On 25 February 1980, Roland Barthes, the great French intellectual, was run over by a laundry van in Paris. He died from his injuries a month later. This book — Laurent Binet’s second novel — proposes that it was not an accident; that Barthes had just come from lunch with the Socialist candidate for the forthcoming French presidential elections, François Mitterrand, and that he was in possession of an extremely important document, one which gave detailed instructions on the seventh function of language.
Of course, you all know that, as defined by Roman Jakobson, there are only six functions of language (among them the Performative — ‘I now pronounce you man and wife’; the Phatic — ‘how do you do’; and the Metalinguistic — such as dictionary definitions). But imagine a seventh: this might take the form, almost, of a spell.
Binet, disgustingly young and clever, shot to prominence in 2010 as the author of HHhH, a reimagination of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazis’ security chief.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in