Empire of Signs

Rating:
Summary: Barthes' Fantasy of Japan
Review: An interesting, thought-provoking, pre-PostModern piece about sign and symbol, meaning, surface and interior, and all that sort of thing. An exploration of how else a culture might be, riffing off of the West's image of Japan, but not really about Japan at all.

Worth a read. Short and almost mythical. Reminds me somehow of Hesse's "Journey to the East", but probably not for any very good reason.

Rating:
Summary: An emptiness of language
Review: Barthes talks of an emptiness of language necessary to reach enlightenment, but occasionally emptiness is just emptiness. Exhibit A: "Empire of Signs."

That might be a little harsh. It might be better to say that Empire of Signs is an example of art for art's sake. Barthes claims to be attempting to isolate a number of features, treat them as signs, and create a system called Japan. Barthes does indeed make good on his promise (or is it a threat?) and paints a very vivid, creative system he calls Japan. He admits that he has little knowledge of Japan to begin with, and so his observations are primarily reflections of his own imagination and not the country that actually is called Japan.

At this point red lights should be flashing and loud alarms should be going off in the reader's head: what Barthes admits to doing is exactly what he claims to abhor--Orientalism. Empire of Signs is a beautifully written, intelligent book (which is why I give it two stars instead of one), but by no means is it anything more than an essay on Japan According To Roland Barthes. Furthermore, although Barthes claims to have an indifferent opinion toward Japan, it become clear right away that he is in love with Japan when he starts his odes to pachinko and his love poems for the chopstick. The good news is that Barthes doesn't seem to be taking himself too seriously: the tone of the book is light, almost stream-of-consciousness in style. I just can't help but shudder to think that there are people out there who are trying to think of Japan and the Japanese in terms of the ephemeral realms of the sukiyaki pot.

For anyone interested in the Japanese perspective and analysis of the "signs" of Japan, I would recommend Jun'ichiro Tanizaki's "In Praise of Shadows" or books by Alex Kerr ... Edward Said's "Orientalism" is an interesting (if not a little dense and controversial) look at orientalism ... but if you really want to know a little more about this "Empire of Signs" that is Japan, pick up a travel guide. Better still, read some Japanese literature by Soseki, Tanizaki, Oe, or the contemporary writer Haruki Murakami.

Roland Barthes' "Empire of Signs" is like a very rich chocolate cake: pretty to look at, but very difficult to finish without becoming slightly nauseous.

Rating:
Summary: Barthes' Fantasy of Japan
Review: The first two chapters of Roland Barthesf Empire of Signs read like a wickedly irreverent farce on the dangerous of Orientalism. However, by the following chapter it becomes apparent that Barthes made the unfortunate mistake of believing his own rhetoric. Although a highly inventive and therefore wildly misinforming interpretation of Japan, the book can serve as an informative document in a historiographical study on Western reception of the fictive Other, in this case signified by gJapan.h

Rating:
Summary: a modest, brilliant, and underestimated essay
Review: The translation omits several of the illustrations in the original (perhaps they cost too much). As often in English translations from the French, the traps set by cognate words (faux amis) are not always avoided: respectable as "respectable" (p. 63; should be "worthy of respect"); vicieux as "vicious" (p. 68; "defective" would be better; on the same page "The Form is Empty" should be "Form is Empty"), s'inventer as "invent oneself" (p. 30; "find oneself"). Barthes offers a string of short zuihitsu-style essays, impressionistic flashes, confessing that his Japan is a fictive theoretical construct. The recurrent theme is that Japan teaches us to liberate the play of signifiers from the tyranny of the signified. The influence of Jacques Derrida's early essays, published shortly before this book, is apparent. Barthes's view of Japan is by no means as shallow or inaccurate as captious critics make out. The sure guiding hand of his friend Maurice Pinguet of Tokyo University, author of "La mort volontaire au Japon," preserves Barthes from major errors. Japan as a dance of signs referring to other signs, in a perpetual foreplay, a delicious lightness of being, may not be much in evidence in the horrible cityscapes of the present (thanks to the voracious construction and real estate industries), but that image does correspond to an aspect of the culture, going all the way back to The Tale of Genji.