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Title: Mythologies by Roland Barthes, Annette Lavers ISBN: 0-374-52150-6 Publisher: Noonday Press Pub. Date: 01 January, 1972 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.82 (11 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: changed my life
Comment: I agree with everything that "[email protected]" said, except when he said "I'm French", because I'm not. However I read this book in French, several times over. It's amazing that commentary so attached to 1950's icons has remained so relevant; obviously the structures haven't changed much. This book permanently affected the way I see things, particularly in the media. It should be required reading for all media consumers, and that's pretty much everyone.
At the same time, "Mythologies" offers an object lesson in the bond between language and culture. Much of Barthes' appeal lies in his tongue-in-cheek linguistic play, and that's something no translator could capture completely. This book alone is a good enough reason to learn French.
Rating: 5
Summary: Wonderful, and worth re-reading.
Comment: When I finished this latest re-read of Mythologies I was initially struck by how funny it was. This was something of a big realization for me, stemming from a memory of burning brain cells with a furrowed brow, trying to understand what he was saying and being almost afraid to enjoy it. So there's one of the consolations for growing older for you-- I'm getting confident to really enjoy Barthes.
I'm not saying that I fully understand him yet. I'm not sure that I ever will. I think that "Myth Today"(the book's final and most central essay) still remains fairly firmly out of reach. But it's true that each time I re-read Barthes, I get something more out of it-- I manage to scale heights that I didn't think I would ever get to the last time around.
Isn't it the mark of a brilliant book that it grows with you?
Particularly recommended this time are the essays "Soap Powders and Detergents" and "Operation Margarine".
Rating: 5
Summary: Behind the Amusement
Comment: Ths book was written by an ardent Maoist in the heady days in which all of Parisian intellectual circles were Maoist. It is now a top read by anyone who comes into contact with the Maoist Literature Association (known as the MLA). Cultural Studies is an extension of Mao's Cultural Revolution.
As with Mao, the idea was to change the meaning of virtually everything, taking the mandarin intellectual class, and moving them to the fringes of society, and taking the marginal farmers and moving them into the universities. In a similar way, Barthes takes marginal cultural activity such as professional wrestling, and moves it to the center of cultural discourse, while he takes Shakespeare, and the canon, and moves it to Manchuria.
It's a heady experiment. In China, the result led to a staggered economy, massive famines, and the death of the entire intellectual class. In the west, it has mostly remained a literary curiosity, but one with a curious history.
Barthes often praised the Maoists, and even travelled to China with other members of Tel Quel (Philippe Sollers and Julia Kristeva were fellow travellers, and they learned Chinese in order to translate Mao's poems into French). This book must be read in tandem with Simone de Beauvoir's book The Long March (about Mao's Revolution) and Julia Kristeva's Chinese Women, in order to give it a historical and intellectual context.
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Title: Image-Music-Text by Roland Barthes ISBN: 0374521360 Publisher: Noonday Press Pub. Date: 01 July, 1978 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Illuminations by Walter Benjamin ISBN: 0805202412 Publisher: Schocken Books Pub. Date: 13 January, 1969 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Camera Lucida : Reflections on Photography by Roland Barthes, Richard Howard ISBN: 0374521344 Publisher: Noonday Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 1982 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Elements of Semiology by Roland Barthes ISBN: 0374521468 Publisher: Noonday Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 1977 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Course In General Linguistics by Ferdinand Desaussure ISBN: 0070165246 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages Pub. Date: 01 June, 1965 List Price(USD): $18.75 |
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