Sutton pushed the white plastic rectangle into the computerized lock of his hotel room door. The tiny green light flashed and bid him to enter. He tossed his convention program and legal pad onto his bed. His blazer and Mickey Mouse tie followed, landing in a wad.
"Well, that was an absolute waste of my bloody time," he said, clawing at the top button of his shirt.
"What was that, David?" his roommate asked. Frank Roberts peered at Sutton over a pair of reading glasses. A black Mont Blanc pen perched in his right hand like a falcon, looking down at a graduate student's first attempt at a convention paper. He sat comfortably in an overstuffed chair at a round table, its surface covered with academic convention detritus. To look at him, dressed in his dark gray pinstriped suit and shiny wing tips, one would think he was a banker busy at the task of reviewing someone's loan application.
"That poster session. What a waste of space," Sutton fumed. "I went there to get some ideas for my basic course. Nothing but shit. Pure shit. S.C.A. poster sessions have become a dumping ground for grossly inferior work, my friend. Nothing more than academic landfill. They should have decorated that room with broken refrigerators, rusted cars, worn-out tires, and old newspapers to give it the proper atmosphere."
"We're the N.C.A. now," Roberts said.
Sutton continued his rant. "I thought the Intergalactic Federation of Communication Disciplines would have been a better choice for our association. Plenty of semantic space. It's neither hegemonic nor ethnocentric. Unless, of course, you're a Klingon. They've always hated the Federation."
"Grab a drink, Sutton, before you have a heart attack," Roberts chuckled. He turned his attention back to the unfortunate manuscript. His eyes narrowed as he spotted yet another egregious grammatical error. His pen swooped in for the kill. A corner of the paper shuddered as the pen struck its target.
Sutton looked at his watch. Almost 3:00 p.m. Well, he thought, it was after six o'clock somewhere. He walked to the mini fridge. Roberts had bought a bottle of Jack Daniel's the day before. He poured himself about half a finger's worth and then mixed it with water from the bathroom sink.
"Your panel is at eight tomorrow morning, right?" Sutton asked. He had moved to his bed and sat at the headboard, using the pillows to support his lower back. He kicked off his penny loafers.
"Yup," Roberts said, scrawling a note in the paper's margin. He traced a line from the note to a spot in the center of the paper and then drew a slow, lazy circle around a sentence. "And those fine young scholars are going to get an earful from this respondent. I have never seen such sloppiness. Where are we getting graduate students these days?"
Just then, the phone rang. Sutton picked up the receiver after the second ring.
"Hello."
"Hey, David! How are you?" It was J.V. As usual, she was operating at a high energy level.(2)
"Great," Sutton replied.
"I just got in from the airport. Come by in about half an hour. Room 3140."
"OK. See you then." He calmly replaced the receiver, trying not to betray his excitement.
"Was that Gene?" Roberts asked. "A group of Georgia people are going to meet in the lobby at seven and go out for dinner." He tossed the wrinkled manuscript and his pen into a brown leather briefcase that sat in the center of the table. He took off his reading glasses and rubbed his eyes.
"No. Some grad student wants to talk about Ph.D. programs. Going to meet him in the bar in a few minutes," Sutton answered. Liar, liar, pants on fire.
"Oh, man, I'm tired," Roberts yawned. "I'm going to grab a power nap."
Sutton swallowed the last of his whiskey and water. He rose from his bed and simultaneously slipped his feet into his shoes. He scooped up his blazer and tie. He tried not to run to the door.
"Give me a holler at 6:30," Roberts called after him.
Having already endured the textbook publisher gauntlet that morning, Sutton decided to kill some time in the hotel bar. The room was moderately full. He took a seat at the bar and ordered a draft beer. The bartender busied herself polishing glassware and keeping an eye on a college football game that blared from the television suspended in a corner above the bar. Sutton tried to watch the game, but his attention was drawn to a conversation taking place behind and slightly to the left of him. It sounded very intellectual, in fact, it was far too intellectual for a Saturday afternoon in a bar.
