Robert Smith's Reading List

"For the first time, the narrator’s voice was mine. I was the narrator. I was blending myself in his words. I read and re-read all of his books: The Trial, The Metamorphosis, The Castle … His influence on my writing is huge, as on ‘A letter to Elise,’ directly inspired by his Letters to Felice ."

"I was obsessed with Charlotte Sometimes , this idea of temporal downfall, of duality, of personality trouble and the torture that follows. Charlotte, after her first night in boarding school, wakes up, 40 years back and in another body. This connects with the theme of twins, which Penelope Farmer wrote a fascinating book about ( Two or the book of twins and doubles , 1996). I’ve always dreamed of having a twin, somebody you can’t fool, who would always be there, like a mirror."

"Fuschia was my dream. This idea of infinite, of unreal, of dying innocence… At the time I was considering myself as her, as a victim. Now my fascination has turned into anger. I want to shake her, to put her out of her contemplative passivity. But this is all a question of age. It’s normal, as a teenager, to love this idea of being a victim, the whole world is against me, no one understands me except my books. Lots of my reading connected with that."

"Pure poetry, fabulous, a must for an English grammar school pupil and very influential on romantic writers. The style is strong, incredible. It strongly influenced ‘Pornography.'"

"Some poems, like Baudelaire’s ‘The Eyes of the Poor,’ impressed me so much that I wanted to make a song of them. Their style, for me, already has a kind of musical rhythm. Singing ‘How Beautiful You Are’ is like going into oral tradition. I take more pleasure expressing love in this Baudelaire poem than singing ‘Friday I’m in Love.'"

"He’s a character that I admire and that also intrigues me: isolating himself from the world, living as a recluse in a monastery, giving up writing and refusing any contact with the outside, it’s fascinating."

"A masterpiece of modern poetry."

"His description of the human condition stays unmatched, and I defy anyone to do better than Nausea ."

"A classic for music maniacs. Brilliant, perfect, I have all the records mentioned in it!"