The Book / Life

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Roland Barthes (1975) describes an imaginary book, which he's never got round to writing:

"The Book / Life (take some classic book and relate everything in life to it for a year)."

Fascinating, characteristic (yet still surprising - which amounts to la meme chose?), and a shame he didn't write it.

But the obvious question is: if Editions de Seuil asked you to write the book RB never wrote, what would your 'Classic Book' be, to which you would and could relate a year of the real?

― the pinefox, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

moominland midwinter

― mark s, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

'The Worst Journey in the World'

― Ellie, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

London Fields

― chris, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

neufert's.

: (

― RJG, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't think I'd want to relate everything in my life to many classic books because they're full of TERRIBLE things happening. Are there any classic books where TERRIBLE things don't happen? I was going to suggest doing CRIME AND PUNISHMENT but I'm scared some kind of TRON mechanism might make it come true. Maybe HAMMER OF THE GODS, although I haven't read it.

― PJ Miller, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm not sure I understand what 'relate everything in your life to it' means.

― PJ Miller, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

London Fields

Jesus Christ, Chris. Your pretty much doomed to be miserable and/or dead which ever character you pick.

I cannot think of a book, mainly for the reasons stated above. A side issue: I did realise a while back that all fictional characters called Anna have terrible love lives. But it does make for more interesting reading.

All happy families resemble one another, every unhappy family is unhappy in it's own way.

― Anna, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

What would your's be Pinefox?

― Anna, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

First answer: pregiven and predictable: I have ALREADY spent years relating almost everything in my life to ULYSSES

― the pinefox, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Second answer: reflexive: I am now in a position to relate any old thing in my life to --- ROLAND BARTHES PAR ROLAND BARTHES

― the pinefox, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Both of them have [comma] of course [comma] redefined my relationship with (to) punctuation [comma] primarily the colon [full stop]

― the pinefox, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

But these answers are TOO predictable and reflexive: they are what anyone would expect from me - so, I want more suggestions. OR: all suggest books for *each other*

― the pinefox, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Molesworth?

― Sarah, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I also see a lot of things which makes me want my life to BE the Basic 8 - however not being in high skool in SAN FRAN rules this out, oh well.

― Sarah, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

for the pinefox: high fidelity

― RJG, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I spent too long relating everything that happened in my life to A Lover's Discourse. This was not coincidentally coincident with the period in my life where I related everything to certain bands' lyrics. My conclusion: "it's a mug's game".

Very little actually happens in my life, which limits the range of books I could choose, of course.

― Tom, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The James Beard Cookbook

"real" answer --> Chicago, City on the Make by Nelson Algren. New appreciation for: a pear. Clean sheets. Hustling up each penny and spending each with gusto and a certain doomed abandon (actually I think I have this last bit covered).

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I'll choose the Dharma Bums, coz there is alot of just hanging around in that book.

― jel --, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Tom E: when you say 'mug's game', are you saying RB's idea was bad?

His idea was not, I think, 'Work out the book that most relates to your life' - but rather: 'As an exercise, forge connections between book and life - and thus produce a new text'.

― the pinefox, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

No no I think RB's idea was excellent, and I think A Lover's Discourse was excellent. I just think relating my life to it (and to certain bands which I also still think are excellent) was a mug's game as it allowed me to wallow in some fairly self-defeating behaviour I might have otherwise got shot of earlier.

― Tom, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"Football - It's A Funny Old Game" by Kevin Keegan

― Dave M., Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Actually that's a good idea: the JOHN MOTSON DIARY FOR SEASON 1995-96 that Mike gave me c.2 years ago, and which I keep shoved between the Derridas and Benjamins.

― the pinefox, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Any Malory Towers volume, perhaps. Especially since the menu and rules at the cafeteria at work has started to resemble some "Back to School" nightmare during the current refurbishments in the building...

― Arantxa, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Perhaps not my life, but... the world generally, as well as pop culture references/whatever to Baudrillard's Simulations. Seriously--am seeing them EVERYWHERE these days, on the Winterbrief album I dusted off after starting the Hub City thread on ILM a few hours ago ("Can't distinguish/Fact from Fiction!"), a Peanut Butter Wolf best of CD a couple of days ago (some rapper, rhyming something along the lines of "We're real/and other MCs are just clones..." or something like that...) and so on, and so on.

