In the 20th century, the French essayic mind may have tunneled to its deepest riches in the works of the late Roland Barthes. French esthetics, like any country's, can be indigestible (and untranslatable), but in Barthes a teasingly light touch leads readers into the most baffling blind alleys where gold dust shines on the bricks. In the present collection, Barthes and translator Howard are well met, with Barthes' own density reining in Howard's usual galloping abstractions. This is the second to appear of three posthumous sheafs of Barthes' half-scientific, half-charlatanesque word-arias on art, history, science, literature, and the study of signs. What is the rustle of language? "The rustle denotes a limit-noise; the noise of what, if it functioned perfectly, would make no noise. To rustle is to make audible the very evaporation of sound; the blurred, the tenuous, the fluctuating are perceived as signs of a sonic erasure. And language—can language rustle? As speech, it seems doomed to stuttering; as writing, to silence and to the distinction of signs; in any case, there is always too much meaning for language to afford a delight appropriate to its substance. Yet what is impossible is not inconceivable. The rustle of language forms a utopia. Which one? The utopia of meaning's music. . . It is the shudder of meaning that I want to interrogate here, as I listen to the rustle of language—of that language which is my nature as a modern man." That should clear things up, and readers wishing to see such theory put into practice may investigate Robert Coover's new novel, Gerald's Party, in which hardly a single sentence or paragraph arrives anywhere without experiencing the poetry of deflection from its object. Perhaps the two outstanding essays herein are "The Death of the Author," about the breakdown of the authorial voice into several voices in a text, which are subsequently reconstituted into a Single voice by the reader; and "Leaving the Movie Theatre," about the hypnosis of cinema halls, the dancing beam of the projector, Barthes' distancing himself from the image, and his becoming unglued from the screen in "backing out" onto the street. Even these pleasures, as do the most ripely reachable of Barthes' thoughts, deliquesce into the kind of muggy clarity following a triple cognac. But one reads on, forever intrigued by Barthes' stripping off of stickum tape from one's mental appliances.
Pub Date: March 1, 1986
ISBN: 0520066294
Page Count: 388
Publisher: Hill and Wang/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1986
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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