This reading was published in Simon Leys La Croix of February 9, 2009 and commented on the publication of the Journal my trip to China of Roland Barthes.
In April 1974, Roland Barthes made a trip to China with a small group of his friends Tel Quel. This visit had coincided with a massive and bloody purges, the Maoist regime unleashed throughout the country - the ominously famed "campaign to denounce Lin Biao and Confucius" (pi Lin pi Kong ).
Upon his return, Barthes published in Le Monde an article that gave an overview of this oddly jovial totalitarian violence, "Your same name in Chinese-Pikong Pilin, a cheerful tinkling bell, and the campaign is divided in two games invented: a cartoon, a poem, a sketch of children in the course of which, suddenly, a little girl makeup short between two ballets Lin Biao's ghost: the political text (but only) generates the same happenings. "
this reading in that time I brought to mind a passage from Lu Xun - Chinese the most brilliant pamphleteer of the twentieth century:" Our highly praised Chinese civilization is nothing but a feast of human flesh seasoned for the rich and powerful, and what they call China is nothing more than the kitchen in which carefully prepared that stew. The praise we can only be excused to the extent they do not know what they talk about, as do those foreigners that their lofty position and prosperous existence became completely blind and obtuse. "
Two years later, the article Barthes was reissued in a deluxe board exclusively for book lovers - with the addition of an afterword that inspired me the following note: "(...) Mr. Barthes also explain what the original contribution of his testimony (which some fans were rude poorly understood at the time): it was, he says, to explore a new way of comment, "the Ringtone comment no comment "which is a way to" suspend our statement without actually abolishing it. " Mr. Barthes, who already had many titles in the consideration of the educated people, perhaps just get one that will pay him immortality, becoming the inventor of this unprecedented categories: the "speech or assertive, or denier, or neutral" , "the desire to silence speech as special." For this discovery reveals the extent of which no input, Barthes comes in fact - do you realize that? - To invest with dignity entirely new, old business, so unjustly devalued, the talk-to-no-say-nothing. On behalf legions of elderly ladies who, every day for five to six, chatter in the halls of tea, we thank you emotionally. Finally, in this same postscript, and it is certainly something that many will be grateful, Mr. Barthes defines boldly what should be the true place of the intellectual in the contemporary world, its true purpose, his honor and dignity: it is, apparently, to keep up with courage, to and against all the "everlasting Falo stop" people committed treacherous and other advocates of "brutal way," that delicious blast of a newsboy of warm water. "
And now this editor gives us the text of the notebooks in which Barthes had entered the various daily events and experiences of this famous journey. Are you reading might lead us to revise our opinion?
In these notebooks, notes Barthes in single file, and very carefully, all the endless tirade of propaganda that served in the course of his visits to the agricultural communes, factories, schools, zoos, hospitals, etc.: "Legumes: in the past year, 230 million pounds + apples, pears, grapes, rice, corn, wheat, pigs & ducks 22000 (...) irrigation works. 550 electric pumps, mechanization: Tractors + 40 monocultures (...) Transportation: 110 trucks, 770 cars shots, 47 000 households = 11000 people (...) = 21 production brigades, 146 production teams "... These 200 pages filled with valuable information.
are mixed with brief personal notes, very elliptical: "Lunch: surprise, chips! - I forgot to wash my ears - john - What strange: no coffee, no salad, no flirts - Migraines - Nausea. "Fatigue, monotony, boredom increasingly overwhelming barely tinged by a few rays sunshine - for such a loving and long handshake given a "cute worker."
"The spectacle of this vast country terrified and stupefied by the Maoist rinoceritis completely anesthetized the capacity for indignation? No, but kept it to denounce the appalling food served on Air France flight back: "Air France's lunch is so disgusting (like pears rolls, chicken in sauce to report the smell of fried food, salad colored cabbage starch chocolate - and no champagne!) that I'm about to write a letter to protest. "(Emphasis added)
But we are not unjust: each of us writes a mountain of nonsense for our private use, not only we can judge by the nonsense that we publicly. Whatever we think of Roland Barthes, nobody could deny that he had wit and taste. And also refrained from publishing these books. So who had the idea horn of this exhumation lamentable? If this unusual initiative comes from their friends, this reminds me then the warning from Vigny: "A friend is not worse than any other man."
In the latest issue of Magazine littéraire , Philippe Sollers estimated that these virtue books reflect that celebrated George Orwell, " ordinary decency." On the contrary it seems to me that, as there is quiet, Barthes shows a remarkable indecency. Anyway, this comparison seems incongruous (the "ordinary decency" as Orwell is based on simplicity and courage, Barthes had certainly qualities, but not those). Written before the "Chinese" of Barthes (and their friends Tel Quel), I was reminded of this quote from Orwell: "You must be part of the intelligentsia to write such things no ordinary man could be so stupid .
For Simon Leys
Translation: Hugo Savino
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