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La Préparation du Roman #1-2
La préparation du roman I et II. Cours et séminaires au Collège de France, 1978-1979 et 1979-1980
Les deux cours sur « La préparation du Roman », donnés au Collège de France entre décembre 1978 et février 1980, constituent un pan important de l’œuvre de Roland Barthes. Autrefois publiés sous la forme des notes retrouvées, ils paraissent ici sur la base d’une transcription des enregistrements. On retrouve ainsi la magie de la parole de Barthes, sa générosité, son intensité, sa puissance de clarification qui n’abandonne jamais l’exigence intellectuelle, son goût des digressions, son art d’élever l’individualité vers le général – selon son vœu d’une science du singulier, dans une sorte de testament qui est aussi et avant tout une passionnante leçon de vie.
Dans ces cours, qui se révèleront être les derniers par la fatalité d’un accident, Roland Barthes s’interroge sur les conditions d’écriture du roman, avec pour modèles d’abord le haïku japonais, puis À la recherche du temps perdu, de Proust, ou encore Dante, Chateaubriand, Flaubert, Rimbaud, Kafka, Gide. Une question prémonitoire hante la réflexion de Barthes : et si la littérature comptait de moins en moins ? Et si ceux qui en font leur passion étaient de plus en plus minoritaires, comme une espèce en voie de disparition ?
« J’ai d’abord examiné le rapport de l’œuvre et de cet acte minimal d’écriture qu’est la Notation, le Haïku. Cette année, je veux suivre l’œuvre de son Projet à son accomplissement : autrement dit, du Vouloir-Écrire au Pouvoir-Écrire. Si vous le voulez bien, nous allons considérer le Cours qui commence comme un film ou comme un livre, bref comme une histoire. »
Dans ces cours, qui se révèleront être les derniers par la fatalité d’un accident, Roland Barthes s’interroge sur les conditions d’écriture du roman, avec pour modèles d’abord le haïku japonais, puis À la recherche du temps perdu, de Proust, ou encore Dante, Chateaubriand, Flaubert, Rimbaud, Kafka, Gide. Une question prémonitoire hante la réflexion de Barthes : et si la littérature comptait de moins en moins ? Et si ceux qui en font leur passion étaient de plus en plus minoritaires, comme une espèce en voie de disparition ?
« J’ai d’abord examiné le rapport de l’œuvre et de cet acte minimal d’écriture qu’est la Notation, le Haïku. Cette année, je veux suivre l’œuvre de son Projet à son accomplissement : autrement dit, du Vouloir-Écrire au Pouvoir-Écrire. Si vous le voulez bien, nous allons considérer le Cours qui commence comme un film ou comme un livre, bref comme une histoire. »
480 pages, Paperback
First published November 7, 2003
35 people are currently reading
492 people want to read
About the author
Roland Barthes
404 books2,619 followersRoland 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_...
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_...
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
February 17, 2011
If you find yourself writing about writing a novel, or writing about writers writing novels, or writing a novel about novels not written, then this book is very amusing. If you find yourself wanting guidance writing your novel, you needn't worry; this book will not help. If you worry about writing novels and you do not write them, you may find yourself in good company with this book. If you like sentences spoken that interrupt themselves in a constant manner and find that sort of play soothing, amusing or just good, then this is your sentencer.
I enjoy this book for the absolute dedication Barthes gives to his subject, the unwritten novel. To prompt, he initially admits his memory is for shit and that he must abandon writing a novel of memory.
I enjoy this book for the absolute dedication Barthes gives to his subject, the unwritten novel. To prompt, he initially admits his memory is for shit and that he must abandon writing a novel of memory.
March 2, 2014
While you're waiting for the third volume of Derrida's dry-cleaning bills (1979-84) to be translated into English, you could do worse than read this fascinating, witty, occasionally mildly nonsensical attempt to theorize how novels are written. Many assertions, and much that runs contrary to the grain of how I was taught to talk about literature; I'm wondering if I'm less critical of this than I would be otherwise because it's written by someone famous. But, where else are you going to find someone talking about novel creation in terms of haiku? It's most unlikely there won't be something in here worth your attention.
