The Pleasure of the Text

Rating:
Summary: An audacious--and delicious--little book
Review: "The Pleasure of the Text," by Roland Barthes, is a work of literary and cultural philosophy that actually transcends the genre. The short book consists of a series of "meditations," many less than a page long, that explore various facets of language and reading. Barthes' work has been translated from French into an elegantly playful English by Richard Miller.

As a whole, the book has an informal, almost stream-of-consciousness feel to it. Barthes' text is richly studded with numerous cultural references--Bataille, the Kama Sutra, Sade, Severo Sarduy, Marx, the Buddhist sangha, Poe, Chomsky, and much more. Barthes often uses sexual imagery as a vehicle by which to construct a philosophy of reading. The result of all these elements is a dizzying, yet oddly delightful reading experience.

One of the key themes of "The Pleasure of the Text" is Barthes' attempt to define "pleasure" and "bliss," and to delineate the differences between the text of pleasure and the text of bliss. From Barthes' project the close reader can thus derive a new way of looking at all texts.

Among other topics Barthes considers the hierarchical nature and pleasure factor of the sentence, as well as the erotic potential of the word. And throughout, his writing is marked by passages of wit and insight. A typical observation: "The bastard form of mass culture is humiliated repetition [...]."

"The Pleasure of the Text" often takes on a metaphysical, almost prophetic flavor. For those who are willing to dig into this dense text with gusto, it may prove to be an intellectual treasure heap.

Rating:
Summary: An audacious--and delicious--little book
Review: "The Pleasure of the Text," by Roland Barthes, is a work of literary and cultural philosophy that actually transcends the genre. The short book consists of a series of "meditations," many less than a page long, that explore various facets of language and reading. Barthes' work has been translated from French into an elegantly playful English by Richard Miller.

As a whole, the book has an informal, almost stream-of-consciousness feel to it. Barthes' text is richly studded with numerous cultural references--Bataille, the Kama Sutra, Sade, Severo Sarduy, Marx, the Buddhist sangha, Poe, Chomsky, and much more. Barthes often uses sexual imagery as a vehicle by which to construct a philosophy of reading. The result of all these elements is a dizzying, yet oddly delightful reading experience.

One of the key themes of "The Pleasure of the Text" is Barthes' attempt to define "pleasure" and "bliss," and to delineate the differences between the text of pleasure and the text of bliss. From Barthes' project the close reader can thus derive a new way of looking at all texts.

Among other topics Barthes considers the hierarchical nature and pleasure factor of the sentence, as well as the erotic potential of the word. And throughout, his writing is marked by passages of wit and insight. A typical observation: "The bastard form of mass culture is humiliated repetition [...]."

"The Pleasure of the Text" often takes on a metaphysical, almost prophetic flavor. For those who are willing to dig into this dense text with gusto, it may prove to be an intellectual treasure heap.

Rating:
Summary: Roland Barthes: Was He Good For You?
Review: If Angela Carter called Emily Dickinson the Madame deSade of Amherst, maybe we should call Barthes the Charlie Chaplin of language. Barthes is a Quixotic little tramp with too much erotic energy for the common reader. Of course, Barthes' Eros, like Chaplin's, is not a matter of subject but of point of view. From this angle, his project--the ripping-at-the-seams of the stale pleasantries of any Victorian approach to reading --seems more important now than ever. Everyone knows ours is a dispensation infected with simulations of pleasure--from the Ecstacy-riddled rave scene, whose aim is pleasure, to bad Kubrik movies "about" pleasure, to ever-tyrannical taxes on tobacco, which tax pleasure unfairly, to the very dubious simulo-pleasure of sending a critique, such as this one, to an invisible audience in hopes of getting 50 much-needed dollars.

Given all that, then a re-reading of Barthes may be mandatory to remember that the good old fashioned word can be and has been in fact just as irrational and fearsomely enjoyable as anything else. Finally, it is far past time that Barthes be relinquished from the category of the avant gard and join the ranks of *covertly* Socialist products such as Coca Cola, Camels, and Kodak, and all the other bad habits that may now be used to prevent us from straying off into some atactile ionosphere of Internet affairs, book-of-the-month clubs and long-distance learning courses.

Rating:
Summary: Roland Barthes: Was He Good For You?
Review: If Angela Carter called Emily Dickinson the Madame deSade of Amherst, maybe we should call Barthes the Charlie Chaplin of language. Barthes is a Quixotic little tramp with too much erotic energy for the common reader. Of course, Barthes' Eros, like Chaplin's, is not a matter of subject but of point of view. From this angle, his project--the ripping-at-the-seams of the stale pleasantries of any Victorian approach to reading --seems more important now than ever. Everyone knows ours is a dispensation infected with simulations of pleasure--from the Ecstacy-riddled rave scene, whose aim is pleasure, to bad Kubrik movies "about" pleasure, to ever-tyrannical taxes on tobacco, which tax pleasure unfairly, to the very dubious simulo-pleasure of sending a critique, such as this one, to an invisible audience in hopes of getting 50 much-needed dollars.

Given all that, then a re-reading of Barthes may be mandatory to remember that the good old fashioned word can be and has been in fact just as irrational and fearsomely enjoyable as anything else. Finally, it is far past time that Barthes be relinquished from the category of the avant gard and join the ranks of *covertly* Socialist products such as Coca Cola, Camels, and Kodak, and all the other bad habits that may now be used to prevent us from straying off into some atactile ionosphere of Internet affairs, book-of-the-month clubs and long-distance learning courses.

Rating:
Summary: Barthes the poet
Review: Reading this long essay, I was reminded of Barthes' contention that he was not a literary critic--this work goes farther than most anything that passes for literary criticism nowadays. This is a beautiful, concise essay on what makes reading pleasurable, something most critics wouldn't dare to tackle. But Roland Barthes is no critic--he's a philosopher and a poet, a gifted writer whose words desire your reading (and you'll desire the words) as much as they illuminate that desire itself. It's a rare person who can explain literature while creating it. Barthes is one such person, which is just another reason he's no literary critic.

Rating:
Summary: Barthes the poet
Review: Reading this long essay, I was reminded of Barthes' contention that he was not a literary critic--this work goes farther than most anything that passes for literary criticism nowadays. This is a beautiful, concise essay on what makes reading pleasurable, something most critics wouldn't dare to tackle. But Roland Barthes is no critic--he's a philosopher and a poet, a gifted writer whose words desire your reading (and you'll desire the words) as much as they illuminate that desire itself. It's a rare person who can explain literature while creating it. Barthes is one such person, which is just another reason he's no literary critic.