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My Strange Quest for Mensonge: Structuralism's Hidden Hero
My Strange Quest for Structuralism's Hidden Hero
- GenresPhilosophyFiction
104 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1987
About the author
Malcolm Bradbury
113 books92 followersSir Malcolm Stanley Bradbury CBE was an English author and academic. He is best known to a wider public as a novelist. Although he is often compared with David Lodge, his friend and a contemporary as a British exponent of the campus novel genre, Bradbury's books are consistently darker in mood and less playful both in style and language. His best known novel The History Man, published in 1975, is a dark satire of academic life in the "glass and steel" universities—the then-fashionable newer universities of England that had followed their "redbrick" predecessors—which in 1981 was made into a successful BBC television serial. The protagonist is the hypocritical Howard Kirk, a sociology professor at the fictional University of Watermouth.
He completed his PhD in American studies at the University of Manchester in 1962, moving to the University of East Anglia (his second novel, Stepping Westward, appeared in 1965), where he became Professor of American Studies in 1970 and launched the world-renowned MA in Creative Writing course, which Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro both attended. He published Possibilities: Essays on the State of the Novel in 1973, The History Man in 1975, Who Do You Think You Are? in 1976, Rates of Exchange in 1983, Cuts: A Very Short Novel in 1987, retiring from academic life in 1995. Malcolm Bradbury became a Commander of the British Empire in 1991 for services to Literature, and was made a Knight Bachelor in the New Year Honours 2000, again for services to Literature.
Bradbury was a productive academic writer as well as a successful teacher; an expert on the modern novel, he published books on Evelyn Waugh, Saul Bellow and E. M. Forster, as well as editions of such modern classics as F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, and a number of surveys and handbooks of modern fiction, both British and American.
He also wrote extensively for television, including scripting series such as Anything More Would Be Greedy, The Gravy Train, the sequel The Gravy Train Goes East (which explored life in Bradbury's fictional Slaka), and adapting novels such as Tom Sharpe's Blott on the Landscape and Porterhouse Blue, Alison Lurie's Imaginary Friends and Kingsley Amis's The Green Man. His last television script was for Dalziel and Pascoe series 5, produced by Andy Rowley. The episode 'Foreign Bodies' was screened on BBC One on July 15, 2000.
He completed his PhD in American studies at the University of Manchester in 1962, moving to the University of East Anglia (his second novel, Stepping Westward, appeared in 1965), where he became Professor of American Studies in 1970 and launched the world-renowned MA in Creative Writing course, which Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro both attended. He published Possibilities: Essays on the State of the Novel in 1973, The History Man in 1975, Who Do You Think You Are? in 1976, Rates of Exchange in 1983, Cuts: A Very Short Novel in 1987, retiring from academic life in 1995. Malcolm Bradbury became a Commander of the British Empire in 1991 for services to Literature, and was made a Knight Bachelor in the New Year Honours 2000, again for services to Literature.
Bradbury was a productive academic writer as well as a successful teacher; an expert on the modern novel, he published books on Evelyn Waugh, Saul Bellow and E. M. Forster, as well as editions of such modern classics as F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, and a number of surveys and handbooks of modern fiction, both British and American.
He also wrote extensively for television, including scripting series such as Anything More Would Be Greedy, The Gravy Train, the sequel The Gravy Train Goes East (which explored life in Bradbury's fictional Slaka), and adapting novels such as Tom Sharpe's Blott on the Landscape and Porterhouse Blue, Alison Lurie's Imaginary Friends and Kingsley Amis's The Green Man. His last television script was for Dalziel and Pascoe series 5, produced by Andy Rowley. The episode 'Foreign Bodies' was screened on BBC One on July 15, 2000.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
July 26, 2015
Here's another odd gem from the shelves of a used book shop, Malcolm Bradbury's satirical novel about a fictional French theorist named Henri Mensonge who allegedly took the Structuralists and the Deconstructionists one step further--by proving that the sex act (in his book, La Fornication) is the essence of being about nothing and might as well be a long narrow street leading to a fountain as human copulation.
