R.B. (in his writing, Roland Barthes calls himself R.B.) appeared in its archaic form twenty-five years ago, in the book entitled Writing Degree Zero. Since then it has, little by little, detached itself from French, from which it is partially descended, forming an autonomous language with its own grammar and vocabulary.
Bayard takes a drag on his Gitane, swallows a mouthful of beer, turns the pages. At the bar, he hears the waiter explain to a customer why France will descend into civil war if Mitterrand is elected.
Lesson one: The basics of conversation.
1—How do you formulate yourself?
French: What is your name?
2—I formulate myself L.
French: My name is William.
Bayard more or less understands the satirical intent and also that in theory he ought to be on the same wavelength as the authors of this pastiche, but he is wary. Why, in “R.B.,” does “William” call himself “L”? It’s a puzzle. Fucking intellectuals.
The waiter to the customer: “When the Communists are in power, everyone with money will leave France and put it somewhere else, somewhere they won’t have to pay taxes and where they’re sure they won’t get caught!”
Rambaud and Burnier:
3—What “stipulation” locks in, encloses, organizes, arranges the economy of your pragma like the occultation and/or exploitation of your egg-zistence?
French: What is your job?
4—(I) expel units of code.
French: I am a typist.
This makes him laugh a little, but he hates what he instinctively perceives as a principle of verbal intimidation. Of course, he knows that this kind of book is not aimed at him, that it’s a book for intellectuals, for those smart-assed parasites to have a good snigger among themselves. Mocking themselves: the last laugh. Bayard is no idiot; he’s already doing a bit of a Bourdieu without even realizing it.
At the bar, the speech continues: “Once all the money’s in Switzerland, we won’t have any capital left to pay wages, and it’ll be civil war. And the Socialists and Commies will have won, just like that!” The waiter stops pontificating for a minute to go and serve someone. Bayard returns to his reading:
5—My discourse finds/completes its own textuality through R.B. in a game of smoke and mirrors.
French: I speak fluent Roland Barthes.
Bayard gets the gist: Roland Barthes’s language is gibberish. But in that case why waste your time reading him? And, more to the point, writing a book about him?
6—The “sublimation” (the integration) of this as (my) code constitutes the “third break” of a doubling of cupido, my desire.
French: I would like to learn this language.
7—Does the R.B. as macrology serve as “fenceage” to the enclosed field of Gallicist interpellation?
French: Is Roland Barthes too difficult for a French person to learn?
8—The scarf of Barthesian style tightens “around” the code as it is confirmed in its repetition/duplication.
French: No, it’s pretty easy. But you have to work at it.
The superintendent’s perplexity increases. He doesn’t know who he hates more: Barthes or the two comics who felt the need to parody him. He puts the book down, stubs out his cigarette. The waiter is back behind the bar. Holding his glass of red, the customer objects: “Yeah, but Mitterrand’ll stop them at the border. And the money will be confiscated.” The waiter scolds the customer, frowning: “You think the rich are idiots? They’ll pay professional smugglers. They’ll organize networks to ship their money out. They’ll cross the Alps and the Pyrenees, like Hannibal! Like during the war! If it’s possible to get Jews over the border, they won’t have any trouble getting bundles of cash over, will they?” The customer does not seem too convinced, but as he obviously doesn’t have a comeback he settles for a nod, then finishes his glass and orders another one. The waiter takes out an open bottle of red and puffs himself up: “Oh yes! Oh yes! Personally, I don’t give a toss. If the pinkos win, I’m out of here. I’ll go and work in Geneva. They won’t get my money, no way. Over my dead body! I don’t work for pinkos! What do you take me for? I don’t work for anyone! I’m free! Like de Gaulle!”
Bayard tries to remember who Hannibal is and notes mechanically that the little finger on the waiter’s left hand is missing a phalanx. He interrupts the waiter’s speech to order another beer, opens the René Pommier book, counts the word nonsense seventeen times in four pages, and closes it again. In the meantime, the waiter has begun opining on another subject: “No civilized society can get by without the death penalty!” Bayard pays and exits the café, leaving his change on the table.
He passes the statue of Montaigne without seeing it, crosses Rue des Écoles and enters the Sorbonne. Superintendent Bayard understands that he understands nothing, or at least not much, about all this rubbish. What he needs is someone to explain it to him: a specialist, a translator, a transmitter, a tutor. A professor, basically. At the Sorbonne, he asks where he can find the semiology department. The person at reception sharply replies that there isn’t one. In the courtyard outside, he approaches some students in navy-blue sailor coats and boat shoes to ask where he should go to attend a semiology course. Most of them have no idea what it is or have only vaguely heard of it. But, at last, a long-haired young man smoking a joint beneath the statue of Louis Pasteur tells him that for “semio” he has to go to Vincennes. Bayard is no expert when it comes to academia, but he knows that Vincennes is a university swarming with work-shy lefties and professional agitators. Out of curiosity, he asks this young man why he isn’t there. The man is wearing a large turtleneck sweater, a pair of black trousers with the legs rolled up as though he’s about to go mussel fishing, and purple Dr. Martens. He takes a drag on his joint and replies: “I was there until my second second year. But I was part of a Trotskyite group.” This explanation seems to strike him as sufficient, but when he sees from Bayard’s inquiring look that it isn’t, he adds: “Well, there were, uh, a few problems.”
Bayard does not press the matter. He gets back in his 504 and drives to Vincennes. At a red light, he sees a black DS and thinks: “Now, that was a car!”
9
The 504 joins the ring road at Porte de Bercy, gets off at Porte de Vincennes, goes back up the very long Avenue de Paris, passes the military hospital, refuses to yield to a brand-new blue Fuego driven by some Japanese men, skirts around the chateau, passes the Parc Floral, enters the woods, and parks outside some shack-like buildings that resemble a giant 1970s suburban high schooclass="underline" just about humanity’s worst effort in architectural terms. Bayard, who remembers his distant years spent studying law in the grandeur of Assas, finds this place utterly disorienting: to reach the classrooms, he has to cross a sort of souk run by Africans, step over comatose junkies sprawled on the ground, pass a waterless pond filled with junk, pass crumbling walls covered with posters and graffiti, where he can read: “Professors, students, education officers, ATOS staff: die, bitches!”; “No to closing the food souk”; “No to moving from Vincennes to Nogent”; “No to moving from Vincennes to Marne-la-Vallée”; “No to moving from Vincennes to Savigny-sur-Orge”; “No to moving from Vincennes to Saint-Denis”; “Long live the proletarian revolution”; “Long live the Iranian revolution”; “Maoists = fascists”; “Trotskyites = Stalinists”; “Lacan = cop”; “Badiou = Nazi”; “Althusser = murderer”; “Deleuze = fuck your mother”; “Cixous = fuck me”; “Foucault = Khomeini’s whore”; “Barthes = pro-Chinese social traitor”; “Callicles = SS”; “It is forbidden to forbid forbidding”; “Union de la Gauche = up your ass”; “Come to my place, we’ll read Capital! signed: Balibar” … Students stinking of marijuana accost him aggressively, thrusting thick pamphlets at him: “Comrade, do you know what’s going on in Chile? In El Salvador? Are you concerned about Argentina? And Mozambique? What, you don’t care about Mozambique? Do you know where it is? You want me to tell you about Timor? If not, we’re having a collection for a literacy drive in Nicaragua. Can you buy me a coffee?” Here, he feels less at sea. Back when he was a member of Jeune Nation, he used to beat the crap out of filthy little lefties like these. He throws the tracts in the dried-out pond that serves as a trash can.