December 21, 2024
Review in English • en Français
The book collects Barthes' last classes before his death and is about thinking how the novel is written, ranging from the materiality of creation to the ideologies intertwined with the narration.
An important warning: there was a gross over reach in the theorization surrounding the Japanese haïku. He clearly states he hasn't studied it, he only had access in his time to French translations of English adaptations of haïkus, which rearranged and systematically versified them with a meter not present in the original form. The fact that Barthes ran with it, despite saying he knew nothing of it, and elaborated several classes where he taught what he called "his haïku" is heavily misguiding on the nature of this form. The exercise leads him to make reflexions about western literature which is what is valuable in that section. Otherwise I highly advise anyone reading the chapters about haïkus to view them with a a lot of distance.
The rest of the content is a useful brainstorming on obstacles and elements involved in the act of writing novels. He draws heavily from Proust, Dante, Kafka, Nietzsche, Tolstoy mostly to make his reflexions and build his thoughts on the subject. Barthes being who he already was at the time, having studied and obsessed over the authors above, his lectures are interesting for those figuring out how to start writing anything, and they are dotted with kernels about the necessity for writing or the love of literature in the European tradition.
---
Ce livre renferme les derniers cours donnés par Roland Barthes avant sa mort. Il pense comment écrire le roman en passant par la matérialité de l'oeuvre et les idéologies à entremêler dans le récit.
Une mise en garde nécessaire: il y a une utilisation aberrante du haïku japonaise. Barthes dit clairement qu'il ne l'a pas étudié et que tout ce à quoi il avait accès étaient des traductions françaises d'adaptations anglaises d'haïkus qui les avaient réarrangés et systématiquement versifié dans un mètre non natif à la forme. Le fait qu'il ait élaboré autant de cours sans rien savoir avec ce qu'il a appelé « son haïku » permet un apprentissage trompeur sur la forme de cette forme japonaise. L'exercise de réflexion l'amène à des conclusions utiles, d'où l'intérêt de lire ces chapitres. Sinon toute lecture sur le haïku barthésien doit se faire avec beaucoup de distance.
Le reste du contenu est un remue-méninge utile pour penser aux obstacles et les éléments impliqués dans l'acte d'écrire le roman. Il prend ses idées de Proust, Dante, Kafka, Nietzsche, Tolstoï en grande partie pour nourrir le sujet. Et étant qui il était déjà à l'époque, ayant étudié en profondeur les auteurs ci-haut, ses cours sont riches en réflexions pour ceux qui essaient d'écrire n'importe quoi, et le tout est parsemé de pépites sur la nécessité d'écrire ou l'amour pour la littérature de la tradition européenne.
The book collects Barthes' last classes before his death and is about thinking how the novel is written, ranging from the materiality of creation to the ideologies intertwined with the narration.
An important warning: there was a gross over reach in the theorization surrounding the Japanese haïku. He clearly states he hasn't studied it, he only had access in his time to French translations of English adaptations of haïkus, which rearranged and systematically versified them with a meter not present in the original form. The fact that Barthes ran with it, despite saying he knew nothing of it, and elaborated several classes where he taught what he called "his haïku" is heavily misguiding on the nature of this form. The exercise leads him to make reflexions about western literature which is what is valuable in that section. Otherwise I highly advise anyone reading the chapters about haïkus to view them with a a lot of distance.
The rest of the content is a useful brainstorming on obstacles and elements involved in the act of writing novels. He draws heavily from Proust, Dante, Kafka, Nietzsche, Tolstoy mostly to make his reflexions and build his thoughts on the subject. Barthes being who he already was at the time, having studied and obsessed over the authors above, his lectures are interesting for those figuring out how to start writing anything, and they are dotted with kernels about the necessity for writing or the love of literature in the European tradition.
---
Ce livre renferme les derniers cours donnés par Roland Barthes avant sa mort. Il pense comment écrire le roman en passant par la matérialité de l'oeuvre et les idéologies à entremêler dans le récit.
Une mise en garde nécessaire: il y a une utilisation aberrante du haïku japonaise. Barthes dit clairement qu'il ne l'a pas étudié et que tout ce à quoi il avait accès étaient des traductions françaises d'adaptations anglaises d'haïkus qui les avaient réarrangés et systématiquement versifié dans un mètre non natif à la forme. Le fait qu'il ait élaboré autant de cours sans rien savoir avec ce qu'il a appelé « son haïku » permet un apprentissage trompeur sur la forme de cette forme japonaise. L'exercise de réflexion l'amène à des conclusions utiles, d'où l'intérêt de lire ces chapitres. Sinon toute lecture sur le haïku barthésien doit se faire avec beaucoup de distance.
Le reste du contenu est un remue-méninge utile pour penser aux obstacles et les éléments impliqués dans l'acte d'écrire le roman. Il prend ses idées de Proust, Dante, Kafka, Nietzsche, Tolstoï en grande partie pour nourrir le sujet. Et étant qui il était déjà à l'époque, ayant étudié en profondeur les auteurs ci-haut, ses cours sont riches en réflexions pour ceux qui essaient d'écrire n'importe quoi, et le tout est parsemé de pépites sur la nécessité d'écrire ou l'amour pour la littérature de la tradition européenne.
November 29, 2025
How does literary memory recover and/or return in what Roland Barthes' sees as a time of historical literary decline? What about in our time, a time of excessive documentation? How does this process develop in our own time of A.I.?
In a time of perceived historical literary decline, Roland Barthes suggests that literary memory recovers and returns not through a linear historical progression or the author's intentional retrieval, but through the reader's active, subjective engagement with the text, which regenerates the work in the present.
Barthes's perspective on literary memory can be understood through several key ideas:
"Hope is a memory that desires": Barthes cites Balzac's formulation that "Hope is a memory that desires" to describe the drive for writing. In a period where literature might seem to be declining or facing "extinction," writing and reading function as a desired work that one must actively add to or rewrite in the present. This desire is the force of creation, a continuous procreation of the "species, literature" that dialectically engages individual effort with the ongoing life of the form itself, transcending the individual author's mortality.
The "Death of the Author" and Birth of the Reader: For Barthes, the traditional author's intentions and biography are not the ultimate source of meaning. Instead, writing draws from a vast "lexicon" of cultural influences and prior texts. The true "locus" of a text's meaning is in its "destination," the reader. When the author's authority "dies," the reader is "born," gaining the power to assemble and activate the text's multiple meanings. This act of reading is where the literary past is continually revitalized, through the reader's own engagement with the signs on the page.
Textual Pleasure (Jouissance): The recovery of literary memory is a deeply personal and sensual experience for the reader, described as "pleasure of the text" or jouissance (bliss). This pleasure comes from "drifting" through the text, focusing on specific passages that resonate with personal interest or emotion (the punctum in his work on photography), rather than aesthetically contemplating the work as a complete whole. This subjective, bodily engagement allows for a genuine, personal "reconnection" with the text's power, which static historical analysis might miss.
Writing as Re-writing: To fully "recover" an impressive work that one didn't write oneself, one must "rewrite it". This does not mean literally producing the same book, but rather actively engaging with the classic text and adding oneself to it, a process that Barthes explored in his own seminars and self-biographical projects as a form of "literarization of the self".
Ultimately, for Barthes, literary memory in the face of historical decline is not an academic exercise of passively cataloging the past, but a continuous, vital, and subjective act of reading and writing that regenerates literature from within the present moment's creative desire.
In an era of excessive documentation and pervasive AI, literary memory is less about verbatim recall and more about curation, connection, and the uniquely human aspects of emotional depth and intentionality. The process develops through a dynamic interplay between human creativity and machine capabilities, where AI serves as an augmentation tool rather than a replacement.
