left; our life is therefore a circus, we run round, try to find sides, till we fall down on the sand and the gladiator, Life, slays us. We need a new saviour, for -- you rob me of slumber, tormenting thought, you rob me of my health, you are killing me -- we cannot distinguish the left side from the right, we do not know where they lie----

The gap, which no human creature might occupy, was not filled by Banquo's ghost but by Merten's dog, which had every day to say grace at table, for Merten, who cultivated Humaniora, maintained that his Boniface -- that was the dog's name -- was one and the same person as St. Boniface, the apostle of Germany, quoting in proof a passage in which the latter announces that he is a barking dog (see Epist. 105, p. 145, ed. Seraria).

No one considers The Communist Manifesto as his best work, and it's way over-rated (and more importantly outdated) as an introductory text to Marxism. If you want an intro text, read The Principles of Communism by Frederich Engels, it's only a 15 minute read. I personally think Engels is a better writer than Marx.

Marx's greatest work is indisputably Das Kapital, it's his Magnum Opus, but it is not intended to be easy for beginners and will be very long and dry. The third volume isn't complete. If you want something more short form, The Civil War in France and The German Ideology are good texts.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm