Incidents by Roland Barthes (PDF)

Description

In 1979, just after having written skeptically on the question of whether a journal was worth keeping “with a view to publication,” Roland Barthes began to keep an intimate journal called “Soirées de Paris” in which he gave direct notation to his gay desire in its various states of excitation, panic, and despair. Together with three other uncollected texts by Barthes, including an earlier journal he kept in Morocco, this remarkable document was published in France after its author’s death under the title of Incidents. Richard Howard’s translation now makes the volume available to readers of English.”I gave him some money, he promised to be at the rendezvous an hour later, and of course never showed up. I asked myself if I was really so mistaken (the received wisdom about giving money to a hustler in advance!) and concluded that since I really didn’t want him all that much (nor even to make love), the result was the same: sex or no sex, at eight o’clock I would find myself back at the same point in my life.”—from Incidents

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: From Library Journal Barthes (1915-80) was one of France’s most influential literary theorists, whose works, such as S/Z ( LJ 8/74), The Pleasure of the Text ( LJ 6/1/75), and Writing Degree Zero (Farrar, 1977), had a profound impact on generations of Anglo-American critics. This recent volume, first published in France after the author’s death, includes notes on a trip to Morocco in 1969, a brief essay on the Parisian disco Le Palace, and a lengthier “intimate” journal, Soirees de Paris , begun in 1979. The theme as such is desire, specifically gay male desire. In these texts we don’t have the renowned writer whom we discreetly know to be gay, as Leo Bersani notes on the book’s cover, “but the gay man who happens to be a writer.” It is enough to send one back for a rereading of A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments ( LJ 8/78). In his essay, critic Miller uses his intellectual/erotic crush on Barthes, whom he never met; his imaginings of Barthes; fragments of Barthes’s texts; and incidents from his own life to explore the theoretical and sometimes not so theoretical issues of contemporary gay male life. In the process we get a wonderful, humorous reading of Barthes that sends the mind leaping in hundreds of directions while repeatedly resting on the relationship between gay male identity and the literary text. Both of these books are recommended for all academic collections and for public libraries with strong literary or gay studies collections.-Brian Kenney, Pace Univ. Lib., Manhattan Campus, New YorkCopyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. From the Inside Flap “The autobiographical pieces of Incidents give us a new Barthes: not the famous writer who happens to be a gay man, but the gay man who happens to be a famous writer. This is the other face of fame: bravely endured soirées parisiennes during which the aging gay celebrity is constantly surrounded and almost never desired. D. A. Miller’s brilliantly militant essay relieves us of the embarrassment such images might cause us. . . . His critical mémoires d’outre tombe should make it impossible for us ever again to ignore discreetly Barthes’s homosexuality when we speak of his strength.”—Leo Bersani, author of The Culture of Redemption From the Back Cover “The autobiographical pieces of Incidents give us a new Barthes: not the famous writer who happens to be a gay man, but the gay man who happens to be a famous writer. This is the other face of fame: bravely endured soires parisiennes during which the aging gay celebrity is constantly surrounded and almost never desired. D. A. Miller’s brilliantly militant essay relieves us of the embarrassment such images might cause us. . . . His critical mmoires d’outre tombe should make it impossible for us ever again to ignore discreetly Barthes’s homosexuality when we speak of his strength.” (Leo Bersani, author of The Culture of Redemption) About the Author Roland Barthes (1915-1980) was one of France’s most influential and eloquent literary critics and theoreticians of language and society. His books have been widely translated into English. Richard Howard, poet, translator, and Professor of English at the University of Houston, has translated ten of Barthes’s works. Read more

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Recently, I was reading “Incidents” and the beauty of one particular statement blew me away. In the essay called “The Light of the Sud-Ouest” Barthes says: “For to read a country is first of all to percieve it in terms of the body and of memory, in terms of the the body’s memory”… “That is why childhood is the royal road by which we know a country best. Ultimately, there is no Country but childhood’s”. That struck me as unbelievably beautiful. Each of the 4 essays in this tiny volume has at least one or 2 such beautiful tidbits. Unlike much of the convolution in Barthes other works, This book is easy to read, easy to understand, and simply lovely prose.

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