The Friendship of Roland Barthes

Philippe Sollers, Andrew Brown

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781509513321, 9781509513314
• eBook ISBN: 9781509513352
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism Theory
• Index: Literature

In Roland Barthes's eyes, Philippe Sollers embodied the figure of the contemporary writer forever seeking something new. Thirty-six years after Barthes produced his study Sollers Writer, Sollers has written a book on the man who was his friend and who shared with him a total faith in literature as a force of invention and discovery, as a resource and an encyclopaedia. They met regularly, exchanged many letters and fought many battles together, against every kind of academicism, every political and ideological regression. Barthes shed light on Sollers's work in a series of articles that are still of great relevance today. Sollers, in turn, assumed the role of Barthes's publisher at Le Seuil from the publication of his Critical Essays in 1964, and was left deeply shocked and saddened by Barthes's death in 1980. In short, they were very close to each other, despite their differences, and Sollers expresses here what this meant at the time and what it continues to represent, highlighting the themes that sustained their friendship. The book also contains some thirty letters from Barthes to Sollers, completing our image of one of the most extraordinary partnerships in French literary life.

LETTERS FROM ROLAND BARTHES TO PHILIPPE SOLLERS

Urt
Tuesday*

Dear friend,

I hope to be back in Paris Friday evening. I’ll be very glad to see you soon, and we’ve got into something of a habit of meeting on Sunday evenings, so if you’re free, we could get together next Sunday 11 Oct for dinner. If that’s all right with you, could you please give me a ring on Saturday?

See you soon
Your friend
RB

Urt
16 August*

Dear friend,

Thanks for staying in touch. I was in Paris at the end of July for just a few hours, in the middle of an odd trek of the Morocco–Italy kind. I’ve been in Urt for ten days or so, getting a good deal of work done, at least in terms of quantity, especially for next year’s Rhetoric; I’m lost among Greek and Latin words and still not entirely sure how I’m going to tie it all in with our literature, the sort you write.

And I’m really struggling to keep to my schedule as I’ve fallen badly behind. I’m planning to spend 2 or 3 days in Paris at the beginning of Sept but it’s best to assume I won’t really be back before October, after Venice where I’m supposed to be at the end of Sept. I’ll let you know, of course, as soon as I’ve settled back in. Here, I’m so isolated that I really miss being able to have a chat with you. You’re not travelling to this part of the world? You’d be really welcome.

With my faithful friendship

R Barthes

Urt. 24 August.* My dear friend, I’m so sorry I can’t write at more length as I’d like to, so just a few words to say that I haven’t forgotten you, I often think of you, I was very touched to get your letter (in Florence), and very interested to hear what you have to say about Vico and the different Nova (an admirable example of binarism in historical culture, an immense archetype of before/after). We’ll talk about it when I get back, i.e. probably towards the end of September. I’ve been a bit distracted, bitty, and not getting much work done; it’s the opponent of the Giver of work, in this story where I’m not a very good subject. I hope that work is going well for you, at least. My very best R Barthes.

[Vertically, as a PS:]

I’m going to Poland for 4 days (whence my card) but coming back here afterwards.

Tokyo. 24 May*

I’m having such an amazing trip that it’s made me quite aphasic; so here I’m having to rediscover the vertigo of literature, as I literally can’t think what to say; all the same, I’ll try to give you some idea. I haven’t seen many temples, but a lot of department stores; people have often mentioned you: you must come. (There are cheap (relatively cheap) ways of travelling, we can come here together.)

I’ll be back – after a stay in Italy – around 9 June and I’ll let you know straightaway. I often think about you, here, in this Empire of signs.

Best,
R Barthes

25 Oct*

Broadview 833
116 W University PKway
Baltimore MD 21210

Dear friend,

I’d been planning to write you a long letter, but I’ve been held up here by endless little jobs, irritations, laziness, and I don’t want to let too much more time go by without a friendly wave. I often think of you, and I’m missing you: what’s missing (in America) is you! – The whole thing is boring, tolerable, grey, with never any plans for pleasure and this really hurts my hedonism! I’m not getting much work done at all, the ideas aren’t coming; none of the fertile schizophrenia I’d been hoping for; instead – depression! Fortunately my family’s coming for a while in Nov, and I’ll be free early, 15 Dec (the universities here ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Translator’s Note
• Friendship
• R.B.
• Letters from Roland Barthes to Philippe Sollers
• Appendices
• End User License Agreement