Mourning Diary: October 26, 1977 - September 15, 1979

by Roland Barthes, Richard Howard (Translator)

Paperback

Published March 13, 2012

About the author

Roland Barthes of France applied semiology, the study of signs and symbols, to literary and social criticism.

Ideas of Roland Gérard Barthes, a theorist, philosopher, and linguist, explored a diverse range of fields. He influenced the development of schools of theory, including design, anthropology, and poststructuralism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_...

Reviews

[Germaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lo que pasa con el duelo es que es una experiencia sumamente solitaria, como una isla paralela construida solo para el que lo vive. A veces pareciera imposible que otra gente haya vivido lo mismo y sobrevivido. Aquí está Barthes, simplificando (si es que así se puede decir) los torbellinos que rodean al que está atorado en el calendario, en el suspenso propio de perder a alguien. Una cuenta regresiva y progresiva a la vez, con inicio y sin final. La mía empezó el 26/oct/2024 y el 20/ene/2025 se multiplicó. No voy a dejar este libro por un largo rato. Y aunque (hoy) acabe el año, llevo conmigo ese recuerdo en cada comienzo, me acompaña este paradójico vacío de estar completamente lleno de quien me hace falta.

[Rachel]

“And then I notice that I am always asking for something, wanting something, always pulled ahead by childish Desire. One day, to sit in the same place, to close my eyes and ask for nothing... Nietzsche: not to pray, to bless.
Is it not to this that mourning should lead?”

[Terese · Rating 5 out of 5]

”We don’t forget,
but something vacant settles in us.”

”Now, from time to time, there unexpectedly rises within me, like a bursting bubble: the realization that she no longer exists, she no longer exists , totally and forever. This flat condition, utterly unadjectival - dizzying because meaningless (without any possible interpretation).

A new pain.”

Wonderful. I wish I had found it three years ago when I needed it most.

Brings to the front that, as individual and personal as mourning is, it is a collective, all too human common experience as well. It is strikingly similar in feeling, but not specific expression.

So many notes made in this one, I’ll return to it many times I think. Barthes puts words to the ineffable.

[Daphne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Barthes is genius with words; there's no other ways to put it. I don't know if there is necessarily a voyeuristic aspect in reading a man's most painful grief of his mother's passing, when the emotions, feelings, and sensations, are documented in such a language he used, you'd feel like they are all just very painfully human things of which we are all at mercy; we are no strangers to each other's grief, despite that there can never be a same grief felt.

[Miguel Fernandez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very profound insights into suffering after the loss of a mother

[Clara]

“My suffering is inexpressible but all the same utterable, speakable. The very fact that language affords me the word ‘intolerable’ immediately achieves a certain tolerance” (175).

[Casey Robertson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Proof that Barthes had mommy issues.

Jokes aside, it’s a very touching collection of fragments.

[ange · Rating 4 out of 5]

I limp along through my mourning. (40)