Fragmentos De Un Discurso Amoroso
Dear Roland,Can I call you Roland? Or do you prefer something else?
I'm not gonna get into that. So, this book, this fucking book, is sexy. It's more than sexy. It's sexy in all caps. It's raw and wounded and sublime.
Aug 31, 2013 Fragmentos de un discurso amoroso es un libro sobre el amor. Sobre la trivialidad y a la vez sobre la radicalidad del amor. En palabras de Roland Barthes, este libro se vuelve necesario porque 'el discurso amoroso es hoy de una extrema soledad.
It's like theory suddenly got a heart, but not only a heart, a heart that is languishing under the power of love, a heart that might occasionally drink itself silly and smoke clove cigarettes and write rambling, fragmented, pained and intensely erotic emails to the Dear Roland,Can I call you Roland? Or do you prefer something else? I'm not gonna get into that.
So, this book, this fucking book, is sexy. It's more than sexy. It's sexy in all caps. It's raw and wounded and sublime. It's like theory suddenly got a heart, but not only a heart, a heart that is languishing under the power of love, a heart that might occasionally drink itself silly and smoke clove cigarettes and write rambling, fragmented, pained and intensely erotic emails to the one(s) it misses (I'm projecting here). Not only that, but the language becomes an organ of erotic and amorous extension, reaching out, carressing the possibility of the other.
I can't tell you really how important this book was for me. I read it and the whole time I bit my lip and I just went hot damn, jeez, oooh, oh, oh, oh, oh, you know what I mean Roland? I even bought a copy of this book for a girl that I was kind of, well, not kind of very enamored with. It was an appropriate book because so much here has to do with the impossibility of desire and love. Maybe impossibility is the wrong word. Roland do you have the right word? I think you probably do.
And it's probably in this book. I should read this book again. If there is any such thing as a good headache, then Roland Barthes has been successful in giving me one. This was a heavy (no, not the weight of the book, just heavy going, but in grandiose way!), irrefutable, and intense read, where, with the recreation of the lover's fevered consciousness he goes about deconstructing love, to write maybe the the most detailed, painstaking anatomy of desire that we are ever likely to see.
Simply put, these are his thoughts on love, in the form of short essays, If there is any such thing as a good headache, then Roland Barthes has been successful in giving me one. This was a heavy (no, not the weight of the book, just heavy going, but in grandiose way!), irrefutable, and intense read, where, with the recreation of the lover's fevered consciousness he goes about deconstructing love, to write maybe the the most detailed, painstaking anatomy of desire that we are ever likely to see. Simply put, these are his thoughts on love, in the form of short essays, each one covering the many different aspects of the romantic life. Whether falling in, painfully letting go, or being completely smitten, head over heels in love, Barthes covers it.After each scene is formulated, Barthes subjects it to a philosophical battering of vigorous analysis, that constantly adds references from literary sources such as Goethe, Nietzsche, Freud, and Rilke, whilst throwing psychological and linguistic perspectives into the mix as well. Although flowing for the most part with a stream-of-consciousness, that does feel dense, and a little self indulgent, there can be no doubt as to its effectiveness throughout. There was an emotional power to his prose, that, for anyone that ever loved, may be reminded, and forced to face up to moments from their own intimate past.Although this does require much mental effort that really sends one's grey matter into overdrive (especially for those not accustomed with philosophical writings) Barthes strikes a cord deep within with a study of love that is subtle, rich in insight, penetrating the heart as well as the head. Barthes breaks down the human experience of love so effortlessly, but I'm not sure this led me to better understand love, as everyone has their own ways of perceiving it.
This was a beautiful and thought provoking read though, that was a pure delight to explore. A textual conversation between Roland Barthes (RB) and his friend X.:RB: heyX: hey Rolly, what's upRB: went on a date last night, still reelingX: oh? How'd it go?RB: I don't know!