The Impact of Excessive Documentation
Excessive documentation shifts the focus of memory from internal encoding to external storage, influencing literary memory in several ways:
External Reliance: The sheer volume of easily accessible information may reduce the reliance on internal, episodic memory for raw facts and details. This can free up mental space for writers, but also risks cognitive decline if over-relied upon.
Intertextuality and Pastiche: The vast digital archive makes intertextuality and the blending of sources almost inevitable. Contemporary literature often reflects postmodern traits of fragmentation, hyperreality, and the integration of diverse sources, a process amplified by the "datafication" inherent in the digital age.
Shifting Value of Originality: When so much is documented, true originality becomes more complex to define. Literary memory recovers by focusing on how existing elements are uniquely re-combined and imbued with personal meaning, rather than the novelty of the raw data itself.
The Role and Process in the Time of AI
AI develops the process of literary memory's return by acting as a powerful assistant that both challenges and enhances human creative expression:
Augmentation, Not Replacement: AI tools are adept at the "exploratory" and "transformational" aspects of creativity, such as generating ideas, analyzing data, and identifying patterns. Writers use AI to overcome creative blocks and explore new possibilities, allowing them to focus on the unique human elements of their work.
"Generated" vs. "Retrieved" Memory: AI "generates" a form of "past" or information based on patterns in its training data, which was never "encoded" as an experienced memory. Human literary memory, in contrast, involves subjective, emotionally charged episodic retrieval. The literary return lies in the author's ability to infuse AI-assisted structures with genuine human experience and emotion, something AI cannot yet replicate.
Risk of Homogenization: While AI can enhance individual creativity, studies show that AI-assisted stories can be more similar to each other in aggregate, potentially reducing collective novelty. Literary memory recovers by actively resisting this homogenization, emphasizing the singular voice, cultural nuances, and intentional critique that only human authors provide.
Ethical and Authorial Re-evaluation: The integration of AI forces a re-evaluation of authorship and ethics. The act of claiming a memory, interpreting it, and translating it into a meaningful narrative becomes a crucial act of human assertion in a machine-driven landscape.
In essence, literary memory does not just "return" in the digital age; it is actively redefined and asserted through the human capacity for meaningful, intentional, and emotionally resonant storytelling, using the vast sea of documentation and AI tools as a complex new palette.
How does one reconcile memory in the space-time of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake?
(Unanswered)
Q: How does the pleasure of opium-smoking in Thomas de Quincey lead one to picture life "with the sound off." - A: It activates the sense of synesthesia in the modern world; here experience is relayed semiotically.
Here we see Barthes writing haikus, the ultimate form of art with the sound off, over the fan-light in his bedroom.
What is the difference between the power of Basho's haikus and the prose of Emile Zola? Were both written for personal-political causes?
How did Barthes take Proust and Flaubert and place them forever in his heart, thereby weaving them into his life's work, his plan for s novel, writing as preparation for death, creating the future, the time of life's anticipation for the present.
Q: When does writing stop? - A: When nothing becomes present.
What does the theory of literature proposed by Barthes tell us about modernism and/or postmodernism?
(Unanswered)
What does NIetzsche's will to power as a haiku to the striving self have to tell us about Joseph Campbell's style of heroism or resignation for the death-mask?
(Unanswered)
We see here Barthes' observation of literature as a project to be abandoned, as ultimately we are persuaded that we should no longer pursue the recovery of a lost time and no longer search for a historical moment when we were at the pinnacle of absolute truth. Postmodernism as such is a denouement and a come-down.
Q: Why is an obsession with literature in the U.S.A. is misdiagnosis? - A: Because the drive to write history is a fundamentally European trait. In Europe, it is a pleasure to write. In America, to work is a pleasure. Moreover, in Europe, writing is an ethical response to the passage of time.
If the answer lies within us, why can't we simply pick up the Good Book, be it Mallarme's universal book or Nietzsche's book for everyone and no-one, but no, these works are only misread and falsely transcribed.
