something Badiou does very well

Somehow, he is able to write prose that is both very difficult and very readable at the same time. It’s possible to sit down and read 50 pages one of Badiou’s big systematic books without strain, whereas if you sit down and read 50 pages of Hegel or Husserl, there may come a point where you have to fight the urge to take a break and check your email, out of sheer fatigue.

I’m not quite sure why that is, but I’ve always found Badiou a quick read, even though you generally have to go back through it a few times. Being and Event, in particular, may be the most quickly readable difficult philosophy book I can think of. (Well, Heidegger’s even faster for me now, but that’s after years of familiarity. It wasn’t true at the outset.)