Album: Unpublished Correspondence and Texts by Roland Barthes
Will you be in Paris at the end of the month of September or beginning of October? If no obstacles arise, I am hoping to spend two weeks in France at that time.
Yours cordially,
Jean Starobinski
* * *
Geneva, May 16, 1966
Dear Roland Barthes,
I read Critique et vérité with a feeling of constant support: because you restore to criticism its full capacity for experience and risk. The truth upon which your adversaries pride themselves is a brief truth; the “convincing critic” wants to stop everything with his decree. There is nothing more to say, he believes, after he has spoken; he imposes silence upon the works and all future criticism.
Thus we would remain surrounded by studies characterized as “definitive” that forbid resuming discussion on the subject of an author. Gag criticism!
The only point that leaves me a little hesitant is what you say about the “void of the subject.” Hesitant and fascinated. This writer is very much a subject who “weaves an infinitely transformed speech.” Or is it previous speech that is transformed, that is transported? Then the subject would be speech right through, always beyond him in speech; but exteriority loses its sense of exteriority if there is no interiority. Thus there would remain, as Blanchot suggests, a certain neutral, neither objective nor subjective.… But no doubt we will take all that up again in Cerisy.75
Warm regards,
Jean Starobinski
Roland Barthes to Jean Starobinski (BNS)
Rabat, March 4, 1970
Dear friend,
I’m very touched by your letter, your confidence, your invitation—and won over by the preciseness of your request.76 A broader invitation, as gratifying as it would be, would actually pose problems; but the idea of regular contact for two months with your university is very attractive to me. I’ve just decided to resume my seminar in Paris next year—and so not sign on for another year in Rabat (too many difficulties, despite many attractions). This is to tell you that it would be very possible for me to come to Geneva in January and February—but also (since you need to agree in principle) that I couldn’t drop my Paris seminar and so I would have to be able to spend two days per week in Geneva (Monday and Tuesday would work very well)—two days, moreover, that I would devote entirely to all that is asked of me. Thus, in principle, yes, I accept, and with great pleasure.
I’m thinking of a quick trip to Geneva about the 20–25. But we could meet at the event for the Japan book at Skira (and I would be happy to do that in any case) and discuss the details of our project.77 Arlette Perrenoud will give you the information for this trip. In any case, I’ll be in Paris March 19.
Thanks again,
Warmest regards to you,
R. Barthes
* * *
[Paris,] March 21, 1971
Dear friend,
I don’t want to let silence fall between us; it wouldn’t do justice to the faithful thoughts I carry with me after those few weeks of contact that were a joy for me. I won’t tell you again, or rather I will tell you again how sincerely happy that experience made me; I came away from it not the least bit tired. So thank you for all that you did for me; and would you express my gratitude as well to Jean Rousset.78 And please let him know, with regard to a conversation we had in his office, that there is a treatise on propriety (in the opposite sense, as you can imagine) in de Sade (Philosophie dans le Boudoir).79
I am going to Morocco for Easter, but I’m hoping to come through Geneva after Easter—and so to see you there again.
Please remember me to Mme Starobinski, and kind regards to the little pianist who plays “Le Coucou.”80
Kind regards, faithfully yours,
R. Barthes
Sadly, I think I’m going to give up the Skira series.81 After serious reflection, I don’t dare take on this work that will keep me from writing. I’ll write to Skira one of these days.
4. With Georges Perec
“My true master is Roland Barthes,” said Georges Perec (1936–82), one year after Barthes’s death.82 These words must be understood not simply as those of a disciple, although Perec was a “student” of this master, but as those of a writer. If Les Choses (Julliard, 1965) can be read as the novelistic transposition of Mythologies, the disproportion between the two works must be fully registered, the particular genius of Perec, and of course the writing processes so specific to Oulipo. Roland Barthes’s support of Georges Perec’s work is conveyed by the decisive backing he gave to La Vie, mode d’emploi (Hachette, 1978) when it won the Prix Médicis. Nevertheless, Barthes never quotes Perec and never writes about him. The moving letter from Perec in 1970 conveys his dismay faced with the “master’s” silence. Barthes’s promises (“I will do a text on you soon,” he writes to him in 1965), which are unkept, do not quite tell the story: a real admiration for the work, but a lack of support for his aesthetic; a closeness all the more impossible as it hinges on a subtle difference: Perec’s formalism and Barthes’s formalism are not the same thing.
Roland Barthes to Georges Perec (BA)
Monday, [1962?]
Dear Georges Perec,
I thank you for having sent me your articles.83 I’ve read them carefully, with interest, with the constant thought that they very much concerned me. Certain things seemed right to me, others less so: right, the demanding but unreal idea that you seem to make for yourself of literature, of its being, that is to say, its ends and means. I don’t know if one can effectively discuss this (that is, in a way to modify them both), because the options, that is, the freedoms, seem to me different in your case and in mine. That said, I’d be only too pleased to talk with you about it. At the present moment, I have too much to do; but if you would be kind enough to call me a month from now, we could arrange a meeting.