Personal note, during the time when I was a young man, I was always captivated by books of poetry that were, say, a hundred pages or so in length. When I first became interested in reading literature (previous to which I read comic books and, later, books by Daniel M. Pink water and Philip K. Dick), I would go to my local library in New City, New York and would pick up a slender volume by Mishima or Kafka or e.e. cummings. I was able to find more immediate pleasure by reading the Beat poets, Ginsberg or Jack Kerouac or Gregory Corso. It seems to me that a simple hundred pages could hold a key to a great mystery, one that even today - at the age of 53 - I feel I might never get tired of investigating. These books taught me that a poem is not a work of fiction, in the respect that it doesn't have to lie. In contrast, I discovered that a poem is a work of art and that, therefore, it should not have to surround itself with words and pages in order to shine. The page count itself is irrelevant. Alan Ginsberg has a poem where he says that he "attempted to concentrate the total sun's rays in each poem as through a glass, but such magnification did not set the page afire."
Yes, a poet doesn't have to lie, but isn't that the sole object of the novel-writer?
Three stars.
In a time of perceived historical literary decline, Roland Barthes suggests that literary memory recovers and returns not through a linear historical progression or the author's intentional retrieval, but through the reader's active, subjective engagement with the text, which regenerates the work in the present.
Barthes's perspective on literary memory can be understood through several key ideas:
"Hope is a memory that desires": Barthes cites Balzac's formulation that "Hope is a memory that desires" to describe the drive for writing. In a period where literature might seem to be declining or facing "extinction," writing and reading function as a desired work that one must actively add to or rewrite in the present. This desire is the force of creation, a continuous procreation of the "species, literature" that dialectically engages individual effort with the ongoing life of the form itself, transcending the individual author's mortality.
The "Death of the Author" and Birth of the Reader: For Barthes, the traditional author's intentions and biography are not the ultimate source of meaning. Instead, writing draws from a vast "lexicon" of cultural influences and prior texts. The true "locus" of a text's meaning is in its "destination," the reader. When the author's authority "dies," the reader is "born," gaining the power to assemble and activate the text's multiple meanings. This act of reading is where the literary past is continually revitalized, through the reader's own engagement with the signs on the page.
Textual Pleasure (Jouissance): The recovery of literary memory is a deeply personal and sensual experience for the reader, described as "pleasure of the text" or jouissance (bliss). This pleasure comes from "drifting" through the text, focusing on specific passages that resonate with personal interest or emotion (the punctum in his work on photography), rather than aesthetically contemplating the work as a complete whole. This subjective, bodily engagement allows for a genuine, personal "reconnection" with the text's power, which static historical analysis might miss.
Writing as Re-writing: To fully "recover" an impressive work that one didn't write oneself, one must "rewrite it". This does not mean literally producing the same book, but rather actively engaging with the classic text and adding oneself to it, a process that Barthes explored in his own seminars and self-biographical projects as a form of "literarization of the self".
Ultimately, for Barthes, literary memory in the face of historical decline is not an academic exercise of passively cataloging the past, but a continuous, vital, and subjective act of reading and writing that regenerates literature from within the present moment's creative desire.
In an era of excessive documentation and pervasive AI, literary memory is less about verbatim recall and more about curation, connection, and the uniquely human aspects of emotional depth and intentionality. The process develops through a dynamic interplay between human creativity and machine capabilities, where AI serves as an augmentation tool rather than a replacement.
The Impact of Excessive Documentation
Excessive documentation shifts the focus of memory from internal encoding to external storage, influencing literary memory in several ways:
External Reliance: The sheer volume of easily accessible information may reduce the reliance on internal, episodic memory for raw facts and details. This can free up mental space for writers, but also risks cognitive decline if over-relied upon.
Intertextuality and Pastiche: The vast digital archive makes intertextuality and the blending of sources almost inevitable. Contemporary literature often reflects postmodern traits of fragmentation, hyperreality, and the integration of diverse sources, a process amplified by the "datafication" inherent in the digital age.
Shifting Value of Originality: When so much is documented, true originality becomes more complex to define. Literary memory recovers by focusing on how existing elements are uniquely re-combined and imbued with personal meaning, rather than the novelty of the raw data itself.
