Sex is about nothing and will be erased

I

Sir Malcolm Bradbury (1932-2000) was a satirist of stature like David Lodge. His MA course in creative writing was attended by Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro. His studies of literature are widely known, as are those of Saul Bellow, Evelyn Waugh, and EM Forster.

The History Man (1975) is a classic text and Mensonge (1987) in particular joins the tradition of the campus novel that satirically looks at literary theory. Henri Mensonge, a fictional French theorist, wrote a book, La Fornication comme acte culturel.

In a play on Derrida's sous rature (under erasure), this text's paper was made of acid and perished. It is therefore impossible to get hold of a copy. Under erasure means a concept is erased, but retained (X).

Sex, he claims, is about nothing. (Being and Nothingness, if you will). On the cover we see a bald man with a reference to Michel Foucault.

In The History Man, set in 1972, there is a sociology professor, one Howard Kirk (read: quirky) affiliated with the University of Watermouth. Like all satires, the book has dated. As a period document, it is still relevant. Just like Wilhelm Liebenberg's 1993 satire As die nood hoog is.

Nature of academia remains the same

Ms Calender refuses to give in to Professor Kirk, an “expert" of Freud, Marx and Weber. Kirk is open to all ideas, but those who differ from his are mowed down. A self-centred idiot if ever there was one, belittling and ridiculing everyone around him. Supposedly radical, but essentially conservative and repulsive. Parties with marijuana, sexual experiments such as inappropriate comments about rape spurt out of his mouth.

Even though the social and political circumstances change, the nature of academia remains the same: the yearning to always be the one and only. This novel is pointed out as a landmark in Defining Moments in Books with the subtitle The Greatest Books, Writers, Characters, Passages and Events that Shook the Literary World. It appeared in 2007 with Lucy Daniel as the editor.

As Jerome de Groot rightly observes:

“… it is more interested in saying ‘no’ and indulging in pleasure than actually changing anything or communicating to anyone outside a select clique” (563).

Introspective self-absorption. Sela.

II

And then an academic novel appeared that lifted the boundaries between fiction and reality. An academic text too, The Seventh Function of Language by Laurent Binet, is cleverly translated by Sam Taylor. An off-beat detective story that came out in 2017. The detective, one Jacques Bayard, with the help of his henchman Simon Herzog, a doctoral student, tries to make sense of the semiologist Roland Barthes' death. Two detectives reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes and Watson.

Barthes was run over by a laundry lorry in 1980 and died in hospital. In the novel, it is claimed that he was murdered. Jealous colleagues are looking for Barthes's notes on the seventh function of language.

Female theorist with a dildo

The six functions of language were set up Roman Jakobson, but the seventh one is occult; it involves taking control of the listener. Jakobson's model involves the following, according to Louis Hébert:

According to Jakobson, any act of verbal communication is composed of six elements, or factors (the terms of the model): (1) a context (the co-text, that is, the other verbal signs in the same message, and the world in which the message takes place), (2) an addresser (a sender, or enunciator), (3) an addressee (a receiver, or enunciatee), (4) a contact between an addresser and addressee, (5) a common code and (6) a message. 

Judith Butler, Umberto Eco, Hélène Cixous, Philippe Sollers, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault and others are characters.

Julia Kristeva, in particular, is described in an extremely unflattering manner. See which female theorist possesses a dildo.

A congress at Cornell, at Ithaca, brings together all the scholars.

Conspiracy theories are explored in the novel: Barthes had lunch with Mitterrand on the day of his fatal accident and Kristeva's father was affiliated with the Bulgarian secret service.

III

Funny and frightening. Satirical and razor-sharp. Satire as exposure yes, but also paradoxically affirming that something is relevant.

Should a novel delve so deeply into people's lives? The death of the author (Barthes) here becomes the death of a reputation.

Binet writes a gritty satire with poison arrows that wound. On the one hand, this reader was swept away by his knowledge; on the other hand, became a little disorientated by his sometimes malicious and mocking attacks.

Fact remains: Everyone who has been satirised still writes and publishes. Perhaps the French academy can handle such attacks better than elsewhere?

Here's Kristeva's response:

I repeat: I have never belonged to any Bulgarian secret service. Neither French nor Russian nor American. I also know the power of the repressed so as not to fall into this trap myself. After the first “revelations” relatives called me to persuade me to confess: “It’s not so bad,” they said. “If it’s true, you should acknowledge it. There’s a bit of romance in double lives.” An Israeli friend, with his unchanging sense of humor, even congratulated me: “Hats off! Even the Mossad who has spies everywhere did not know it!” I’m sorry to disappoint them: I’ve probably had several lives, but not this one.

Binet's first novel in 2010, HHhH, won the prestigious Prix Goncourt.

♦ VWB ♦

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