Mourning Diary
Roland Barthes
Translated from the French by Richard Howard
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Dh93
Despite widespread disaffection with the torpid and self-indulgent French-style cultural theory churned out in academia, Roland Barthes, the French theoretician par excellence, continues to prosper. Indeed his star has only ascended in the 30 years since his death. America's most influential literary critic, James Wood, frequently quotes Barthes in his popular essays and cites him as a major influence in his book How Fiction Works, although he disagrees with Barthes's vision of literature. The recently published Mourning Diary, the first "new" Barthes book to be made available in years, has already been excerpted in The New Yorker and received praise from the critic Michael Wood in the London Review of Books. When the book came out in France in 2009 it was a certified literary event, attended by controversy when Barthes's former editor, François Wahl, protested the publication of these private writings.
Barthes has remained relevant because of a contradiction at the heart of his remarkable body of work. Though he did as much as anyone to elevate theory, and though he often couches his ideas in esoteric language, his writing is nonetheless deeply personal. Whether he is considering the role of professional wrestling in popular culture, declaring modern Japan an "empire of signs", or atomising Honoré de Balzac's short story Sarrasine into lines, fragments and individual words, his writing always feels like a direct and essential extension of his own personality. He had a unique ability to combine icy precision and uncompromising rigour with an idiosyncratic, quietly emotive voice.
Barthes entered the world of cultural criticism - indeed, he helped to create the field - with Mythologies. In this collection of short articles, published in 1957, he considered mundane aspects of contemporary society (Einstein, for example, or red wine) as systems of signs, then explained their use within the culture at large. The impact of the book, as well as the fact that the short essays therein were first published in the magazine Les Lettres nouvelles, demonstrated from the beginning Bathes's rare ability to satisfy diverse audiences.
His most famous work is probably his 1967 essay The Death of the Author. A text that has been widely misunderstood, it merely declares what by the late 1960s was becoming a commonplace: a reader's reaction to a literary work is at least as important as the writer's intentions. Subsequent developments - such as Stanley Fish's reader-response theory or, more concretely, the proliferation of customer reviews online and hypertext-like branching novels - confirm that Barthes caught the zeitgeist. But the essay is important in Barthes's own mythology, establishing him as the reader whose interpretation stands at least as tall as the texts he reads.
Towards the end of his life, Barthes began a number of projects connected with his mother, with whom he lived uninterruptedly until her death in 1977. He immediately fell into a period of deep mourning, a blackness so abysmal that many of his close friends felt that this was the true cause of his death in 1980, and not the apparently non-life-threatening injuries he received after being hit by a laundry van.
A chronicle-in-fragments of the two years after his mother's death, Mourning Diary is a work of profound intellectual and emotional strength. It consists of 330 notecards that Barthes began writing on as a way to cope with his loss. Exact and enigmatic, the notes feel like a natural extension of the terse books that Barthes specialised in, and their suggestive declarations make Mourning Diary feel substantial despite its small size. Though these notes offer only fragments of thought, they give an impression of immensity, as if they were the extremities of a submerged mass.
What one witnesses while reading Mourning Diary is Barthes in the process of creating a personal language with which to understand an event that has left him shattered. After two months of mourning he writes on December 7, 1977: "This is a flat condition, utterly unadjectival - dizzying because meaningless (without any possible interpretation)… A new pain." These lines - at once so coolly analytic and wrenched with sadness - are representative of the approach that Barthes attempts here. He continually stresses the newness and inarticulability of his state, slowly constructing a complex framework around the very fact of his mourning's inexpressibility.
The unattainable object at the centre of that framework constitutes the second major theme in Mourning Diary. This is Barthes' inability to conceive of life after his mother's death. On November 19, he writes: "To see with horror as quite simply possible the moment when the memory of those words she spoke to me would no longer make me cry…" The sentence ends quite properly in ellipsis, because there is nothing in this journal to suggest that Barthes would ever reach a point at which it might be concluded. On the contrary, he seems resigned to the likelihood that his mourning will never end.