He said I was adorable. 'adorable'!X: huh?RB: why would he say that?RB: like he couldn't think of anything better about me?RB: god, what a muck of discourse!X: right.X: so what did you guys do anyway?RB: that's the worst of itRB: we went to dinner at l'Chateau B-RB: can you believe it?X: oh I heard that place is gr A textual conversation between Roland Barthes (RB) and his friend X.:RB: heyX: hey Rolly, what's upRB: went on a date last night, still reelingX: oh? How'd it go?RB: I don't know!
He said I was adorable. 'adorable'!X: huh?RB: why would he say that?RB: like he couldn't think of anything better about me?RB: god, what a muck of discourse!X: right.X: so what did you guys do anyway?RB: that's the worst of itRB: we went to dinner at l'Chateau B-RB: can you believe it?X: oh I heard that place is great, how was it?RB: horrible. He ordered us a bottle of Bordeaux, can you believe it?X: but you love Bordeaux.RB: that's not the point.X: I don't get itRB: oh you're impossiblea little while later with his friend Madame Y:Y: Rollo, how was the date? He looked smoking!RB: don't get me started on the smoking.
It's like he was trying to alienate me with the mass produced image of masculinity at the expense of human exploitation in North AfricaY: ohY: Well how was it otherwise?RB: you know, there's no way to tellY: well, did he ask you for a second date?RB: well sure he didRB: I mean, there's the expectationRB: I don't even know if I would want to goRB: and he hasn't even called me yet, you know?RB: It's been HOURS, Y-. HOURSRB: wait, is that the phone, h/oRB: nope just Susan following me on twitter, ughRB: Y-? You there?A month later, with X:X: hey Roland, haven't seen you in a whileRB: oh hiRB: yea I've been busyX: oh?
New book?RB: you could say thatRB: the book of LA COEURX: oh?RB: I'm in loveX: congratulations!:)RB: congratulations? Don't you understand the kind of torment this is? X: huh?RB: love is torture.RB: like prometheus, I steal some fire, some love, and am forever forced to die and be reborn, to have my heart pecked out to death and then replenish for renewed torment!X: seems like a bit of an overreactionX: do you guys get along?RB: of course we GET ALONG. WE ARE IN LOVE!RB: but I wonder if he loves me more than I love him?RB: you've met him once, what do you think?X: oh, I don't know, it was a while ago!X: I haven't seen either of you in a whileRB: oh?RB: I wonder if it is TORMENTING him that I haven't called?RB: see I said I would callRB: but I'm just waiting for him to call meX: why?RB: you don't get itRB: I wonder why he hasn't called me?RB: maybe there's something wrong with my landline?RB. Ttyl gotta make a calland:RB: ma cherieY: Roland!RB: long time, my dear!Y: yes! We should get tea!RB: I'm actually super busy.
You know how it is.RB: anywayRB: so last night he texted me 'can't make it sunday. RB: WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT EVEN MEAN!?Y: well seems like he can't make it on sundayRB: ugh, you don't get itRB: like can't MAKE it? 'MAKE'?Y:??RB: why 'make'?RB: and don't get me started on 'sorry.' RB: SORRY PERIODRB: do you believe that?RB: do you think there is someone else?RB: can you get tea with him tomorrow and ask him if he is mad at me?RB: but subtly, you knowRB: I don't want him to think that I think he is mad at meRB: I'd appreciate itRB: btw did I hear you were divorced? Sorry to hear itRB: you think you could do me this little favor though?RB: Y-? Left in random Manhattan apt, then shipped to Haiti in aunt's luggage.-Double fuck! Lost it again on the subway with hundreds of notes.-Ok finished, after 6 months.This book is a destroying and destroyed queer love poem masquerading half-assedly as theory.
It is a poem with a mustache of theory. And it's pretty great for this. He sets it up as aspiring to decode a liminal site of discourse: the lover's discourse 'is completely forsaken by the surrounding languages: ignored, dispar Fuck!
Left in random Manhattan apt, then shipped to Haiti in aunt's luggage.-Double fuck! Lost it again on the subway with hundreds of notes.-Ok finished, after 6 months.This book is a destroying and destroyed queer love poem masquerading half-assedly as theory. It is a poem with a mustache of theory. And it's pretty great for this. He sets it up as aspiring to decode a liminal site of discourse: the lover's discourse 'is completely forsaken by the surrounding languages: ignored, disparaged, or derided by them.' -and does this in a way that means to be understood for its universality. But then he clearly makes no bones about describing sitting by the phone in coldsweats gnawing (his own) fingers and desolate, waiting for 'X' to call him.
