barthes liked men!
Mar. 7th, 2004 05:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lobelia321I've been spending the day reading Roland Barthes's book S/Z, an analysis of Balzac's short story Sarrasine.
I first read the story and thought 'wow'. Then I started reading Barthes and thought, 'why did he choose this particular story?' The reason he gave himself seemed inadequate because, as you will see if you read Balzac's story, one central theme in it is sexuality, homosexuality, heterosexuality, transsexuality (I list all of these but leave out anything that might *really* spoiler). Barthes's book was published in 1970 so I thought, hm, maybe he still had reason to hide something?
The next thing I came across was Barthes's explanation of the title of his book: S/Z. Barthes writes:
S and Z are in a relation of graphological inversion: the same letter seen from the other side of the mirror: [elided for spoilers] Hence the slash (/) confronting the S of SarraSine and the Z of Zambinella has a panic function: it is the slash of censure, the surface of the mirror, the wall of hallucination, the verge of antithesis, the abstraction of limit, the obliquity of the signifier, the index of the paradigm, hence of meaning.
Wow.
I have always loved Barthes, ever since I read Mythologies on a trip from Sydney to Canberra when I was 21, and after reading this paragraph I suddenly love him even more. I know he's not writing about *slash*, as in *our* slash, but his sentence seems so resonantly apt and applicable!
I suddenly thought, 'this man has got to be gay.' So I googled Barthes and homosexual and sure enough. :-)
God, and what we real slashers couldn't do with that Balzacian story! Because Balzac (if not Barthes) drew back from the brink that he was drawn, fascinatedly, to the edge of. (Yay, and I just ended a sentence in a preposition!)
Note for those who care: I've also read Percy Lubbock and Henry James now, as I promised some time ago in my last tell-not-show rant. Will report back later.
I first read the story and thought 'wow'. Then I started reading Barthes and thought, 'why did he choose this particular story?' The reason he gave himself seemed inadequate because, as you will see if you read Balzac's story, one central theme in it is sexuality, homosexuality, heterosexuality, transsexuality (I list all of these but leave out anything that might *really* spoiler). Barthes's book was published in 1970 so I thought, hm, maybe he still had reason to hide something?
The next thing I came across was Barthes's explanation of the title of his book: S/Z. Barthes writes:
S and Z are in a relation of graphological inversion: the same letter seen from the other side of the mirror: [elided for spoilers] Hence the slash (/) confronting the S of SarraSine and the Z of Zambinella has a panic function: it is the slash of censure, the surface of the mirror, the wall of hallucination, the verge of antithesis, the abstraction of limit, the obliquity of the signifier, the index of the paradigm, hence of meaning.
Wow.
I have always loved Barthes, ever since I read Mythologies on a trip from Sydney to Canberra when I was 21, and after reading this paragraph I suddenly love him even more. I know he's not writing about *slash*, as in *our* slash, but his sentence seems so resonantly apt and applicable!
I suddenly thought, 'this man has got to be gay.' So I googled Barthes and homosexual and sure enough. :-)
God, and what we real slashers couldn't do with that Balzacian story! Because Balzac (if not Barthes) drew back from the brink that he was drawn, fascinatedly, to the edge of. (Yay, and I just ended a sentence in a preposition!)
Note for those who care: I've also read Percy Lubbock and Henry James now, as I promised some time ago in my last tell-not-show rant. Will report back later.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-07 08:36 pm (UTC)2) I love ending sentences in prepositions and sometimes do it just to be a pain.
3) Can't wait to hear what you have to say on James and Lubbock.
4) I'm amazed that you somehow find time for all of this reading and musing- although I suspect you do much of it on the fly.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-07 09:02 pm (UTC)I'm amazed, too -- not so much at the time I somehow find as at the fun I've re-found after so many months of doom and gloom. This is what I used to do for fun before depression hit! And what I love most of all, what really makes me *happy* (and I remember a few months ago the therapist asking me what I did to cheer myself up, just some enjoyable guiltfree thing, and I could think of *nothing*), is that the secret slash life and the secret Barthes life seem to have merged into some overall whole. I remember when I was depressed I woke up and thought 'what is the point of getting up?' Everything was a burden. I fled into LJ to get away from what seemed like a mountain of obligation, and always felt guilty. At the moment, I wake up and think 'narratological analysis of fanfic!' I hurry to t'reference library (on days when I'm not teaching or baking cakes for boys) and I typetypetype like a lunatic, with 5-minute lunch breaks, throwing Aristotle at smut!! And I don't feel guilty! It's all feeding into my book in the end because it's made me *really* understand the stuff, where before I only half-understood it. But even without book-goal, it's happy-making, and I'm even pondering publishing the damn thing somewhere and somehow (well, on my LJ for one, hah).