He casually turned to get a look at the debaters. Seated at a nearby table were two graduate students.(3) Grad student #1: haircut (neat and trim), clean shaven, navy blue blazer, white button-down shirt (starched), blue silk tie (paisley print), khaki slacks (with a crease you could shave with), complete with cordovan leather belt and matching tassel loafers. Grad student #2: needed a haircut last year, beard, black mock turtle neck sweater, brown corduroy jacket, faded blue jeans, and hiking boots. GS #2 was smoking a cigarette to the obvious annoyance of GS #1.
"And I will keep telling you that we should not consider 'Sextext' as legitimate scholarship," GS #1 said, making a karate chop motion with his right hand on every third word. "It's gay porno. Guys playing each other's skin flute with some Frenchified theory sprinkled in for seasoning. The editorial board of Text and Performance Quarterly were smoking crack when they decided to publish that one."(4)
"I don't understand why you keep essentializing the article as only pornography,"GS #2 replied, flicking a non-existent cigarette ash with the air of someone who was pretty sure he had his opponent on the ropes. "Why not engage the article as a move within a particular intellectual history--one in which performance studies has appropriated postmodernist conceptions of reflexive narrative and fragmented subjectivity."
"Hey, man, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then to me it is a duck," GS #1 replied, still chopping the air.
"Your 'if it quacks' litany ignores the theoretical context in which the work auditions for legitimacy," GS #2 said. He paused to take a drag from his cigarette and then blew a stream of smoke out of the side of his mouth. "Take Barthes, DeLeuze and Guattari, or Foucault for example. You may reject their theories as illegitimate, but invoking them gives us a set of shared evaluative criteria."
"Why can't you admit that 'Sextext' is pornography?" GS #1 asked. By now he had stopped chopping the air.
"I am not willing to admit that pornography is something that can be immediately and easily identified," GS #2 responded, taking another drag and blowing more smoke. "Works of cultural history tell us otherwise. Pornography is always an attribution of stigma made within a particular historical and cultural context that has political utility. To label something as pornography reinforces the power of the judges and marginalizes the interests of those being judged."
"This is pointless, " GS #1 said. His face reflected his exasperation.
"No, it is not pointless," GS #2 responded, crushing out his cigarette in the ashtray. "Standards for what we call pornography have shifted dramatically over the centuries, and its evaluation has frequently involved the politics of the sex depicted. My point is that we belong to a discipline which is concerned with evaluating relationships between power, culture, and discourse. We should consider pornography, whatever that really is, to be a legitimate object of communication scholarship. The fields are not exclusive."
"Okay, let's suppose I wrote an article like 'Sextext,'" GS #1 said. "However, I'll write it from a heterosexual perspective. A fictional account of two professors, a man and a woman, who meet at an academic convention. I'll toss in a few insights from some French theorist. And let's suppose I submitted it to TPQ and they published it. I wonder if you and the others who defend 'Sextext' as legitimate scholarship would be willing to step forward and defend my essay as well? I don't think so. Not in our field's current political climate. I'll bet I would castigated, condemned, and cursed as some sort of scholastic heretic."
"Your hypothetical case doesn't cut it for me as a rebuttal," GS #2 responded, pulling another cigarette out of a pack on the table. "If you're willing to produce this fictional account and craft it as a contribution to theories of narrative and desire as Corey and Nakayama did in 'Sextext,' then I say go ahead and take your chances."
"I've had enough debate for today. My head hurts." GS #1 said, as he stood up. He picked up two glasses from the table. "What were you drinking again? Was it lite beer or regular?"
"Lite, please" responded GS #2, reaching for his wallet.
"Keep your money. This round is on me," GS #1 said.
The verbal fisticuffs having subsided for the moment, Sutton turned his attention back to the football game. As he watched the scholarship behemoths from state supported institutions of higher learning pound upon one another, his mind drifted back to similar graduate student bull sessions he had experienced. After a long afternoon of banging heads in a seminar, a group would meet in some rathole of a pub. A pitcher of beer served as centerpiece and catalyst. Inevitably the conversation would come to rest on some obscure theoretical point debated earlier in the day that was not settled to anyone's satisfaction. Somehow the group always assigned him the role of token conservative, the defender of the faith, the guardian of the status quo. Given his childhood, it was a position for which he was well-suited.
For the first five years of his primary
education he had been under the steadfast tutelage of Dominican nuns. The
good sisters drummed into him that there is such a thing as Truth. Thus
saith Sister Mary Aquinas:
"Come in, David! It's fun! Come on, don't be afraid!" they called to him. "What is truth? Wee! Ha, ha, ha! Truth? Who knows? Yahoo! Facts are like atoms. You can make anything you want to out of facts. Yippee!"
He so much wanted to play with his friends, to explore another philosophical system. So open, so free, so very French. But he could not budge. He watched them from the side of the theoretical pool, clutching his well-worn neo-Platonist beach towel. It was old and a bit ragged about the edges, but it still provided him with a small amount of comfort and warmth. Yet he recognized that what he held most dear--clarity, order, stability--were subjective desires that may or may not be shared by others. There had to be a middle ground, he thought, a position somewhere between the extremes of anarchy and ossification.
Sutton glanced at his watch. He was late. He swallowed the last of his drink, scooped up his change from the bar, and headed for the elevators. As he feared, the elevator lobby was packed. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of inching forward, stopping, and inching forward again, he managed to squeeze into an elevator. He pressed button 31. A crowd of chattering communication scholars moved in behind him, and he was scrunched against the back wall. The air in that tiny space became thick with cologne.
"Hey, good buddy!" J.V. said, smiling broadly. She stood in the open doorway of her hotel room dressed in jeans, an oversized cotton sweater, and white socks. She looked as she always did when he saw her--comfortable, relaxed, at ease with herself. Everything he was not. She extended her arms. He accepted her nonverbal invitation to hug. It was not the ritualized, superficial hug that acquaintances give each other, a quick squeeze and a pat-pat-pat. This was a mutual embrace between two people who cared deeply for one another.
"I'm sorry for being so late," he said. "The elevator was packed and it stopped on every floor. I was developing an acute case of claustrophobia."
"Don't worry about it. I'm just glad to see you," she said. "Come in."
They entered her room and walked to a round table with two overstuffed chairs, clones of the furniture that was in his room. J.V. took a bottle of white wine out of a plastic ice bucket, and showed him the label.
"Chateau Chattahoochee, 1996," she announced. "Picked it up on the way in from the airport. Care for a splash?"
"Certainly."
She poured him a glass, and then one for herself.
"Cheers," she said.
"Salud," he replied as they touched glasses.
As they sipped their wine, he flashed back to when they first met. They were standing near at a buffet table at a national convention long past, two unassuming graduate students in a room swirling with "big" names. A "big" name, proceeding at a dignified pace, walked near them. She stopped to scan their name tags. After recognizing that neither one of their names were of any significance to her, she resumed her stately meandering through the reception hall. A few feet away she encountered a cluster of other "big" names. Upon recognizing one of their own kind, they opened their tight little circle wide enough for her to claim a spot and then tightened up against her. Such hierarchical groupings dotted the room.
"An interesting subject for an ethnography," J.V. observed at the time. "Notice how the 'big' names are all standing in snug little circles with their backs to the room. And there are the 'little' names wandering about, hoping upon desperate hope, that one of the 'big' names will recognize them and allow them to join in the fun, or whatever the hell goes on in those cozy little circles."
Sutton realized he was in the presence of fellow worshiper of the twin goddesses Mockery and Sarcasm. He wondered aloud about how graduate students should behave in the presence of a "big" name. Should one bow, courtesy, tug at one's forelock, or simply fall prostrate? J.V. laughed. Well, that only encouraged him. Soon they were sitting at a small table in a corner, proudly displaying pictures of their children, swapping grad school stories, wondering if they would actually find a job.
"I enjoyed your CRTNET postings. You really slammed that article 'Sextext," she said, snapping him back to the present.(5)
True to his sardonic nature, he could not resist the impulse to satirize and ridicule the article. It was such an easy target. But things had changed slightly since then. "I've modified my position somewhat," he said.
"You mean you like approve of that article now?"
"No, it's not a matter of my granting approval or disapproval. Rather, I would say the article 'Sextext' succeeded on one level and failed on another level."
"Well, darlin', take off your jacket and let's have a seat. You've got some explaining to do."
"I've been reading Roland Barthes' Le plaisir du texte.(6)" he began, as they seated themselves. "It's been a few years since I've had to read French, but I think I've got the gist of what he's talking about."
"I'll bet it was interesting reading," J.V. said.
"The guy writes like Kenneth Burke--bits of lucidity in a sea of convoluted verbiage," Sutton said. "Anyway, Barthes writes about two basic types of texts. The first type is a texte de plaisir. He defines it as a text that gives the reader a sense of contentment. A texte de plaisir comes from, or has its roots in, the dominant culture. Such a text provides a reader with a sense of comfort, coziness, and security.(7) This made me think about the expression 'reading for pleasure.' When I want to read for pleasure, I like to read the Rumpole of the Bailey stories by John Mortimer.(8) For me, the Rumpole stories would fit in the category of texte de plaisir. He's the British version of Perry Mason, so these stories are very formulaic. However, I like that formulaic quality. It provides me with a sense of clarity, order, and stability; in the end I know that Rumpole will get to the bottom of things and solve the mystery. Ultimately, the Rumpole stories tell me that there is a rational solution to all problems, no matter how complex--which is exactly what I want to hear."
"Makes sense so far," J.V. said. "What is the second type of text?"
"That would be a texte de jouissance. This type of text is one that intentionally shocks a reader. It strikes at her/his historical, cultural, and psychological foundations. It deliberately offends a person's tastes and values. A texte de jouissance is a text of extremes, one filled with unpredictability."(9)
"And so you would say that 'Sextext' would safely fit into this second category?"
"Exactly. I would say that 'Sextext' is a successful interpretation or performance of a texte de jouissance."
"I still don't understand the point of that article."
"Well, here is where we must dabble in some speculation. If the intent of Corey and Nakayama was to shock the readers of academic journals in order to draw attention to the mind-numbing conventionality of communication scholarship, then I would have to admit that they did a good job. In grad school, a professor returned one of my essays with the words 'cookie-cutter criticism' scrawled in the margins. Hell, J.V., most of the stuff that appears in our journals follows the same cookie-cutter pattern of introduction, literature review, methodology, analysis, discussion, conclusion, and bibliography. In order for your work to be labeled as 'scholarship,' it must conform to this lifeless framework. No wonder people just put their journals on their office bookshelves without ever reading them; there's nothing new or stimulating in them. All of the originality has been pulverized out of them. Instead of giving their readership lively and engaging essays, our communication journals present us with bowls of gray and tasteless gruel."
"So you want QJS to feature articles on the rhetorical aspects of cock sucking? That's it, a pentadic analysis of a blowjob," J.V. said, quite pleased with herself.
"How very droll," Sutton replied. "No, that is not what I am saying. But as long as we are on the subject of blowjobs, let's address how I think 'Sextext' failed. As I read Le plaisir du texte, I saw Barthes proposing a very sensual method of storytelling. In the beginning of the book, he states that writing is 'the science of the delights of language, it Kamasutra.'(10) From this perspective, writing is all about inviting a reader into a text by offering 'the possibility of a dialectic of desire, of unexpected delight.'"(11).
"What kind of delights is he talking about?"