This is charming and sweet.More importantly, the book is just incredibly brilliant, and just true. He positions the simple act of recognition, the utterance: 'That is so true.' As the qualifier for an amorous image to be constitutive of the lover's 'image repertoire'(as he calls it). Most all of his images qualify in this regard; they are immediately recognizable (to me at least). E.g., this illustration from the entry 'Monstrous.' 'The lover's discourse stifles the other, who finds no place for his own language beneath this massive utterance.'
The book is divided, seemingly haphazardly (alphabetically), into sections dealing with various utterances, conditions, or dispositions of the amorous image repertoire. Absence, adorable, affirmation, alteration, etc.But really the book should be called An Unrequited Lover's Discourse, because it has.nothing.
to do with the discourses or image repertoire that arise on love fulfilled.That. discourse comes out the other end of the book as the only remaining liminal site of the 'disparaged' lovers discourse. It is as though Barthes' personal loss is so palpable, so in need of codification in theory, of respect, that it elides the possibility of requitement altogether, positioning loss as the totality of love.
A.romantic. position to be sure, and one not altogether out of step with.The Sorrows of Young Wether., the major source text here (among a great many others).But above all, really, is the simple fact that I could read a thousand pages of Barthes describing a single, unremarkable turd and be satisfied. Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words.
My language trembles with desire.- This is a book you either read over a period of time, in spurts, in fragments as it is written, or you binge read in a couple of days, like I have. Each chapter is a definition, a philosophical tease, a shortened version of what could be a lecture or an erudite discussion on life and love; after all, Barthes made his living as a Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words.
My language trembles with desire.- This is a book you either read over a period of time, in spurts, in fragments as it is written, or you binge read in a couple of days, like I have. Each chapter is a definition, a philosophical tease, a shortened version of what could be a lecture or an erudite discussion on life and love; after all, Barthes made his living as an academic.- This is a book you should read after having read Goethe's. A few notable ones are mentioned in Barthes' A Lover's Discourse: Freud, Proust, and Nietzsche. However, it is a comparative study of Goethe's Werther and his stance on his love, or I should say, his helplessness because of love.
(However, read The Selected Writings version of Young Werther and you'll learn, from Goethe himself, that this feeling of despair started before love, that love may have been a trigger, yes, but, according to Goethe, most readers tend to evaluate the book differently).- This is a book to read only when you're open to discussing love in several abstract and concrete forms. Seriously, how many ways can we talk about love? The theories are endless, so it's no surprise that this becomes an anatomy of lust and love, of the essence and the reality of love; or as Barthes puts it, the disreal and unreal, the cosmos.To try to write love is to confront the muck of language: that region of hysteria where language is both too much and too little, excessive.
This book is a classic in France, and it's probably Barthe's most popular work. It is absolutely brilliant, and may be well be the best analysis ever made of love, as seen from the beginning to the end of a relationship. It isn't a novel, it's not an essay either, nor a self-help book or a psychology study: it's just, as the title implies, fragments - fragments about the daily life of two people in love, people at various stage of love, and those fragments capture so perfectly, so intimately, so This book is a classic in France, and it's probably Barthe's most popular work. It is absolutely brilliant, and may be well be the best analysis ever made of love, as seen from the beginning to the end of a relationship.
It isn't a novel, it's not an essay either, nor a self-help book or a psychology study: it's just, as the title implies, fragments - fragments about the daily life of two people in love, people at various stage of love, and those fragments capture so perfectly, so intimately, so precisely all the different aspects of love, that their totality forms a universal, transcendent, and mesmerizing vision of what love between two human beings can be. It is bittersweet, in the sense that the course of love is always almost the same, yet it's a book filled with happiness, joys, and at the end quite reassuring: what ever heartbreak you've been through, it's finally quite normal. Reading this book won't teach anyone how to love better or more wisely, but it does portray the complexities, small and big, and the mutliple wonders of love, in a very unique and direct way. A lengthy set of scenarios evidencing our inability to speak the full truth of our loves as a result of the drive's inevitable detours through the defiles of the signifier.