Anyway, I also sat around for the time to be right to ring you today but now that it is right my sister-in-law is due to arrive home any minute, so grrr.
Oh, plus I watched Seven Samurai with the kiddies (for the oomptieth time). What a fantastic film. *And* I can remind myself that a certain Mr Bloom likes it, too. Heh. Except that I loved it way before he could even pronounce the word 'samurai'... *g*
Next weekend! Perhaps we can talk next weekend! But not on Saturday: the next lot of visitors will be here!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-07 10:57 pm (UTC)I think the *wanting* to think about all of these things is the sure sign of feeling better. Because it's true, when you're down, it's hard to get excited over much of anything. But when you're feeling good, you're never really too busy to squeeze in some of the things you enjoy, and you probably enjoy more of the things that make you busy.
Yes, have been loaded down with company until a few hours ago, but next Sunday might work for me. Let's try really hard- we have a lot to talk about!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-08 07:43 am (UTC)ah, now i am going to have to go to the library today and brush up on my barthes, can't remember the last time i read mythologies...
n.x :)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-08 01:52 pm (UTC)I'll just say that his exegesis on jouissance and plaisir changed the way I look at everything. I sometimes think of slash fiction as a kind of jouissance, a gleeful noise interruption to the smooth flow of canon, even the canon of celebrity and how we see it... as well as in terms of gender and its depiction (vis, mpreg crack!fic, for an example). We interpolate imagination into the niches of fanon, and the way I see it, this is (still) a radical deconstruction (in the most affectionate way) of the mystique of celebrity. Um. Well, that's what I'm thinking at 1 in the morning, anyway.
Sorry, I've just been crapping on about this in my lj.
Finally, I love the S/Z thing on the solidus and its dialectics, that's so nifty, thank you!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-08 03:15 pm (UTC)Yes, we do! Have a lot to talk about! Sunday next -- what time do you get up?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-08 04:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-08 04:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-08 05:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-15 11:31 am (UTC)Oh, completely German! It's about the only German thing I've retained since moving from that problematic country. That and my love of German bread. And Lakritzkaetzchen. And Christmas.
It's the Great German Tradition of Kaffee und Kuchen. Coffee and cake and whipped cream, Sunday afternoon, 4 p.m.
Barthes, oh Barthes!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-15 11:34 am (UTC)Ooh, what a nice way of putting it. Although, when it comes down to it, doesn't jouissance just mean orgasm? So it's ficgasm all the way.
Um, what's a solidus? Is that a slash? And should we be calling our fic solidusfic? 'Hello, I'm solidifying Karl/Harry today'. *bursts out laughing*
Hm, must look at your LJ. But am in t'reference library at t'moment and afear'd of what perverse images I might happen upon... I once hit someone's LJ and huge penises were displayed on my monitor for all the learned scholars of t'library to ogle at...
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-15 11:35 am (UTC)But anon, anon!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-15 04:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-16 02:15 pm (UTC)As far as I remember from Barthes, he uses jouissance to signify not only orgasm, but bliss in the sense of ecstatic irruption, something outside canonical order, something dangerous and untethered and bacchic as opposed to apollonian, etc etc. Also with reference to 'jouer', to play. It then got picked up in some po-mo writings on music to describe white noise, chaotic disruption, and basically anything that cleverly fucks with trite and established canonical culture. I, as an enthusiastic undergraduate, of course lapped this up. I think it still holds some happy truth.
And as you point out, it is SO apposite for the writing of illicit orgasms.
*catches self ranting*
*clamps hand over mouth*
should we be calling our fic solidusfic? 'Hello, I'm solidifying Karl/Harry today'. I definitely think so.
I'm afraid there are no huge penises in my LJ. Now that you suggest it, I feel all bereft. Where are my huge penises?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-16 09:43 pm (UTC)We should go demonstrate or something. Petition Blair. 'We demand our huge penises. Huge penises for everyone!'
Hm.