― OCP, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't like the scenario because I'd get bored SO quick with any choice. Therefore I too will opt for a cookbook, with 365 recipes in it.

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

the encyclodedia?

― jel --, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

the encyclodedia?

Damnit, I was gonna say that. Or at least some reference book, any reference book -- something with no narrative.

― Michael Daddino, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Louise Kaplan's Female Perversions

― rosemary, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

gravity's rainbow of course! luckily its sprawlingness would make it easier on me.

berryman's dream songs would be more interesting because more work, though. even in a bad year I've never had as bad a time as berryman. or been an alcoholic, ha. but superficial details aside, there are lots of subtleties there to reflect off of and attach things to. and conveniently, 385 songs - enough to limit myself to one per day and skip some.

― Josh, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Question: does the text we produce have to be written down? If not, I think we do it all the time. If so, we do it every time we write something down, although we call it copying or (ahem) being influenced. But not for a year.

― PJ Miller, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

haha I thought about and rejected the idea of responding with 'I already did this, it's called my blog', but my 'book' wasn't one in that case.

I think the idea of having to form the stuff into a book shapes the task in some specific ways, but maybe those are only ones I am already anticipating for myself if I were to do this.

― Josh, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

seven months pass...

Today I read something which reminded me of Mark S. It might have been this:

You address yourself to me so that I may read you, but I am nothing to you except this address; in your eyes, I am the substitute for nothing, no figure (hardly that of the mother); for you I am neither a body nor even an object (and I couldn't care less: I am not the one whose soul demands recognition), but merely a field, a vessel for expansion.

Or was it this?

Similarly, and even more than the text, the film will *always* be figurative (which is why films are still worth making) - even if it represents nothing.

― the pinefox, Thursday, 20 February 2003 13:04 (twenty-three years ago)

haha blimey

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 20 February 2003 13:33 (twenty-three years ago)

The Hobbit.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Thursday, 20 February 2003 13:35 (twenty-three years ago)

Good call. You would have to say 'walking across that major road was like the crossing of the Misty Mountains', etc.

― the pinefox, Thursday, 20 February 2003 14:01 (twenty-three years ago)

"The woman selling me a Mars Bar wouldn't let it go and kept whisperingmy precious at it..."

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Thursday, 20 February 2003 14:03 (twenty-three years ago)

Plus tard - Later

He has a certain foible of providing "introductions", "sketches", "elements", postponing the "real" book till later. This foible has a rhetorical name: *prolepsis* (well described by Genette).

[...]

If he often foresees books to write (which he does not write), it is because he postpones till later what bores him.

― the pinefox, Thursday, 20 February 2003 14:07 (twenty-three years ago)

haha if that is atill abt me pf i am SO busted :(

i am in fact posting so as to put off going out into cold hackney to pay some cheques in, which i am only doing to put off working on a proposal for a bfi book, which i am making a bid for to put off actually finishing a book i have been "writing" for nine years

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 20 February 2003 14:11 (twenty-three years ago)

(but wait, i am getting BOOKSHELVES PUT UP NEXT WEEK, at which point my life will turn around!!)

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 20 February 2003 14:15 (twenty-three years ago)

The Annunciation of the Book (the *Prospectus*) is one of those dilatory maneuvers which control out internal utopia. I imagine, I fantasize, I embellish, and I polish the great book of which I am incapable: it is a book of learning and of writing, at once a perfect system and the mockery of all systems, a summa of intelligence and of pleasure, a vengeful and tender book, corrosive and pacific, etc. (here, a foam of adjectives, an explosion of the image-repertoire); in short, it has all the qualities of the hero in a novel: it is the one coming (the *adventure*), and I herald this book that makes me my own John the Baptist, I prophesy, I announce...

― the pinefox, Thursday, 20 February 2003 15:20 (twenty-three years ago)

ok ok but i DID pay those cheques in

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 20 February 2003 16:00 (twenty-three years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.