I have no idea why so many people find it erotic or expressive of their most intimate amorous sentiments. If anything, the book strikes a poignant note insofar as it amasses example after example of how the imaginary (our desires) and the symbolic (our words and concepts) inevitably fail to match one another. It occurs to me a lengthy set of scenarios evidencing our inability to speak the full truth of our loves as a result of the drive's inevitable detours through the defiles of the signifier. I have no idea why so many people find it erotic or expressive of their most intimate amorous sentiments. If anything, the book strikes a poignant note insofar as it amasses example after example of how the imaginary (our desires) and the symbolic (our words and concepts) inevitably fail to match one another.
It occurs to me after reading various other reviews, that people should spend far less time projecting their fantasies on to authors and titles, and far more time reading books with the same care that went into writing them. Originally posted.Admittedly, this is the kind of book that I will quickly chuck for its verbosity. I’ve always thought books like this – those that use hemorrhagic and florid words – were written more for the purpose of exhibiting the author’s unparalleled vocabulary more than anything. But for some reason, I hung on to this one.
I stayed with it, and it stayed with me. Willingly.Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingeOriginally posted.Admittedly, this is the kind of book that I will quickly chuck for its verbosity.
I’ve always thought books like this – those that use hemorrhagic and florid words – were written more for the purpose of exhibiting the author’s unparalleled vocabulary more than anything. But for some reason, I hung on to this one. I stayed with it, and it stayed with me. Willingly.Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire.
The emotion derives from a double contact: on the one hand, a whole activity of discourse discreetly, indirectly focuses upon a single signified, which is 'I desire you,' and releases, nourishes, ramifies it to the point of explosion (language experiences orgasm upon touching itself); on the other hand, I enwrap the other in my words, I caress, brush against, talk up this contact, I extend myself to make the commentary to which I submit the relation endure.These fragments are the marriage of love and theory – love theorized. Barthes’ brilliance is beyond cavil. I should have picked it up after Jeffrey Eugenides paid tribute to it through Madeleine in, and why I didn’t now escapes me.Barthes assigns names to people, places and things which he makes use of throughout the book. “The other” or the 'amorous subject' is the loved one, the subject of the speaker’s affections. “Amorous desire” is the feeling of love from speaker to “the other.” The speaker is alternately male and female. And while Barthes cites references constantly, it won’t matter that you haven’t a clue what it is – who the hell is Goethe?
– focus on the text, on the fragments, and it will make perfect sense.How does a love end?- Then it does end? To tell the truth, no one-except for the others- ever knows anything about it; a kind of innocence conceals the end of this thing conceived, asserted, lived according to eternity. Whatever the loved being becomes, whether he vanishes or moves into the realm of Friendship, in any case I never see him disappear; the love which is over and done with passes into another world like a ship into space, lights no longer winking: the loved being once echoed loudly, now that being is entirely without resonance (the other never disappears when and how we expect). This phenomenon results from a constraint in the lover's discourse: I myself cannot (as an enamored subject) construct my love story to the end: I am its poet (its bard) only for the beginning; the end, like my own death, belongs to others; it is up to them to write the fiction, the external, mythic narrative.If you’ve read the relatively recent by David Levithan, you will see the similarity in structure. Whether you appreciated or not is immaterial, however, because Barthes’ classic masterpiece is a far, far cry from Levithan’s wordplay. Structurally, they both use fragments, of words or phrases explained, but is more meaty and substantial.
