As opposed to my slowly waning inclination to tell Barthes to cut the crap, read for enjoyment and meaning instead of ruining a simple story through dissection.
Haven’t quite felt comfortable yet with the theory to argue it one way or another so I’m reading further into the book before I comment. I did enjoy Sarrasine and Barthes hasn’t ruined it for me, but I am struggling a bit with his symbols and reasoning so that I cannot as yet smoothly and readily apply it to the story by Honore de Balzac. Given unlimited rights as a reader by the gist of the theory, I’m making a list with notes on the points made since I’m not concentrating all my attention on this one book alone right now and tend to lose the trail of thought in between readings. This is where more structured learning assists the comprehension and study.
I should be back soon with some more confident perception and comments.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology