Semiological reading: "La Septième Fonction du Langage" by Laurent Binet

A first for Himoverthere, at least since the inception of this blog: a book in French! I have always rather thought that there were enough books in English to keep me fully occupied, so, franchement, why add a complicating factor to my leisure reading. Lazy, yes, I know... 

In this case, however, the book was a gift from a French friend. We're talking about someone with whom I almost always speak English and who, while he is irredeemably and irrepressibly French in most ways, is anything but a cultural imperialist. Consequently, I was inclined to pay heed to this unusual recommendation.  As we will see, just as well.

Parenthetically, there has actually been one non-English language book reviewed here before, Gomorra, the astounding and courageous exposé of the Neapolitan mafia by Roberto Saviano. In that case I could at least direct non-Italian speakers to a translation (and a film). Here, however, I can't find any trace of a translation into English, and indeed I wonder whether it ever will exist, given just how French this book is. So apologies in advance for any frustration I might create among those who don't have the option of reading the French original. 

OK, so the book. 

It starts with a hypothesis. The famous semiologist, Roland Barthes, was killed in a stupid and unnecessary road traffic accident (as most road traffic accidents are) in Paris in 1980. But what if it wasn't an accident? Barthes, as it happens (this is true), was fresh from lunching with then putative presidential candidate, François Mitterand. Might foul play have been involved?

From this premise follows an truly extraordinary and most diverting story. Yes, it appears, play was indeed foul. Barthes, when picked up off the road and whisked to hospital, was oddly without any personal identity document, indeed anything about his person (this, I have read, is also true). As the story unravels, we discover that a document of extreme potency was stolen from him in the course of the "accident", a document with the power to influence political and historical events, a document revealing to its readers the (hitherto hypothetical) seventh function of language.