Reading it requires utmost concentration-you need to open your mind and your heart in order for it to penetrate. Only then will it enthrall you. Captivate you. I first read, and fell in love, with Roland Barthes at uni. Christ, I was still a virgin when I swooned over ALD for the first time. Now at the tail-end of a long relationship, the terrible beauty of Barthes' writing is quite effulgent.I was reminded again of how great a novel (well, anti-novel.) ALD is when Jeffrey Eugenides paid such tender, bittersweet homage to it in 'The Marriage Plot'.There is a scene where Madeleine is lying in bed reading The Book, eating peanut butter from the jar wit I first read, and fell in love, with Roland Barthes at uni. Christ, I was still a virgin when I swooned over ALD for the first time.
Now at the tail-end of a long relationship, the terrible beauty of Barthes' writing is quite effulgent.I was reminded again of how great a novel (well, anti-novel.) ALD is when Jeffrey Eugenides paid such tender, bittersweet homage to it in 'The Marriage Plot'.There is a scene where Madeleine is lying in bed reading The Book, eating peanut butter from the jar with a spoon, while it is raining outside. My God, how romantic is that!' A moment of affirmation; for a certain time, though a finite one, a deranged interval, something has been successful: I have been fulfilled (all my desires abolished by the plenitude of their satisfaction): fulfillment does exist, and I shall keep on making it return: through all the meanderings of my amorous history, I shall persist in wanting to rediscover.'
The above quote is from a section called 'In the loving comfort of your arms'. Who needs Oprah Winfrey, as bland as processed Big Mac cheese, when you can have the Holy Emmental (elemental?) Barthes to comfort, distract and chafe you simultaneously?In the canon of greatest literature about love, ALD is up there with 'Song of Songs' and the 'Kama Sutra'.A book to live and love. I have literally no idea how to begin to comment on this.It is the most extraordinary work. It's kind of an exploration of love. Of the affect of love on the mind. Via language.
Roland Barthes Fragmentos De Un Discurso Amoroso
Or rather it seeks to liberate the meaning of love from the meaning of language about love.Oh I cannot. I just cannot.This probably makes it sound weird or inaccessible, but it's playful, expressive, fascinating, true.Probably the most.
Human writings on the subject of love I have ever read. Or I have literally no idea how to begin to comment on this.It is the most extraordinary work.
It's kind of an exploration of love. Of the affect of love on the mind. Via language. Or rather it seeks to liberate the meaning of love from the meaning of language about love.Oh I cannot. I just cannot.This probably makes it sound weird or inaccessible, but it's playful, expressive, fascinating, true.Probably the most. Human writings on the subject of love I have ever read. Or at least the crazy, desirous, all-consuming side of it.Sometimes, love is just someone who makes you a cup of a tea.
The nerdiest book I reach for when falling in love or feeling heartbroken. A semiotic study of many moods and flavors of romantic love:'Jealousy'4.
As a jealous man, I suffer four times over: because I am jealous, because I blame myself for being so, because I fear that my jealousy will wound the other, because I allow myself to be subject to a banality: I suffer from being excluded, from being aggressive, from being crazy, and from being common.' The Uncertainty of Signs'whether he seeks to pro The nerdiest book I reach for when falling in love or feeling heartbroken. A semiotic study of many moods and flavors of romantic love:'Jealousy'4. As a jealous man, I suffer four times over: because I am jealous, because I blame myself for being so, because I fear that my jealousy will wound the other, because I allow myself to be subject to a banality: I suffer from being excluded, from being aggressive, from being crazy, and from being common.' The Uncertainty of Signs'whether he seeks to prove his love, or to discover if the other loves him, the amorous subject has no system of sure signs at his disposal.1.
I look for signs, but of what? What is the object of my reading?
Is it: am I loved (am I loved no longer, am I still loved)? Is it my future that I am trying to read, deciphering in what is inscribed the announcement of what will happen to me, according to a method which combines paleography and manticism? Isn't it rather, all things considered, that I remain suspended on this question whose answer I tirelessly seek in the other's face: What am I worth?' There is not only the need for tenderness, there is also need to be tender for the other: we shut ourselves up in a mutual kindness, we mother each other reciprocally; we return to the root of all relations, where need and desire join. The tender gesture says: ask me anything that can put your body to sleep, but also do not forget that I desire you - a little, lightly, without trying to seize anything right away.Sexual pleasure is not metonymic: once taken, it is cut off: it was the Feast, always terminated and instituted only by temporary, supervised lifting of the prohibition. Tenderness, on the contrary, is nothing but an infinite, insatiable metonymy; the gesture, the episode of tenderness (the delicious harmony of an evening) can only be interrupted with laceration: everything seems called into question once again: return of rhythm - vritti - disappearance of nirvana.