"As I understand him, the pleasure or delight that a reader feels when interacting with a text comes from the anticipation or the hope of seeing the sexual act, the 'reve de collegien' or 'the schoolboy's dream.' Once the main characters in a story have sex, the pleasure is gone for the reader, and essentially the story is over."(12)
"That sounds like every trashy romance novel I've ever read."
"Good example. I see another one on the television series Fraiser. The character of Dr. Niles Crane is forever yearning for Daphne Moon. He is a bundle of sexual tension whenever he is around her, while she is unaware of the intensity of his feelings. If those two ever had sex, the sexual tension would be relieved, and I think the series would lose one of its funnier continuing subplots."
"So how does this relate to 'Sextext'?"
"From my perspective, 'Sextext' is a demonstration of poor storytelling technique. For me there were no unexpected delights. I was confronted at the beginning of their story by a narrator who was sporting freshly shaved genitalia and a cowboy hat. Then I am asked to watch while someone makes a gay pornographic film. Then the narrator reminisces about a past blow job. Yes, these things were unexpected; however, they were in no way delightful. It was a case of 'too much, too soon' for me."
"So you didn't find any plaisir or jouissance in 'Sextext.'"
"No, I didn't. Maybe Barthes would. Of course, I have yet to understand fully the concepts of plaisir and jouissance. In the very beginning of Le plaisir du texte, Barthes writes that he could not decide on a fixed definition for those two terms.(13) Isn't that a critical error in any sort of argument, a failure to define your terms? And if he can't decide on the difference between plaisir and jouissance, then how are his readers supposed to."
"Define your terms. That's what I always teach in my classes," J.V. replied.
Sutton continued, "Its all very strange to me. It seems that Barthes finds such delight in ambiguity, confusion, and uncertainty. For him a texte de plaisir is a 'happy, blissful confusion.'(14) As much fun as that perspective sounds like, I just cannot embrace it. I don't want to be confused by what I read, which leads me back to 'Sextext.'"
"Do you think it was a mistake for the editor of TPQ to publish it?" J.V. asked.
"The point is moot; it's published, " Sutton said, "I guess now we must decide how each of us will respond to it as part of the larger conversation we academics have about what counts as 'scholarship.' Some people may celebrate its publication, or make it the object of sarcasm. I chose to do the latter, sarcasm being my favorite indoor sport. I'm sure there are those who will use it as a justification for canceling their subscription to TPQ. So we find ourselves as a discipline in an uproar. If I were Roland Barthes, I would probably find that 'blissful.'"
"Let's talk about something else," J.V. said. "Didn't you e-mail me awhile back about being the guest editor of an electronic journal? What was that all about?"
"Actually, I was planning to start my own electronic journal."
"Really?"
"Sure was. I surfed the Net and looked at what other fields are doing. English literature , law , medicine , physics , psychology . . . they all have Web journals. After looking at some of those pubs, I wondered why the communication field has been so slow to embrace Web journals."
"What do you think?"
"I chalked it up to the penguin syndrome."
"And that would be?"
"Everyone huddles at the edge of the ice floe and peers intently into the water, looking for killer whales. Nobody wants to be the first to jump in for fear of being gobbled up. Finally, the pressure from the ones at the back pushes the ones at the front into the water. When nobody dies, the rest jump in."
"So what did you do next?"
"I went to one of the associate deans in my college and laid out my plans. Being a kind and gracious person, he listened patiently. He complimented me on my enthusiasm and creativity. Although he admitted to being not that familiar with the concept of Web journals, he said that my idea was bold and innovative indeed. Then he added a caveat: a person in my position--that is, an untenured assistant professor--should proceed cautiously with new ventures. A sure way to damage one's career in academe, he counseled, is to be associated with something that has quote such a high probability of failure unquote."
"Sounds like very prudent advice."
"Shortly after that meeting, Ty Adams announced the formation of the American Communication Journal. One look at the ACJ Web site and I dropped my meager plans. However, my commitment to electronic publishing remains steadfast. Certainly there is an element of risk involved, the distinct probability that ACJ will fail. But from my perspective, the chance that things will go horribly awry is the very thing that makes projects like ACJ all the more exciting. How are we to make any advances in our understanding of anything if we stay huddled around the metaphorical camp fire? To me electronic publishing represents freedom. It provides for a wider dissemination of ideas. The material restrictions of paper journals are gone. With the advent of e-mail, an author can get immediate feedback regarding his or her work. As I see it, electronic publishing throws open the gates so more people can enter into the marketplace of ideas."
"What's you issue about? What's the overarching theme?"
"In my call for submissions, I asked for writers to take a narrative approach in presenting their arguments. I wanted the authors to put their research in the form of a story. The genre did not matter to me: mystery, sci-fi, romance. I just wanted them to use a narrative format."
"And how did that go?"
"Not as I planned it. But then nothing in my life has ever gone as I planned it. I got some good stuff though. I'm pleased with the way things turned out."
Before J.V. could ask next question, the door to her room opened with a clunk. Tara Springwood, one of J.V.'s roommates, stormed into the room. She tossed her convention program, briefcase, and purse on one of the beds. Her jacket followed in a wad.
"These convention panels are so damn boring," Springwood proclaimed. "Sleepy people presenting sleepy ideas. And why do they insist on reading their papers? We teach public speaking, damn it. We should know better. If I want to read somebody's convention paper, I'll pick up a copy. Presenting a paper doesn't mean reading it word for word."
"Go grab a glass and have some really cheap wine before you have a stroke," J.V. said.
Springwood went to the dresser and retrieved a water glass. After taking a healthy swig of wine she asked, "And what did I interrupt? Let's see, what do we have here? A man and a woman alone in a hotel room with a bottle of wine. Hmmm. Looks to me like I stumbled into the final scene of a trashy romance novel. Should I leave and come back later?"
"Get your mind out of the gutter," J.V. said. "David was just explaining his ideas about Barthes' Le plaisir du texte. And we were just talking about academic publishing on the Web."
"You mean you two were actually talking shop? Sorry, David, nothing personal. I've just had enough shop talk for one day. For me it's a quick shower and then out to dinner with some grad school buddies."
Hearing the word "dinner" prompted him
to look at his watch. It was time to check on the sleeping Frank Roberts.
1. Please be advised that this narrative is a dramatized account of an SCA/NCA convention. An earlier version of this essay appeared in CRTNET #1830 (March 17, 1997) which is archived at <LISTSERV@PSUVM.PSU.EDU>. The following works served as the foundation, the grounds, the inspiration, and the theoretical underpinnings to present my argument in narrative form: W. Lance Bennet and Martha S. Feldman, Reconstructing Reality in the Courtroom (New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers UP, 1981); Thomas W. Benson, "Another Shooting in Cowtown," Quarterly Journal of Speech 67 (1981), 347-406; Kenneth Burke, "Rhetoric and Poetics," Language as Symbolic Action (Berkeley: U of California Press, 1966) 295-307; Walter R. Fisher and Richard A. Filloy, "Argument in Drama and Literature," Advances in Argumentation Theory and Research, eds. J. Robert Cox and Charles Arthur Willard (Carbondale IL: Southern Illinois UP, 1982) 343-362; John L'Heureux, The Handmaid of Desire (New York: Soho, 1996); H.L. Goodall Jr., "On Becoming an Organizational Detective: The Role of Context Sensitivity and Intuitive Logics in Communication Consulting," Southern Communication Journal 55 (1989), 42-54; Michael Pacanowsky, "Slouching Towards Chicago," Quarterly Journal of Speech 74 (1988), 453-467; Helen Prejean, Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States (New York: Random House, 1993); Robert L. Schrag, "Of Butterflies and Criticism," Critical Studies in Mass Communication 2 (1985), 430-434.
