HOW FAR CAN A DEAD AUTHOR GO?

Abstract

This article centers around the issue of “the death of the author” proposed by Roland Barthes, a French semiologist, in one of his essays. Three novels to a great extent “probabilistic” by two contemporary French novelists are chosen to verify the possibility of the “resurrection” of the author in the blended narratives overloaded with intertextual units both structural and semantic. These novels are: a detective story « La Police des Fleurs, des Arbres et des Forểts » by Romaun Puertolas, a “semiotic” detective novel « Qui a tué Roland Barthes ? La septième fonction du langage » by Laurent Binet and his “would-have-been” « Civilization ». The methodology rests upon Derridean deconstruction including « diffrance » principle, based upon two ideas: all things defer to the same field and differ at the same time. Several other approaches used concern the interrelation of the categories of the author, text and the reader. These approaches include theories by M. Bakhtin, R. Jakobson, D. Lodge etc. The analysis reveals that a vectoral outline of probable regressive or progressive development shapes the narrative chain. Another property is to be found in the fusion of genre forms, each evolving according to its rules. Communication practices in these novels obtain greater importance than physical events… That tendency in its turn has caused the revival of the Syncretic truth.