The Barthes in Mourning Diary is a man for whom the fundamental quality of mourning - something he searches for furiously but does not find - is the essential ingredient of identity. Emphasising that search, he repeatedly returns to the idea that the death of his mother is a profound break from the world around him and his former life. "I have the obscure feeling, now that she's no longer here, that I must gain recognition [as a writer] all over again." "No sooner has she departed than the world deafens me with its continuance." "Anything that keeps me from living in suffering is unbearable to me."
Throughout Mourning Diary Barthes appears willing - and even at times grateful - to accept this deeply static, inconsolable desolation as his lot. Occasionally he even takes a perverse pleasure in it. Amid the fatalism, there are just a few moments of counterpoint where he appears to want to move beyond mourning.
On June 9, 1978, he writes: "I notice that I am always asking for something, wanting something, always pulled ahead by childish Desire. One day, to sit in the same place, to close my eyes and ask for nothing… Nietzsche: not to pray, to bless.
"Is it not to this that mourning should lead?"
Apparently Barthes never found that place. These notes mark the beginning of his journey to his final, great book, Camera Lucida, which he makes clear is enmeshed in his mother's death. "It is necessary for me (I feel this strongly) to write this book around maman…In a sense, therefore, it is as if I had to make maman recognised. This is the theme of the 'monument'."
Mourning Diary makes a rich companion piece to Camera Lucida. Both treat the same subject: that essential quality of images that can bring about Proustian moments of time regained (Barthes quotes Proust repeatedly throughout Mourning Diary). Occasionally Barthes remarks in awe on watching a movie and catching a detail that transports him back to childhood. These moments of wonder and brief happiness point towards the purely personal concept of photography that Barthes would articulate at length in Camera Lucida.
Almost every page of Mourning Diary carries with it an overwhelming sense of sadness, so much so that the art of Barthes's language and the radiance of his thoughts frequently makes an odd disjuncture - should such pain carry with it such beauty? We are right to be wary of aestheticising suffering, but Mourning Diary does not diminish Barthes's pain with the beauty of his prose. That is its power, and that makes it a proper testament to a man who showed us so many new ways to talk about things we thought we understood.
Scott Esposito is the editor of the Quarterly Conversation, an online literary journal.
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre flat-six
Torque: 450Nm at 6,100rpm
Transmission: 7-speed PDK auto or 6-speed manual
Fuel economy, combined: 13.8L/100km
On sale: Available to order now
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Specs
Engine: 51.5kW electric motor
Range: 400km
Power: 134bhp
Torque: 175Nm
Price: From Dh98,800
Available: Now
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Cast: Vicky Kaushal, Akshaye Khanna, Diana Penty, Vineet Kumar Singh, Rashmika Mandanna
Rating: 1/5
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
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Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Indika
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Specs
Engine: Duel electric motors
Power: 659hp
Torque: 1075Nm
On sale: Available for pre-order now
Price: On request
The biog
Name: Dhabia Khalifa AlQubaisi
Age: 23
How she spends spare time: Playing with cats at the clinic and feeding them
Inspiration: My father. He’s a hard working man who has been through a lot to provide us with everything we need
Favourite book: Attitude, emotions and the psychology of cats by Dr Nicholes Dodman
Favourit film: 101 Dalmatians - it remind me of my childhood and began my love of dogs
Word of advice: By being patient, good things will come and by staying positive you’ll have the will to continue to love what you're doing
The specs
Engine: Dual 180kW and 300kW front and rear motors
Power: 480kW
Torque: 850Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh359,900 ($98,000)
On sale: Now
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
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ATP RANKINGS (NOVEMBER 4)
1. Rafael Nadal (ESP) 9,585 pts ( 1)
2. Novak Djokovic (SRB) 8,945 (-1)
3. Roger Federer (SUI) 6,190
4. Daniil Medvedev (RUS) 5,705
5. Dominic Thiem (AUT) 5,025
6. Stefanos Tsitsipas (GRE) 4,000 ( 1)
7. Alexander Zverev (GER) 2,945 (-1)
8. Matteo Berrettini (ITA) 2,670 ( 1)
9. Roberto Bautista (ESP) 2,540 ( 1)
10. Gaël Monfils (FRA) 2,530 ( 3)
11. David Goffin (BEL) 2,335 ( 3)
12. Fabio Fognini (ITA) 2,290
13. Kei Nishikori (JPN) 2,180 (-2)
14. Diego Schwartzman (ARG) 2,125 ( 1)
15. Denis Shapovalov (CAN) 2,050 ( 13)
16. Stan Wawrinka (SUI) 2,000
17. Karen Khachanov (RUS) 1,840 (-9)
18. Alex De Minaur (AUS) 1,775
19. John Isner (USA) 1,770 (-2)
20. Grigor Dimitrov (BUL) 1,747 ( 7)
The biog
Hobby: "It is not really a hobby but I am very curious person. I love reading and spend hours on research."
