Roland Barthes, Sade Fourier Loyola and Mythologies

I am enjoying Barthes' books more as I go down the list, and these were the last two...I have now read all of his writings. Mythologies is enjoyable -- he discusses the relationship between meaning and form for all sorts of things: the beard of the saintly Saint Pierre, laundry detergent, Racine! This is also the book which has given many scholars lots to think about -- all the way to Thunder Bay's Persians (a pastry, not the people), as far as I can tell. Much more interesting to me, of course, were the comments on literature and writing. These precious comments, in the introductory section on the essay on Saint Ignatius, are what I was reading Barthes to find. He discusses how the Jesuits have given France (and therefore, me, as a French Canadian formed by my French Canadian education) its concept of literature, a concept that is Jansenist: good literature is clear literature, form serving only sense. That is far more utilitarian than I had hitherto recognized, but essentially correct, I would think. I'm surprised at his open-mindedness about the Jesuits and Ignatius, since Barthes is so clearly a Marxist. He also talks about the reader-writer relationship, which he proposes is always indefinite since once can never know who is the reader. Fabulous.

Clinton's Autobiography, Roland Barthes

I finished reading Bill Clinton's autobiography, My Life, last night. I have already mentioned that I found it superficial and descriptive. For a man to have done what he has done ought to lead to more insight that is here. It reminded me of Beverly Sills' autobiography, which quickly turned into a list of the roles in opera she played and the performances she gave. Same here. The book would have been impossible to write without his date books for all those years.

I also read the third volume of Roland Barthes' critical essays, L'obvie et l'obtus. In this volume, at least, the essays are slightly longer than, say, the collection of theatre criticism. The most interesting essays are about music, about which there are some interesting and detailed discussions. He also has a delightful essay on Arcimboldo, the painter who made portraits out of the vegetable patch....For a scholar who looks at meta-images, I thought this was one of his better efforts.