My copy of this book has fallen apart from its binding before i even had the chance to reference it over and over. I read this with dry-yellow-glue dusting all over my lap. I wanted this to be a wordless review, or a capital letters review, something to simply state that this has OPENED MY EYES, that this is a dazzle of SIX STARS, that everyone should own this book in hardcover. Has a book ever resonated with me so much? Or 'bothered' me so much? I am thankful that barthes has written us a lover my copy of this book has fallen apart from its binding before i even had the chance to reference it over and over.
I read this with dry-yellow-glue dusting all over my lap. I wanted this to be a wordless review, or a capital letters review, something to simply state that this has OPENED MY EYES, that this is a dazzle of SIX STARS, that everyone should own this book in hardcover. Has a book ever resonated with me so much?
Or 'bothered' me so much? I am thankful that barthes has written us a lover's discourse. He mentioned that no one wants it, and as if the only way to communicate safely on the subject is via novels, plays, analysis with a pair of tweezers, lol.
Sigh, yes.Am I in love? — Yes, since I am waiting. The other never waits.
Fragmentos De Un Discurso Amoroso Mercadolibre
Sometimes I want to play the part of the one who doesn't wait; I try to busy myself elsewhere, to arrive late; but I always lose at this game: whatever I do, I find myself there, with nothing to do, punctual, even ahead of time. The lover's fatal identity is precisely: I am the one who waits. I had one friend in particular- I'm sure most of us have- who, somewhere around his fifth drink, was vulnerable to going into the 'why don't girls liiiiiiike me?' Bitchfest, and, if interested in someone, 'why doesn't (X) liiiiiike me as much as I liiiiiiike her?' 'Well, sir,' I would have said had I read this book by then. 'Roland might be a good guy for you to talk to.
He'll tell you that if you're the sort of person who prevaricates over things and worries about the meanings of their words, I had one friend in particular- I'm sure most of us have- who, somewhere around his fifth drink, was vulnerable to going into the 'why don't girls liiiiiiike me?' Bitchfest, and, if interested in someone, 'why doesn't (X) liiiiiike me as much as I liiiiiiike her?' 'Well, sir,' I would have said had I read this book by then. 'Roland might be a good guy for you to talk to. He'll tell you that if you're the sort of person who prevaricates over things and worries about the meanings of their words, you'll have that same conversation with yourself when you're alone.'
That friend is more of a romantic than me, and so is Barthes. And being a responsible, emotionally honest, stable, faithful significant other is something I'm really not very good at.
I've listened to both of these romantic souls, and incidentally primarily listened to both of them while perched on barstools. Neither of them will make me a better lover.But just like that same friend has my back for sure, Roland Barthes is someone I like to listen to, even when he's a man old enough to be my father who still compares himself to Werther. ' What do I think of love? -As a matter of fact, I think nothing at all of love. I'd be glad to know what it is, but being inside, I see it in existence, not in essence. What I want to know (love) is the very substance I employ in order to speak (the lover's discourse).
Reflection is certainly permitted, but since this reflection is immediately absorbed in the mulling over of images, it never turns intoreflexivity: excluded from logic (which supposes languages exterior to each other), I cannot ' What do I think of love? -As a matter of fact, I think nothing at all of love. I'd be glad to know what it is, but being inside, I see it in existence, not in essence.
What I want to know (love) is the very substance I employ in order to speak (the lover's discourse). Reflection is certainly permitted, but since this reflection is immediately absorbed in the mulling over of images, it never turns intoreflexivity: excluded from logic (which supposes languages exterior to each other), I cannot claim to think properly.