Bradbury himself was a British literary figure who specialized in American literature and wrote a number of novels but found time to skewer fashions of French thought in the latter half of the 20th century. In this book, he writes about a figure, Mensonge, who was elusively not present, almost never spotted, and yet allegedly produced the greatest philosophical tract of the century...if in fact he did produce it ... if in fact anything written can be termed great.
Mensonge reads like witty, erudite, academic stand-up comedy. For reasons that remain difficult to grasp Structuralism and Deconstructionism tended to replace traditional "philosophy," particularly the branch known as epistemology with indefiniteness and uncertainty, including uncertainty about whether authors wrote texts or texts wrote authors and whether authors (and others) were the subjects of their own lives (or the toys of crushing powers that had mastered the art of preserving their powers.)
There's a weird lucidity to this full-scale, tongue-in-cheek attack on the French and their postulates designed to liberate the powerless from the powerful (by denying subjective authority to everyone). It is very well written and blessedly brief. Think of the notes to Lolita (Nabokov) or any number of puzzling fictions by Borges and you will have a sense of the approach Bradbury takes.
Not a major novel and somewhat dated (1987), Mensonge retains a dry British bite. But as La Fornication was only glimpsed in incomplete fragments, Mensonge also is a book you probably won't encounter unless I happen to sell it to a used book store near you. And I might, if I find any takers.
Bradbury himself was a British literary figure who specialized in American literature and wrote a number of novels but found time to skewer fashions of French thought in the latter half of the 20th century. In this book, he writes about a figure, Mensonge, who was elusively not present, almost never spotted, and yet allegedly produced the greatest philosophical tract of the century...if in fact he did produce it ... if in fact anything written can be termed great.
Mensonge reads like witty, erudite, academic stand-up comedy. For reasons that remain difficult to grasp Structuralism and Deconstructionism tended to replace traditional "philosophy," particularly the branch known as epistemology with indefiniteness and uncertainty, including uncertainty about whether authors wrote texts or texts wrote authors and whether authors (and others) were the subjects of their own lives (or the toys of crushing powers that had mastered the art of preserving their powers.)
There's a weird lucidity to this full-scale, tongue-in-cheek attack on the French and their postulates designed to liberate the powerless from the powerful (by denying subjective authority to everyone). It is very well written and blessedly brief. Think of the notes to Lolita (Nabokov) or any number of puzzling fictions by Borges and you will have a sense of the approach Bradbury takes.
Not a major novel and somewhat dated (1987), Mensonge retains a dry British bite. But as La Fornication was only glimpsed in incomplete fragments, Mensonge also is a book you probably won't encounter unless I happen to sell it to a used book store near you. And I might, if I find any takers.
December 8, 2020
Un exercitiu de lectura nu neaparat util, dar simpatic in felul său. Sunt 90 de pagini pline de referinte filozofice, literare, lingvistice, chiar si gastronomice in care practic nu afli mai nimic nou( presupunand ca esti deja familiarizat cu structuralismul si decontructivismul), iar daca afli ceva ( cu privire la Mensogne) in randul urmator, ceva-ul e si el chestionat si demontant.
O satiră a filosofiei franceze de secol trecut, scrisă într-o manieră jucăusă si deconstructivistă, dar parca prea forțată, deși ideea nu-i rea. E prea repetitiva si prea anevoioasa ca stil. In plus, e un pic si “depasita” fiind aparuta in ‘87, glumele pot parea desuete, dar asta nu inseamna ca nu poate fi parcursa si la mai bine de treizeci de ani distanta.
Per ansamblu, ca sa patrez coordonatele textului, e o carte care poate sa conteze sau nu. As putea sa o recomand, dar in acelasi timp parca m-as abtine si sa fac asta.
p.s traducatorul chiar a facut o treaba excelenta, adaugand foarte multe note de subsol, explicand si glumele pe alocuri. Deci daca nu iti sunt familiare chiar toate figurile enumerate pe acolo, nu-ti face griji, nu-i nevoie sa apelezi la google.