2. Please be further advised that the initials "J.V." do not belong to anyone with whom I am associated in the National Communication Association or any of the regional or state communication associations. They belong to a long lost love. It was the late 1960s. We were both in sixth grade. I thought it was true love. You know, the stuff that poets write about. After a few months, she dumped me for a taller guy, or should I say, someone of a more vertically-enhanced stature.
3. I wish to gratefully acknowledge the contribution of Professor Bryan C. Taylor, Department of Communication, University of Colorado. I borrowed/adopted/copied parts of his posting in CRTNET #1785, and placed those words in the mouth of Grad Student #2. The hapless sparring partner, Grad Student #1, was entirely my creation.
4. Frederick C. Corey and Thomas K. Nakayama. "Sextext." Text and Performance Quarterly 17 (1997): 58-68.
5. CRTNET stands for Communication Research and Theory Network. Subscriptions to CRTNET are free. Send electronic mail requests with your name included to crtnet@scassn.org. Some examples of my CRTNET postings spawned by "Sextext" can be found at http://www.auburn.edu/~suttoda/GOLDFISH.HTM.
6. Roland Barthes, Le plaisir du texte (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1973). I wish to gratefully acknowledge the invaluable assistance of Ms. Elizabeth M. Berman in polishing my translation. Another source which proved helpful in my unraveling of Barthes was Richard Miller's translation entitled The Pleasure of the Text (New York: Hill and Wang, 1975).
7. I distilled my understanding of Barthes' concept of "texte de plaisir" from the following passages in Le plaisir du texte. I include my translation of these lines enclosed in brackets:
"Texte de plaisir: celui qui contente, emplit, donne de l'euphorie; celui qui vient de la culture, ne rompt pas avec elle, est lié à une pratique confortable de la lecture" (p. 25). [Text of pleasure: the one which happy, filled, it gives euphoria; the one which comes from culture, does not break with it, but is bound to an application comfortable to the reader.]
"Plaisir du texte. Classiques. Culture (plus il y aura de culture, plus le plaisir sera grand, divers). Intelligence. Ironie. Delicatesse. Euphorie. Maîtrise. Sécurité: art of vivre. Le plaisir du texte peut se définer par une pratique (sans aucun risque de répression): lieu et temps de lecture: maison, province, repas proche, lampe, famille là où il faut, c'est-à-dire au loin et non loin (Proust dans le cabinet aux senteurs d'iris), etc. Extraordinaire renforcement du moi (par le fantasme) inconscient ouaté. Ce plaisir peut être dit: de là vient la critique." (p. 82). [Pleasure of the text. Classics. Culture (also there will be culture, also the pleasure will be grand, diverse). Intelligence. Irony. Delicacy. Euphoria. Mastery. Security: art of being alive. The pleasure of the text can define itself by a practice (without any risk of repression): place and time of the reader: house, city, recent meal, light, family there where necessary, that is to say in the distance and from near and far (Proust in the room in aromas of the iris), etc. Extraordinary reinforcement of the self (by the fantasy); unconscious ouate. This pleasure perhaps says: there comes the critique.]
8. I refer the reader to an unofficial website for additional information on Horace Rumpole, barrister-at-law. (http://www.cs.umbc/~schott/rumpole/).
9. I distilled my understanding of Barthes' concept of "texte de jouissance" from the following passages in Le plaisir du texte. I include my translation of these lines enclosed in brackets:
"Texte de jouissance: celui qui met en état de perte, celui qui déconforte (peut-être jusqu'à un certain ennui), fait vaciller les assises historiques, culturelles, psychologies, du lecteur, la consistance de ses goûts, de ses valeurs et de ses souvenirs, met en crise son rapport au langage"(pp. 25-26). [Text of delight: the one that puts in a state of loss, the one that weakens (perhaps until a certain boredom), shakes the historical, cultural, and psychological foundations of the reader, the consistency of his tastes, of his values and of his memories, puts in crisis his relationship with language.]
