The socialists, the KGB, the Bulgarian secret service, and intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic want a document Barthes had in his possession during that lunch. The day of the accident, Barthes had really lunched with the socialist candidate for president François Mitterrand. Someone murdered Barthes and the motivation was potentially political. Binet dives into the mystery of Barthes’s accident and later death by imagining it was a plot to assassinate him. Barthes started his famous essay on the fait divers with the following: “Voici un assassinat: s’il est politique, c’est une information, s’il ne l’est pas, c’est un fait divers.” The semiologist argued that the fait divers occupied a spot between fiction and reality that emphasized its opacity to the reader. Like many a novel, The Seventh Function of Language is inspired by a fait divers. Some weeks later, Barthes died from his injuries. On 25 February 1980, a laundry van hit Barthes as he crossed the rue des écoles on his way home from the Collège de France. This hilarious buddy-cop novel starts with the death of an author: the semiologist and literary critic Roland Barthes. Judith Butler in a threesome with Hélène Cixous. Bernard Henri-Lévy being fondled by Jacques Lacan’s mistress’ foot under Julia Kristeva’s dinner table. Binet’s satirical detective tale, skillfully translated from the French by Sam Taylor, implicates beloved intellectuals and venerated politicians-living and deceased-in murderous conspiracies, a shadowy secret society, and sexual exploits. Indeed, one might consider the novel a literary exercise in long-form libel were it not for the genuine reverence Binet shows to semiotic ideas. The funniest thing about The Seventh Function of Language is that neither an individual nor an estate has sued Laurent Binet, the author, for defamation.
0 kommentar(er)