Favourite author: Malcom Gladwell
Favourite travel destination: "Antigua in the Caribbean because I have emotional attachment to it. It is where I got married."
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'Texas Chainsaw Massacre'
Rating: 1 out of 4
Running time: 81 minutes
Director: David Blue Garcia
Starring: Sarah Yarkin, Elsie Fisher, Mark Burnham
THE BIG MATCH
Arsenal v Manchester City,
Sunday, Emirates Stadium, 6.30pm
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
Expert advice
“Join in with a group like Cycle Safe Dubai or TrainYAS, where you’ll meet like-minded people and always have support on hand.”
Stewart Howison, co-founder of Cycle Safe Dubai and owner of Revolution Cycles
“When you sweat a lot, you lose a lot of salt and other electrolytes from your body. If your electrolytes drop enough, you will be at risk of cramping. To prevent salt deficiency, simply add an electrolyte mix to your water.”
Cornelia Gloor, head of RAK Hospital’s Rehabilitation and Physiotherapy Centre
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can ride as fast or as far during the summer as you do in cooler weather. The heat will make you expend more energy to maintain a speed that might normally be comfortable, so pace yourself when riding during the hotter parts of the day.”
Chandrashekar Nandi, physiotherapist at Burjeel Hospital in Dubai
Volvo ES90 Specs
Engine: Electric single motor (96kW), twin motor (106kW) and twin motor performance (106kW)
Power: 333hp, 449hp, 680hp
Torque: 480Nm, 670Nm, 870Nm
On sale: Later in 2025 or early 2026, depending on region
Price: Exact regional pricing TBA
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
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MATCH INFO
CAF Champions League semi-finals first-leg fixtures
Tuesday:
Primeiro Agosto (ANG) v Esperance (TUN) (8pm UAE)
Al Ahly (EGY) v Entente Setif (ALG) (11PM)
Second legs:
October 23
BIGGEST CYBER SECURITY INCIDENTS IN RECENT TIMES
SolarWinds supply chain attack: Came to light in December 2020 but had taken root for several months, compromising major tech companies, governments and its entities
Microsoft Exchange server exploitation: March 2021; attackers used a vulnerability to steal emails
Kaseya attack: July 2021; ransomware hit perpetrated REvil, resulting in severe downtime for more than 1,000 companies
Log4j breach: December 2021; attackers exploited the Java-written code to inflitrate businesses and governments
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
The specs
AT4 Ultimate, as tested
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Power: 420hp
Torque: 623Nm
Transmission: 10-speed automatic
Price: From Dh330,800 (Elevation: Dh236,400; AT4: Dh286,800; Denali: Dh345,800)
On sale: Now
Why it pays to compare
A comparison of sending Dh20,000 from the UAE using two different routes at the same time - the first direct from a UAE bank to a bank in Germany, and the second from the same UAE bank via an online platform to Germany - found key differences in cost and speed. The transfers were both initiated on January 30.
Route 1: bank transfer
The UAE bank charged Dh152.25 for the Dh20,000 transfer. On top of that, their exchange rate margin added a difference of around Dh415, compared with the mid-market rate.
Total cost: Dh567.25 - around 2.9 per cent of the total amount
Total received: €4,670.30
Route 2: online platform
The UAE bank’s charge for sending Dh20,000 to a UK dirham-denominated account was Dh2.10. The exchange rate margin cost was Dh60, plus a Dh12 fee.
Total cost: Dh74.10, around 0.4 per cent of the transaction
Total received: €4,756
The UAE bank transfer was far quicker – around two to three working days, while the online platform took around four to five days, but was considerably cheaper. In the online platform transfer, the funds were also exposed to currency risk during the period it took for them to arrive.