unredeemed interest

When I was studying Barthes, I really enjoyed reading the biography by Tiphaine Samoyault (translated into English by Andrew Brown). It was so interesting and satisfying. I think it was partly because Samoyault had an excellent grasp of Barthes's theory and the whole field of literary and cultural theory in which he worked and she wove her discussion of that into the story of his life. So, I had that experience I always look forward to, of connections being made to other reading I've done and knowledge I have. And then there's the flow of the story and how evocative the writing is. 

It's important for non-fiction writers to make their work into a story - to have some kind of thesis - some points that they want to communicate and towards which the whole work builds. I've read books before, about historical events and the people involved, that I was really interested in, but I was dissatisfied, especially by the ending of the book. The one particular book I have in mind - the ending was really tragic, and what I would normally look for is some kind of meaning or lesson, but in this case, after building up to this climax for the whole book, the last part was just a relating of the facts - this happened and this happened, etc and like I said, the events were deeply tragic.

Maybe I'm being unfair. It was a very interesting book, and the actual events at the end were pretty hard to redeem with some kind of lesson or moral of the story. It was a book about the Jonestown massacre. It just hit me at the end....the lack of meaning...the utter sadness of the whole thing. 

I don't know if such a thing can be redeemed or given meaning by a writer. It's fascinating though. You can listen to the tapes online of Jim Jones's sermons and talks and meetings (both in the US and at Jonestown in Guyana). The Jonestown Institute of San Diego State University has compiled them. You can find them here and here - hours and hours and hours of recordings. 

But yeah - I really enjoyed Samoyault's life of Barthes. I didn't expect to. I've never really been a huge fan of Barthes, but his work was relevant to my thesis, so I was reading it, and I came across the biography in a bookshop. I thought it might be a good way of getting familiar with his ouevre, and I just got drawn in as I read it.