The Faithful Gadamer

I agree with Aaron about the enthusiasm one gets for Heidegger when reading Gadamer on Heidegger. It's all very confusing to me, though. I really can't wait to get into these readings, but I'm kind of anticipating a let down of sorts. Not because I think Heidegger won't be enjoyable or insightful, but because he seems to me (based upon my experiences of people who have had experiences of him) that he can be studied for a very long time before achieving any real understanding of what he's doing and saying. This abbreviated introduction to him might fall very short of getting at that. Well, I'll put on my hopeful hat and ride out the storm, which apparently is violent.

The understanding that I got of Heidegger from Gadamer is that Heidegger is really looking into what is that being behind the veil of thought and experience. What does it mean to be that being and how does one, if at all, get access to some understanding of that 'man behind the curtain.' Hey! Aren't we supposed to ignore him? I get the sense that Heidegger gets frustrated with language because it presents a barrier that won't allow us to converse about being in any realizable way. However, to me, it seems that language is just a convention placed atop the being - it never could be hoped to achieve such a sublime goal as referring to being.

That's my two cents. I hope I'm interpretting this stuff correctly so far.