"Textes de jouissance. Le plaisir en piéces ; la langue en piéces ; la culture en piéces . Ils sont pervers en ceci, qu'ils sont hors de toute finalité imaginable--meme celle du plaisir (la jouissance n'oblige pas au plaisir; elle peut même apparemment ennuyer). Aucun alibi ne tient, rien ne se reconstitue, rien ne se récuperè. Le texte de jouissance est absolment intransitif. Cependent, la perversion ne suffit pas à définir la jouissance; c'est l'extrême de la perversion qui la définit: extrême toujours déplacé, extrême vide, mobile, imprévisible. Cet extrême garantit la jouissance: une perversion moyenne s'encombre trés vite d'un jeu de finalités subalternes: prestige, affiche, rivalité, discours, parade, etc" (pp. 82-83). [Text of delight. The pleasure in bits; the language in fragments; the culture in pieces. They are perverted in this that they are outside of all imaginable purpose--likewise that of pleasure (the delight does not force one to pleasure; it can also apparently bore). No alibi holds, nothing brings itself together, nothing gets itself back. The text of delight; is the extreme of the perversion which defines it: an always moving extreme, extreme emptiness, moving, unpredictable. This extreme guarantees the delight: an average perversion fills itself up quickly with a game of inferior aims: prestige, public signs, rivalry, discourse, display, etc.]
10. Barthes, Le plaisir du texte, p. 14.
11. Barthes, Le plaisir du texte, p. 11.
12. "Ce n'est pas le plaisir du strip-tease corporel ou du suspense narratif. Dans l'un et l'autre cas, pas de déchirure, pas de bordes: un dévoilment progressif: toute l'exitation se refugie dans l'espoir de voir le sexe (réve de collégien) ou of connaître la fin de l'histoire (satisfaction romanesque). Paradoxalement (puisqu'il est de consommation massive), c'est un plaisir bien plus intellectuel que l'autre: plasir dipéen (denuder, savoir, connaître l'origine at la fin), s'il est vrai que tout récit (tout dévoilement de la vérité) est une mise en scène du Père (absent, caché ou hypostasié)--ce qui expliquerait la solidarité des formes narratives, des structures familiales et des interdictions de nudité, toutes rassemblées, chez nous, dans le mythe de Noé recouvert par ses fils" (p. 20). [This is not the pleasure of the physical strip-tease or of narrative suspense. In both cases, not the tear, not the edges: a progressive revelation: all excitation takes refuge in the hope of seeing sex (schoolboy's dream) where to know the end of the story (novelistic satisfaction). Paradoxically (because it is of massive consumption), it is a much more intellectual pleasure than the other: Oedipean pleasure (to leave bare, to know facts, to know people, the beginning and the end), if it is true that all narrative (all unveiling of the truth) is a production of the Father (absent, hidden or symbolic)--this would explain the solidarity of the narrative forms, family structures and the banning of nudity, all gathered together in our home, in the myth of Noah covered by his sons.]
13. "(Plaisir/Jouissance : terminologiquement, cela vacille encore, j'achoppe, j'embrouille. De toute manière, il y aura toujours une marge d'indécision ; la distinction ne sera pas source de classements sûrs, le paradigme grincera, le sens sera précaire, révocable, réversible, le discours sera incomplet.)" (p. 10). [Pleasure/Delight: terminologically, there is always vacillation, I stumble, I jumble up. Of all manner, there will always be a margin of indecision; the distinction will not be the source of infallible classifications, the paradigm grinds, the sense will be uncertain, revocable, reversible, the discourse incomplete.]
14. "Alors le vieux mythe biblique se retourne, la confusion des langues, n'est plus une punition, le suje accéde à la jouissance par la cohabitation des langues, qui travaillent côte à côte: le texte de plaisir, c'est Babel heureuse" (p. 10). [So the old biblical myth returns, confusion of languages, is no longer a punishment, the subject reaches to the delight for the cohabitation of languages, which work side by side: the text of pleasure, it is blissful confusion.]