The Seventh Function of Language
by Laurent Binet
2020-12-29 12:45:10
The Seventh Function of Language
by Laurent Binet
2020-12-29 12:45:10
From the prizewinning author of HHhH, âthe most insolent novel of the yearâ (LâExpress ) Paris, 1980. The literary critic Roland Barthes diesâstruck by a laundry vanâafter lunch with the presidential candidate François Mit...
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From the prizewinning author of HHhH, âthe most insolent novel of the yearâ (LâExpress ) Paris, 1980. The literary critic Roland Barthes diesâstruck by a laundry vanâafter lunch with the presidential candidate François Mitterand. The world of letters mourns a tragic accident. But what if it wasnât an accident at all? What if Barthes was . . . murdered? In The Seventh Function of Language, Laurent Binet spins a madcap secret history of the French intelligentsia, starring such luminaries as Jacques Derrida, Umberto Eco, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Julia Kristevaâas well as the hapless police detective Jacques Bayard, whose new case will plunge him into the depths of literary theory (starting with the French version of Roland Barthes for Dummies). Soon Bayard finds himself in search of a lost manuscript by the linguist Roman Jakobson on the mysterious âseventh function of language.â A brilliantly erudite comedy that recalls Flaubertâs Parrot and The Name of the Roseâwith more than a dash of The Da Vinci CodeâThe Seventh Function of Language takes us from the cafés of Saint-Germain to the corridors of Cornell University, and into the duels and orgies of the Logos Club, a secret philosophical society that dates to the Roman Empire. Binet has written both a send-up and a wildly exuberant celebration of the French intellectual tradition.
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