Best wishes,
R. Barthes
* * *
Tuesday, [1962?]
Dear Perec,
A quick note, because your manuscript would have to be discussed in person.84 I mean, I would have to hear what you say about it. My immediate reaction is divided: If one accepts your project, how not to appreciate the extremely sure way in which it is carried out? As before, with what I’ve read of yours, I have the feeling of admiration for the solidity of the writing, its intelligence, its obedience to the project, something like its perfection. But, for reasons that may be ones of personal censure, I cannot really support the choice of enterprise; I cannot really bear imitated writings (intentionally so, of course), even if the model is subtly blurred. This is not a criticism, but the explanation for a certain discomfort; but maybe you intended that. When we see each other, you can explain all that to me and tell me what perspectives you see in this text.
Yours,
R. Barthes
* * *
Sunday, [January 1964?]
Dear Georges Perec,
A very quick note—now that I’ve finally read you quietly. I find your text very good.85 And I was even surprised (not in relationship to you but in relationship to what one ordinarily reads) by the success, the simple, elegant maturity, the clear and nevertheless discreet (in the literary sense) sense of your work. I believe I see all you can expect once again, a realism not of detail but, in the best Brechtian tradition, of situation; a novel, or a story on poverty, inextricably mixed with the image of wealth. It’s very beautiful, very rare today; yours is the one of “petite alienation,” and all in all it’s quite heartrending—all the more so as the question, simultaneously emotional and social and human, arises from the successful treatment of those famous objects, to which you restore a mythic flavor. I don’t know what you want to alter or add, but in any case, finish quickly and publish it. I think your book will be incontestable and that through this “simple” text, you will resolve many things that aren’t working in the narrative today.
We will talk about it again—better than I am now.
Until soon,
Yours,
R. Barthes
* * *
Tuesday, [autumn 1965]
My dear Perec, how happy I am!86 Miracle of good news, news coming just now from the world of Letters. No, it isn’t luck; it’s the power of good in you that has triumphed. You will help us to emerge from obscurantism. Work well.
Yours,
R. Barthes
I will do a text on you soon.
* * *
May 9, [1967]
My dear Perec,
As soon as I read the extract from your text in Les Temps modernes, I wanted to send you a note simply to tell you the kind of peaceful and certain shock I experienced again in the presence of your writing: the certitude of a kind of writing being—who is very rarely given to us.87 I haven’t yet had time to get the whole book, because I can’t do one more task. But I would like to tell you that I’m always thinking of writing a text on everything you’ve written. I still need a few months, but you should know that “I’m on the lookout” and the lamp of your texts is always there, by my side.
I hope we’ll get together—one day.
Yours,
Roland Barthes
Duvignaud tells me that you’ve taken an interest in my Fashion.88 Thank you.
* * *
January 28, 1968
Dear friend,
I was in the United States from October until just a few days ago, and it’s only now that I found your invitation to Getzler’s exhibition.89 Excuse me for missing it; it wasn’t intentional.
I too would be happy to see you again. Get in touch one of these days, if you have more will and energy than I do to shake off this depressing dispersion.
Yours,
R. Barthes
* * *
March 26, 1968
My dear Perec,
Excuse me for being so late in thanking you for your text on my Fashion; it made me happy that you’re interested in this work, enough to write a few lines on the subject.90 Frankly, I don’t really see how a system could exist without a code, or what reason there is for basically comparing the system to terror, except to fall back into the old romantic myth of “spontaneity,” anti-intellectualism, etc., which, I hope, is not your aim. We should discuss all this—and especially your much more interesting projects.
Until soon then,
Warm regards,
R. Barthes
Georges Perec to Roland Barthes (BNF)
June 15, 1970
Dear Roland Barthes,
Reading your article on Massin in a recent Observateur makes me regret, once more (and I must say, more and more bitterly), your silence.91
The influence you have had, through your teaching and your writings, on my work and its evolution has been and remains such that it seems to me that my texts have no other meaning, no other weight, no other existence than those your reading can give to them.
Please accept, dear Roland Barthes, my warm regards.
Georges Perec
Roland Barthes to Georges Perec (BA)
11, rue Pierre-Sémard, Rabat, July 4, [1970]
My dear Perec,
Your note touched but also saddened me. You know very well that I write almost no pieces of criticism, both because I have absolutely no time (I mean now that only writing books interests me and I can’t endure anything that stands in my way) and because of what it costs me to get involved in judgmental discourse. When by chance I release something in a weekly, it’s always under pressure from some contingency that weighs on me. This is to tell you that there is no silence with regard to your work; for me to talk about it (and I’d like nothing better), it’s not a question of it interesting me (because that has been true since your first manuscript) but of it fitting naturally into the work I’m doing. So you must be patient until our respective works merge—or until some contingency brings them together. At that time, I will try as best I can to repay your confidence and your friendship, and I will do so with joy.