O satiră a filosofiei franceze de secol trecut, scrisă într-o manieră jucăusă si deconstructivistă, dar parca prea forțată, deși ideea nu-i rea. E prea repetitiva si prea anevoioasa ca stil. In plus, e un pic si “depasita” fiind aparuta in ‘87, glumele pot parea desuete, dar asta nu inseamna ca nu poate fi parcursa si la mai bine de treizeci de ani distanta.
Per ansamblu, ca sa patrez coordonatele textului, e o carte care poate sa conteze sau nu. As putea sa o recomand, dar in acelasi timp parca m-as abtine si sa fac asta.
p.s traducatorul chiar a facut o treaba excelenta, adaugand foarte multe note de subsol, explicand si glumele pe alocuri. Deci daca nu iti sunt familiare chiar toate figurile enumerate pe acolo, nu-ti face griji, nu-i nevoie sa apelezi la google.
May 12, 2023
Way too intellectual for me but the bits I understood were hilarious. Bradbury’s pithy acuity delivers a sardonic attack on 20th Century philosophy and philosophers (aka wankers), and in a delicious irony plays gorgeously into the dearth that represents my level of philosophical knowledge. Who is Mensonge? Good question. Or is it?
March 5, 2024
My head hurts. Ta
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July 20, 2024Mensonge on niin kutsutun mannermaisen filosofian parodiateos. Jokainen virke on niin pikkunokkela, että lukuprosessini sujui hyvin hitaasti teoksen niukasta mitasta huolimatta. Mensonge on kuitenkin paikoin erinomaisen hauska, joten sikäli sitä voi suositella vastaavasta neppailusta viehättyville.
January 12, 2010
This short story or novelette is one of the most humorous critiques I’ve read about inanities of Structuralism and Deconstruction. In it Bradbury describes, or provides a lack of description, of the Deconstructor’s Deconstructor, Henri Mesonge, and attempts to provide an understanding of the significance of his non-significance. There’s a lot to take in here, and if you’ve been blissfully unaware of Saussure, Derrida, Lacan, Foucault, etc., much of this critique will fall on deaf ears. If, on the other hand, you’ve ever wondered if Barthes got royalty cheques in for his work describing the death of the author, then this is the critique for you.
November 7, 2010
This book does for academia what The Illuminatus! Trilogy: The Eye in the Pyramid/The Golden Apple/Leviathan did for conspiracy theories. That is, Bradbury has successfully - and with style - told every degree-hording windbag to, in a sense, "Shut the f*ck up." A perfect book to read before/after/alongside The Last Intellectuals: American Culture in the Age of Academe.
March 15, 2012
A brilliant satire about the quest for a kind-of-existing central figure of the whole phenomenon of 20th-century "la mort de l'auteur", Foucault, Derrida, structuralism, postmodernism and deconstruction. I greatly enjoyed the multi-level satire, and my inner literature student kept giggling especially at the parody of academic world and researchers. Also the Finnish translation is excellent.
"Saussure or not Saussure?"
"Saussure or not Saussure?"
June 13, 2017
This may be the best book I've ever read. It was supposed to be the final book covered in my Master's thesis but ended up being one of the works that convinced me to toss it all away (cf: U2's Zooropa, Bukowski's Pulp, Chandler's Long Goodbye). I can offer no higher recommendation.
December 26, 2021
The very act of writing a review is negated by the power of the work, of Mesonge; or perhaps it is not.
“Mensonge’s intellectual heroism seems to have been absolute. Few of us have ever been absent with such total consistency”
“Mensonge’s intellectual heroism seems to have been absolute. Few of us have ever been absent with such total consistency”
July 10, 2022
Don't think this book was really for me. The little bits I know about structuralism and 20th century linguistics were helpful but overall I often found myself quite lost in this.
October 30, 2014
Great fun! This heavy-handed lampoon of 1990s literary criticism socks it to Tel Quel, Deconstructionists and even poor old Saussure with punchlines so well telegraphed that even Joe Frazier could have seen them coming in the tenth round. That said (provisionally), this little volume should be a great purgative for postgrads who might be tempted to feel kindly about Michel Foucault et alia, without realizing that all such emperors qua charlatans drop their pants at night and laugh. 'So we got away with it, Julia, another day!'
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews