Tag Archives: Barthes

I’m not convinced that there’s not the slightest possibility that Barthes is not simply full of ..it. I have finally finished this.  What surprises me is that for a book about finding the pleasure–nay, not mere pleasure, but bliss–of reading, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

A thought:  In Barthes’ likening reading to an orgasmic sensation, in his cajoling the reader to seek more from text, I wonder what his thoughts would be on the involvement of all the senses required by new media methods of … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Slowly working my way through this, reading every word but not quite understanding it.  But long ago I realized that this is going to have to be read many times to get the benefit of Barthes’ words.  They’re not bliss … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Obviously I read this a few paragraphs at a time, with days in between readings.  Also obvious, I’m sure, is that I don’t fully understand all the meanings as Barthes is presenting them.  But there are some things that just … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Barthes claims that Pleasure is not the lesser, nor Bliss the greater form of the same thing. That instead, they run parallel, and may even be in conflict.  In an interesting argument he brings up the inability to speak of … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Does anyone understand Barthes? You know, for a guy who is adamant that the reader writes the text, he uses an awful lot of words that I doubt many beyond him ever even heard before.  It’s sort of disassociating to … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I’ve plowed through about a third of this, and now and again a tad of it makes sense.  It’s slow going, stopping to check definitions which lead to a whole new theory that needs understanding before I can go back … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Listen to this, keeping in mind that Barthes, in speaking of pleasure, brings in the French jouissance encompassing the sensual, the orgiastic meaning.  He lists this thought under babel–the many different languages thought not separating but bringing people together: If … Continue reading → Continue reading →

While I haven’t given up on Barthes’ S/Z, I picked this second essay up to perhaps approach Barthes from a different angle.  Pleasure. Of course, Topic of Cancer was also in this package.  Do you think that maybe I’m having … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Little by precious little I’m working through Barthes’ S/Z, but I still need to go back a few pages, consult some notes I’ve made to understand the code system he’s working with, and it’s very slow going. Barthes breaks down … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The tree fell. Not a but the.  So a particular tree.  What kind?  As I write, I am thinking of a birch.  Do they have birches in Australia?  What tree would my brother call up as an image?  How big … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Honore de Balzac’s Sarrasine is quite the story.  A petulant, passionate young sculptor is taken with the beauty of the singer, La Zambinella only to find that she is a he, and he is killed by her/his protectors.  But this … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Got through the first part of this essay by Roland Barthes, losing my way many times; but then, that’s what Barthes is saying, no?  It is reading in my own manner, my own (in)experience that brings out the meaning.  But … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I was all set to spar with Barthes, prepared for this bible of interactive insight.  Even with the reluctant acceptance of readers’ rights to write and the understanding of readerly/writerly, I was up for the fight.  It is a self-defeating … Continue reading → Continue reading →