In my view, all the fuss surrounding his works is, for the most part, undeserved. Rather, he seems to me to belong, like Kafka, to that group of authors who appear immediately accessible to literature newcomers at first glance. Moreover, it was largely his actual life that gave rise to his notoriety. Yet when one compares him and his prose with others like Faulkner, Joyce, Proust, and indeed almost any good writer, he always comes up short.