The Role and Process in the Time of AI
AI develops the process of literary memory's return by acting as a powerful assistant that both challenges and enhances human creative expression:
Augmentation, Not Replacement: AI tools are adept at the "exploratory" and "transformational" aspects of creativity, such as generating ideas, analyzing data, and identifying patterns. Writers use AI to overcome creative blocks and explore new possibilities, allowing them to focus on the unique human elements of their work.
"Generated" vs. "Retrieved" Memory: AI "generates" a form of "past" or information based on patterns in its training data, which was never "encoded" as an experienced memory. Human literary memory, in contrast, involves subjective, emotionally charged episodic retrieval. The literary return lies in the author's ability to infuse AI-assisted structures with genuine human experience and emotion, something AI cannot yet replicate.
Risk of Homogenization: While AI can enhance individual creativity, studies show that AI-assisted stories can be more similar to each other in aggregate, potentially reducing collective novelty. Literary memory recovers by actively resisting this homogenization, emphasizing the singular voice, cultural nuances, and intentional critique that only human authors provide.
Ethical and Authorial Re-evaluation: The integration of AI forces a re-evaluation of authorship and ethics. The act of claiming a memory, interpreting it, and translating it into a meaningful narrative becomes a crucial act of human assertion in a machine-driven landscape.
In essence, literary memory does not just "return" in the digital age; it is actively redefined and asserted through the human capacity for meaningful, intentional, and emotionally resonant storytelling, using the vast sea of documentation and AI tools as a complex new palette.
How does one reconcile memory in the space-time of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake?
(Unanswered)
Q: How does the pleasure of opium-smoking in Thomas de Quincey lead one to picture life "with the sound off." - A: It activates the sense of synesthesia in the modern world; here experience is relayed semiotically.
Here we see Barthes writing haikus, the ultimate form of art with the sound off, over the fan-light in his bedroom.
What is the difference between the power of Basho's haikus and the prose of Emile Zola? Were both written for personal-political causes?
How did Barthes take Proust and Flaubert and place them forever in his heart, thereby weaving them into his life's work, his plan for s novel, writing as preparation for death, creating the future, the time of life's anticipation for the present.
Q: When does writing stop? - A: When nothing becomes present.
What does the theory of literature proposed by Barthes tell us about modernism and/or postmodernism?
(Unanswered)
What does NIetzsche's will to power as a haiku to the striving self have to tell us about Joseph Campbell's style of heroism or resignation for the death-mask?
(Unanswered)
We see here Barthes' observation of literature as a project to be abandoned, as ultimately we are persuaded that we should no longer pursue the recovery of a lost time and no longer search for a historical moment when we were at the pinnacle of absolute truth. Postmodernism as such is a denouement and a come-down.
Q: Why is an obsession with literature in the U.S.A. is misdiagnosis? - A: Because the drive to write history is a fundamentally European trait. In Europe, it is a pleasure to write. In America, to work is a pleasure. Moreover, in Europe, writing is an ethical response to the passage of time.
If the answer lies within us, why can't we simply pick up the Good Book, be it Mallarme's universal book or Nietzsche's book for everyone and no-one, but no, these works are only misread and falsely transcribed.
Personal note, during the time when I was a young man, I was always captivated by books of poetry that were, say, a hundred pages or so in length. When I first became interested in reading literature (previous to which I read comic books and, later, books by Daniel M. Pink water and Philip K. Dick), I would go to my local library in New City, New York and would pick up a slender volume by Mishima or Kafka or e.e. cummings. I was able to find more immediate pleasure by reading the Beat poets, Ginsberg or Jack Kerouac or Gregory Corso. It seems to me that a simple hundred pages could hold a key to a great mystery, one that even today - at the age of 53 - I feel I might never get tired of investigating. These books taught me that a poem is not a work of fiction, in the respect that it doesn't have to lie. In contrast, I discovered that a poem is a work of art and that, therefore, it should not have to surround itself with words and pages in order to shine. The page count itself is irrelevant. Alan Ginsberg has a poem where he says that he "attempted to concentrate the total sun's rays in each poem as through a glass, but such magnification did not set the page afire."
Yes, a poet doesn't have to lie, but isn't that the sole object of the novel-writer?
Three stars.
October 2, 2024
Je ne me souviens plus quand j’ai commencé ce livre, ni pourquoi. Il m’a manqué un cahier d’écolier.
June 16, 2017
Interesante para todos aquellos interesados en el proceso de escritura creativa. Barthes aborda la cuestión desde distintos puntos de vista y compara la metafísica occidental con la oriental. En concreto compara las enormes diferencias que ocupan a los escritores de Haikus frente a los poetas (a la producción de Haikus Barthes dedica varios capítulos).
Regresando a la tradición occidental, Barthes se centra en gran medida en la obra de los grandes creadores franceses —Proust, Flaubert, Mallarmé, Baudelaire…—
Con respecto a la cuestión de la memoria y de la edición, Barthes explica cómo funciona la técnica de Proust de “marcottage”. Proust es uno de los pocos autores que editaban añadiendo material. Pues como es conocido, la mayoría editan sus obras eliminando pasajes donde se pierde la fuerza, el ritmo…
El semiólogo francés se interesa incluso por el modo de vida de los autores: qué horarios tenían, qué actividades les ocupaban, qué bebían o comían, cuándo escribían, cuántas horas… Es muy interesante conocer que Proust, debido a sus enormes dolores de cabeza, trabajaba mejor por la noche, cuando el mundo estaba en calma y que muchas veces lo hacía desde su cama. También sorprende la rapidez con la que escribía, algo que sin duda influyó en su estilo. Barthes habla en concreto de la “capacidad física” de Proust para escribir muy rápido.
La obra de Proust fascina a Barthes en todos sus aspectos, hasta el punto de identificar el acto mismo de escribir con la obra de Proust: “La seule chose que raconte la Recherche du temps perdu, c’est le Vouloir-Écrire.” Y ese querer escribir tiene siempre un “objeto fantasmático”, en referencia al término que el psicoanálisis utiliza en sus varias acepciones etimológicas de “fantasía” y de “fantasma”. En definitiva, es una referencia al proceso de la imaginación, a la mezcla de elementos que se produce en ocasiones a un nivel consciente y en otras ocasiones a un nivel inconsciente y cuyo resultado es el texto de un autor.
Otra cuestión sobre la que Barthes se ocupa es el hecho de tomar notas. ¿Qué tipo de notas caracteriza a los escritores? ¿En qué momento sacan su libreta para anotar algo? ¿Cómo se transforma más adelante ese material en novela?
“La préparation du roman”, obra exhaustiva donde las haya sobre el proceso de escritura creativa. Muy recomendable.
Regresando a la tradición occidental, Barthes se centra en gran medida en la obra de los grandes creadores franceses —Proust, Flaubert, Mallarmé, Baudelaire…—
Con respecto a la cuestión de la memoria y de la edición, Barthes explica cómo funciona la técnica de Proust de “marcottage”. Proust es uno de los pocos autores que editaban añadiendo material. Pues como es conocido, la mayoría editan sus obras eliminando pasajes donde se pierde la fuerza, el ritmo…
El semiólogo francés se interesa incluso por el modo de vida de los autores: qué horarios tenían, qué actividades les ocupaban, qué bebían o comían, cuándo escribían, cuántas horas… Es muy interesante conocer que Proust, debido a sus enormes dolores de cabeza, trabajaba mejor por la noche, cuando el mundo estaba en calma y que muchas veces lo hacía desde su cama. También sorprende la rapidez con la que escribía, algo que sin duda influyó en su estilo. Barthes habla en concreto de la “capacidad física” de Proust para escribir muy rápido.
