redhead
Blahblahblah
I'd say the Flanders Road as well. I love Simon and I'm slowly working through his entire œuvre; Le jardin des plantes is late Simon, and I'm not quite there yet. Simon likes to reuse motifs and images from work to work, and IMHO he benefits from reading from early to later stuff, it gives extra resonance. But then again I've gone through a sort of middle period of his where these vanish almost completely behind a more formalist, painterly symphony of images.
What are your thoughts on his early books? I read a study of his work in college and thought his first four books when he was still figuring out his style sounded interesting, but unfortunately they haven’t been translated.