S/Z: A is for Apple J is for Jack and too much light makes baby go blind

We must remember that it's supposed to be fun! This essay is all about the enjoyment of literature. Barthes's contention is that we cannot enjoy what we do not understand and so...

Barthes is playing with language, playing with form, and playing with us, his readers.

It's also important to know that he was a damn handsome man, as the following photos demonstrate:

I'm not sure why it's important to know this, but it is.

Also, this article is instructive as well as hilarious. My favorite quote, "Among the brand-name French theorists of the mid-20th century, Roland Barthes was the fun one. (Foucault was the tough one, Derrida was the dreamy one, Lacan was the mysterious one — I like to imagine them sometimes as a black-turtlenecked, clove-smoking boy band called Hors de Texte, with the hit album “Discipline ’n’ Punish.”)"