La obra de Proust fascina a Barthes en todos sus aspectos, hasta el punto de identificar el acto mismo de escribir con la obra de Proust: “La seule chose que raconte la Recherche du temps perdu, c’est le Vouloir-Écrire.” Y ese querer escribir tiene siempre un “objeto fantasmático”, en referencia al término que el psicoanálisis utiliza en sus varias acepciones etimológicas de “fantasía” y de “fantasma”. En definitiva, es una referencia al proceso de la imaginación, a la mezcla de elementos que se produce en ocasiones a un nivel consciente y en otras ocasiones a un nivel inconsciente y cuyo resultado es el texto de un autor.
Otra cuestión sobre la que Barthes se ocupa es el hecho de tomar notas. ¿Qué tipo de notas caracteriza a los escritores? ¿En qué momento sacan su libreta para anotar algo? ¿Cómo se transforma más adelante ese material en novela?
“La préparation du roman”, obra exhaustiva donde las haya sobre el proceso de escritura creativa. Muy recomendable.
May 7, 2009
nice and entertaining, no commitment, just for fatigued intelletual on intellecual mcjob
Currently reading
May 15, 2011Astonishing view of haiku - so far - so good!
May 24, 2013
Tour de Force. The bomb. Brilliant. Genius. A must.
March 3, 2024
Dense mais très intéressant. Cet ouvrage n'apprend pas à écrire un roman mais détaille et analyse toutes les étapes par lesquelles doit passer un écrivain selon une perspective presque philosophique.
C'était la première fois que je "lisais" (il s'agit de transcriptions de cours donc ce n'est pas sa prose mais sa parole) Roland Barthes et je dois dire que j'ai rarement senti aussi profondément l'étendue de l'intelligence et de l'érudition de quelqu'un. J'ai hâte de découvrir ses écrits et je déplore sa mort précipitée peu après ce cours, qui fait qu'il n'a jamais écrit le roman dont il parle.
C'était la première fois que je "lisais" (il s'agit de transcriptions de cours donc ce n'est pas sa prose mais sa parole) Roland Barthes et je dois dire que j'ai rarement senti aussi profondément l'étendue de l'intelligence et de l'érudition de quelqu'un. J'ai hâte de découvrir ses écrits et je déplore sa mort précipitée peu après ce cours, qui fait qu'il n'a jamais écrit le roman dont il parle.
April 25, 2024
Im Rahmen des Seminars "Literarisches Forschen" gelesen und sehr inspirierend. Roland Barthes beleuchtet die Schwierigkeiten des Romanschreibens mit Beispielen von Kafka, Proust, Flaubert usw. Zu sehen, dass große Autoren ähnliche Zweifel haben ist sehr beruhigend, auch sie haben Schwierigkeiten sich Zeit zum Schreiben einzuteilen oder prokrastinieren. Besonders spannend fand ich Barthes Faszination für Haikus, er hat mich damit angesteckt!
February 12, 2024
very moving to read barthes in these scattered lecture notes as he meditates on the weather, friendships, administrative obstacles to writing, and much else
November 12, 2014
It is not the most enjoyable read, which is understandable since these are Barthes' personal lecture notes, not prepared for a public audience. However, for someone who writes it is perhaps an indispensable font of knowledge on the creative process and desire to write. One of the most intriguing points to me was about the in-the-moment viscera of haiku and the complexity of moving from some present-tense haiku (notation) to a fluid novel.
Even if you cannot read it all, it is good as a source for writers. Maybe his discussion of haiku can change your approach toward poetry, in which case the read is totally worth it.
Even if you cannot read it all, it is good as a source for writers. Maybe his discussion of haiku can change your approach toward poetry, in which case the read is totally worth it.
December 14, 2016
Roland Barthes’ fantastic book of lectures and footnotes is a thing to behold, particularly for writers. Even more particularly those involved in the unenviable task of writing a novel. Again, these were lectures--so he used pedagogy in an attempt to understand what writing a novel would be like. He tracks what he feels is every step toward producing a novel--it’s a shame in some ways that he died shortly after completing this. The piercing intellect of Barthes is on full display on many topics--I love reading wise writers write about Kafka. The book is thorough and a true delight for fans of Barthes or those dipping their feet in for the first time.
January 20, 2018
Je l'ai lu sur ma liseuse - la version ebook
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