This is the second to last section of the book. It continues to be particularly enjoyable (though perhaps difficult to apply to the current project, P.W.). In any case, we continue.
"One makes oneself intelligible" through categorization. In this case, Barthes divides his writing into phases, the last of which he calls "morality": "it is the thinking of the body in a state of language." (145)
He really resists meaning, which is a curious thought for those in communications studies, where meaning really is important (see his note on order on pg. 148).
A note: a collection of 4 essays was published posthumously as Incidents, probably not what he was intending (available for free from the University of California Press here, by the way).
Here is more of Barthes' "anti-meaning": "one dares not leave the fact in a state of in-significance; this is the movement of fable, which draws from each fragment of reality a lesson, a meaning." (151)
What a great story: he suggests that, at some level, he worries about a slight discolouration of the tongue, for the sole reason of being able to use the term "excoriation" (definition from the Apple dictionary: "damage or remove part of the surface of (the skin).") (152)
Another note: none of his books is "successful throughout," except, perhaps, The Empire of Signs (on Japan). (156)
Great section: "Choosing Clothes" on pg. 156 (now I'm writing in fragments).
The section entitled "Academic Exercise" on pg. 158 would make quite a final exam. And the Lord help anyone who might have had the (mis)fortune of sitting in a train compartment with Barthes (see the section called "A Projected Book on Sexuality" on pg. 164).
3 comments:
The list of books Barthes would’ve liked to write is perhaps the most interesting part of Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes so far. If we apply his Intertext – Genre – Works chart, I’d posit:
Intertext Genre Works
(Montaigne?) (Autobiography) Journal of Desire
Freud, Lacan Desire/Fantasy The Amateur
A Thousand Fantasies
Michelet, Historiography Our France
biographers A Life of Illustrious Men
Ethology of the Intellectuals
Marx, Ideology Linguistics of Intimidation
Saussure, Language Compilation of Visual Stereotypes
Bataille? The Sentence
Chomsky?
Valery, Whimsy The Book/Life
Barthes Incidents
I can’t classify The Discourse of Homosexuality; Barthes was also so tacit on the topic. The Encyclopedia of Food is also beyond classification – it would be so broad in scope and thorough in research that I suspect it would have been Barthes’ greatest work. Without asserting that Barthes was self-absorbed, it is worth noting that most of his proposed works have an element of autobiography, or at least self-involvement. It is strange then that Barthes disliked being constituted through text or photographs.
A good snippet on psychoanalysis (150) – is his relationship with it unscrupulous? I detect that when he calls it undecided he connotes that this indecision is willing and desirable. He wants to know less in order to understand more? I think Barthes is, in his own words, “poetic” (152). He loves the words more than what they signify.
Barthes is surprisingly insightful when he remarks that he is in his own ideology’s blind spot, and that his book is in constant risk of recession. I think Barthes gets the structural reflex when he employs terms (especially Latin ones) not just for their meaning but because their etymology/components also suggest what he is going for.
I wonder if Barthes knew how close to home he was hitting when he compared Marxism (and all ideologies) to a brand. The discovery of the economy of discourse.
I tried to complete the academic exercise, but I was too suspicious that Barthes threw it in there as a gag (“trick question”) to finish. How would he have answered?
That chart didn't come out at all like I formatted it Word, let's try again:
Intertext Genre Works
(Montaigne?) (Autobiography) Journal of Desire
Freud, Lacan Desire/Fantasy The Amateur
A Thousand Fantasies
Michelet, Historiography Our France
biographers A Life of Illustrious
Men
Ethology of
Intellectuals
Marx, Ideology Linguistics of
Saussure, Language Intimidation
Bataille? Compilation of Visual
Chomsky? Stereotypes
Valery, Whimsy The Book/Life
Barthes Incidents
Once again, no luck. Hopefully the formatting mess is decipherable.
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