Yours,
R. Barthes
* * *
December 17, 1972
My dear Perec,
I think I’ll find pleasure in reading you, I sense that.92 Your ideas point the way, like the “Great Rhetoricians,” and we need an end of the Middle Ages. So, thank you in advance.
Until soon?
Faithfully,
R. Barthes
* * *
June 25, 1973
My dear Perec,
I was very touched that you wanted me to read your Boutique obscure.93 I was happy to receive the proofs and the book. I will have to take the book with me on vacation, because I’m exhausted at the moment, but I will read you quietly and am already very attracted by what I see in this fragmentary writing. So thank you, and until soon.
Yours,
R. Barthes
5. Claude Simon to Roland Barthes
The ties between Roland Barthes and Claude Simon (1913–2005) were very discreet; only a few letters provide evidence, as well as Barthes’s dedications to Simon. They were both orphans whose fathers died during World War I, part of the same generation, and, above all, deeply connected by a very close literary engagement. Roland Barthes never wrote on Claude Simon; he quotes him here and there, noting readings and an ongoing affinity. L’Orion aveugle, which appeared the same year as L’Empire des signes, and with the same publisher, Skira, links them. But what these letters show us is Barthes’s admiration for a little-known text by Simon, his play La Séparation, adapted by the author from his novel L’Herbe (Minuit, 1958).
* * *
Perpignan, May 10, 1963
Dear Roland Barthes,
Infinite thanks for sending us your book.94 At this moment I’m overwhelmed by practical tasks that make the mind go numb (setting up a new house, moving) and I’ll wait to regain calm to read you. However I’ve not been able to keep myself from stealing a few quick glances here and there.
After all that you said to me about La Séparation,95 I’m a little embarrassed (I seem to be offering you the same, and yet …) to tell you in turn the extent to which I am once more (I read—and reread—your remarkable preface to Morrissette’s book on Robbe-Grillet)96 stupefied by the rigor and penetration of your thinking (struck in finding in your afterword that very carefully formulated distinction between quavering meaning and closed meaning).
Being only an autodidact and intuitively feeling my way, I confess to you that I’m a bit intimidated by the interest that you show in me, as I’ve been intimidated by the regard with which Maurice Merleau-Ponty has honored me. I know that, as he would tell me, all that goes to the individual who is not completely me and who only appears by dint of work—and alas, disappears when I leave my desk. But that would be the other whom you recognize.
We would be happy to see you in Paris. We have found a little pied-à-terre there. But that means another move and settling in!
Réa joins me in sending you our best wishes.97
Claude Simon
* * *
Salses, March 9, 1964
Dear Roland Barthes,
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your book and your dedication, which touched me deeply.98
Selfishly it makes me happy that you have collected in one volume all your essays from these last years. I was familiar with most of them, but each time I’ve wanted to refer to them, I’ve had to find them in old issues of reviews. And then, there are others I didn’t know, like the one on La Sorcière (a book I like very much) and those on criticism in Modern Language Notes and Times Literary Supplement.
I’ve already told you this: I think your analyses are of major importance. For me, you have formulated (and in what a fashion!) lots of things that I have felt, but vaguely. No one has ever before spoken of the problems of writing as you do, and I think there are many among us who admire and owe you thanks for that.
After all sorts of difficulties, I think that soon we are going to be able to move into a little pied-à-terre that I found in Paris, and that will allow us to come more often. As soon a
Réa joins me in saying how much we’re looking forward to this time together and in sending you our best wishes.
Claude Simon
* * *
Salses, April 9, 1966
Dear Roland Barthes,
Thank you for being so kind as to send me your latest book, and thank you for saying these things.99
So happy that you are there.
In sincerest friendship,
Claude Simon
6. With Julia Kristeva
That Barthes titled his article on Séméiotikè “L’Étrangère” speaks volumes about the appeal, even the fascination, that Kristeva held for Barthes.100 For Barthes, only “l’étrangère” is in a position to bring the “bonne nouvelle” about what alone matters, in his eyes: language, the sign.… It is very clearly in those terms that he presents her. She is the one who shifts and changes the place of things; she is the one who continually warns, “we are always going too slowly,” “we are wasting time, ‘to believe,’ that is to say, to repeat ourselves and to please ourselves.” In naming her “the foreigner,” in assigning to her an origin associated with the East (“the one to whom we owe new knowledge, coming from the East and the Far East”), in writing of her that she “sideswipes, scars our young semiotic science with a foreign mark (which is much more difficult than foreign),” Barthes also says something about himself, his own quest, and in this sense clarifies the fact that, from his first intellectual act, in 1947, it is also from a foreigner, Viggo Brøndal (1887–1942), that he borrowed a major and, for him, essential concept, “the degree zero of writing,” thus shifting the very old French rhetorical tradition over to an elsewhere alone from which “the new” can come. Throughout his work, Roland Barthes never stops referring to the theoretic shifts advanced by Julia Kristeva, always mixing deep affection with intellectual recognition.
Roland Barthes to Julia Kristeva
Urt, September 12, 1967
Dear friend,