Hence, discourse on love though I may for years at a time, I cannot hope to seize the concept of it except 'by the tail': by flashes, formulas, surprises of expression, scattered through the great stream of the Image-repertoire; I am in love's wrong place, which is its dazzling place:'The darkest place, according to a Chinese proverb, is always underneath the lamp.' Cicero, and later Leibnitz, opposes gaudium to laetitia. Gaudium is ' the pleasure the soul experiences when it considers the possession of a present or future good as assured; and we are in possession of such a good when it is in such a way within our power that we can enjoy it when we wish.'
Laetitia is a lively pleasure, 'a state in which pleasure predominates within us' (amongother, often contradictory sensations).Gaudium is what I dream of: to enjoy a lifelong pleasure. But being unable to accede to Gaudium, from which I am separated by a thousand obstacles, I dream of falling back on Laetitia: if I could manage to confine myself to the lively pleasures the other affords me, without contaminating them, mortifying them by the anxiety which serves as their hinge?.' Literally the hottest book I’ve ever read. I am obsessed!! An exploration of love and the language we use to describe it.
Thee most validating thing to read while I was losing my mind this month. And Barthes is gay, tg. So beautifully written. I wrote down many quotes and read many passages aloud to myself. The figure on tenderness “the tender gesture says: ask me anything that can put you body to sleep, but also do not forget that I desire you—a little, lightly, without trying to se Literally the hottest book I’ve ever read.
I am obsessed!! An exploration of love and the language we use to describe it. Thee most validating thing to read while I was losing my mind this month. And Barthes is gay, tg.
So beautifully written. I wrote down many quotes and read many passages aloud to myself. The figure on tenderness “the tender gesture says: ask me anything that can put you body to sleep, but also do not forget that I desire you—a little, lightly, without trying to seize anything right away.” FUEGO. This is a powerful book.Of all the philosophical graffiti written on the backs of bathroom doors when I was in college, my favorite was a simple survey: Are you in love or in love with the idea of love? Most people chose the latter.Barthes tackles the depth and breadth of the idea of love, in all its agony and ecstasy. There are meditations on waiting, on jealousy, on how love at first sight is like rape. Barthes tackles the ideas of Werther, Nietzsche, Freud, and sprinkles the etymology of vari This is a powerful book.Of all the philosophical graffiti written on the backs of bathroom doors when I was in college, my favorite was a simple survey: Are you in love or in love with the idea of love?
Most people chose the latter.Barthes tackles the depth and breadth of the idea of love, in all its agony and ecstasy. There are meditations on waiting, on jealousy, on how love at first sight is like rape. Barthes tackles the ideas of Werther, Nietzsche, Freud, and sprinkles the etymology of various Greek, French and Italian words for good measure.Just read this:This is how it happens sometimes, misery or joy engulfs me, without any particular tumult ensuing: nor any pathos: I am dissolved, not dismembered, I fall, I flow, I melt. Such thoughts grazed, touched, tested (the way you test the water with your foot) can recur.Nothing solemn about them.This is exactly what gentleness is.I was bowled over by this book. It is something to read again and again, and to ponder. Barthes is probably the most eloquent thinker I had a pleasure of reading so far; his texts are like holidays.
The way he put sentences together had shaped ideas that are so precise, almost tangible - as if That had already existed on its own, merely waiting for a pointing finger. But when I ponder those same concepts by myself only hours later - without the structure of Barthes' text, the meaning quickly evaporates.Such is the magic of Barthes' insights: thinking on the level of language, with Barthes is probably the most eloquent thinker I had a pleasure of reading so far; his texts are like holidays. The way he put sentences together had shaped ideas that are so precise, almost tangible - as if That had already existed on its own, merely waiting for a pointing finger.
But when I ponder those same concepts by myself only hours later - without the structure of Barthes' text, the meaning quickly evaporates.Such is the magic of Barthes' insights: thinking on the level of language, with it - around it - alongside it - by it (etc), they reveal something very real yet almost accidental, otherwise hidden. If 'the word is not the thing, but a flash in whose light we perceive the thing' (Diderot) - this book gave enough light for me to see love better.on absence:This endured absence is nothing more or less than forgetfulness. I am, intermittently, unfaithful. This is the condition of my survival; for if I did not forget, I should die.on waiting:A mandarin fell in love with a courtesan. 'I shall be yours,' she told him, 'when you have spent a hundred nights waiting for me, sitting on a stool, in my garden, beneath my window.' But on the ninety-ninth night, the mandarin stood up, put his stool under his arm, and went away.on structure:To want to be pigeonholed is to want to obtain for life a docile reception.
As support, the structure is separated from desire: what I want, quite simply, is to be 'kept', like some sort of superior prostitute.on consciousness:I want to change systems: no longer to unmask, no longer to interpret, but to make consciousness itself a drug, and thereby to accede to the perfect vision of reality, to the great bright dream, to prophetic love.(And if consciousness - such consciousness - were our human future? If, by an additional turn of the spiral, some day, most dazzling of all, once every reactive ideology had disappeared, consciousness were finally to become this: the abolition of the manifest and the latent, of the appearance and the hidden?
If it were asked of analysis not to destroy power (not even to correct or to direct it), but only to decorate it, as an artist? Let us imagine that the science of our lapsi were to discover, one day, its own lapsus, and that this lapsus should turn out to be: a new, unheard-of form of consciousness?)on disreality:The world is full without me, as in Nausea; the world plays at living behind a glass partition; the world is in an aquarium; I see everything close up and yet cut off, made of some other substance; I keep falling outside myself, without dizziness, without blur, into PRECISION. // I am de trop here, but - and this is a double grief - what I am excluded from is not desirable to me.on oversensitivity:In order to discover my exquisite points, there exists an instrument which resembles a nail: this instrument is a joke: I do not suffer joke lightly. The Image-repertoire is, in fact, a serious matter (nothing to do with 'serious-minded': the lover is not a man of good conscience): the child who is off in the moon (the lunar child) is not a playful child; I, in the same way, am cut off from playing: not only does play continuously risk bruising one of my exquisite points, but even everything the world finds amusing seems sinister to me; you cannot tease me without danger: irritable, hypersensitive?
Maybe the most quotable book I've ever read. The number of times I had to pause and ponder is innumerable. It highlights, totally, the state of the lover with regard to the beloved and how melancholy and joy are closely linked in love.
This is the work of genius.' Am I in love?
-yes, since I am waiting. The other one never waits. Sometimes I want to play the part of the one who doesn't wait; I try to busy myself elsewhere, to arrive late; but I always lose at this game. Whatever I do, I Uffffff.
Maybe the most quotable book I've ever read. The number of times I had to pause and ponder is innumerable. It highlights, totally, the state of the lover with regard to the beloved and how melancholy and joy are closely linked in love. This is the work of genius.'
Am I in love? -yes, since I am waiting. The other one never waits. Sometimes I want to play the part of the one who doesn't wait; I try to busy myself elsewhere, to arrive late; but I always lose at this game. Whatever I do, I find myself there, with nothing to do, punctual, even ahead of time.
The lover's fatal identity is precisely this: I am the one who waits.' “You see the first thing we love is a scene. For love at first sight requires the very sign of its suddenness; and of all things, it is the scene which seems to be seen best for the first time: a curtain parts and what had not yet ever been seen is devoured by the eyes: the scene consecrates the object I am going to love. The context is the constellation of elements, harmoniously arranged that encompass the experience of the amorous subject.Love at first sight is always spoken in the past tense. The scene is perfectly adapted to this temporal phenomenon: distinct, abrupt, framed, it is already a memory (the nature of a photograph is not to represent but to memorialize). This scene has all the magnificence of an accident: I cannot get over having had this good fortune: to meet what matches my desire.The gesture of the amorous embrace seems to fulfill, for a time, the subject's dream of total union with the loved being: The longing for consummation with the other. In this moment, everything is suspended: time, law, prohibition: nothing is exhausted, nothing is wanted: all desires are abolished, for they seem definitively fulfilled.
A moment of affirmation; for a certain time, though a finite one, a deranged interval, something has been successful: I have been fulfilled (all my desires abolished by the plenitude of their satisfaction).”—.