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fully_booked_93's review
emotional
reflective
sad
4.0
The day after his mother died, Roland Barthes started writing in his diary about his grief. Two years later, he passed away, after having been hit by a laundry van while he was walking on the streets of Paris. So the book, assembled and published after his death by his translator, is not a finished product but the "hypothesis of a book desired by him." It contains bright points of observations and thoughts that, had Barthes been alive, would have been expanded and explored futher. What one gets is a catalog of his days, the nature of his suffering, the ebb and flow of grief, the gap between his interiority and exteriority, and modes of externalisation of grief in a society. Barthes lives in the midst of grieing; he grieves in the midst of living. In this way, the discontinuous character of the Mourning Diary mimics the discontinuous character of grief.
Suffering is a form of egoism, Barthes writes in his diary. One is loyal to one's suffering; one luxuriates in the symptoms, so to speak. His suffering is the object of his attention. The relationship with his mother, then, is associative. As she and the fact of her death recedes into the past, his grief keeps his mother at the forefront of his mind.
Barthes doesn't want to manifest mourning; he doesn't want to hystericize his grief. One of the paradoxes of grief lies in the fact that his inability/unwillingness to hystericize his grief makes people think "I'm suffering less than they would have imagined." Because he has gone onto to live, teach, travel, take notes, he suspects his grief hasn't been intense enough to disrupt his life. He finds no depth in his grief, he writes. Even the depths of his grief are shallow. There are only layers of surface. What he discovers, in grief, is the gradient of effect.
The book feels jarring, unfinished. But that is probably the nature of grief. It is not a chore, a task, to be done with. One is never finished with it. For Barthes, "mourning is immbile, not subject to a process." It is fitting, then, that, like grief, the book doesn't feel narrativized.
aniastef86's review against another edition
4.0
Valutare un diario di un lutto ha sempre un non so che di strano (anche di ridicolo forse). Un diario iniziato all’indomani della morte della madre di Roland Barthes, un diario composto di frammenti di dolore. Non so se l’autore volesse davvero che queste pagine fossero pubblicate, è tra le cose più intime che abbia mai letto, la nudità dell’anima su carta…da una parte sono contenta di averlo letto, dall’altra sento di aver profanato un momento ai limiti del sacro.
clonazine's review against another edition
5.0
Hace 3 semanas falleció mi abuelo y es la literatura como este lugar donde intento buscar respuestas a lo incomprensible.
Se siente el amor de Barthes por su madre y te remite a tu propio duelo, que alguien le ponga palabras a lo que vos no poder decir.
Se siente el amor de Barthes por su madre y te remite a tu propio duelo, que alguien le ponga palabras a lo que vos no poder decir.
emileeandherbooks's review
3.5
This is a very personal diary of the French philosopher, theorist, and critic Roland Barthes about the loss of his mother and the mourning and grief that followed.
I bought this on a whim and then 2 weeks later, lost my mother-in-law tragically. I was a bit afraid to read it after that. But I decided to give it a go, and it was quite nice.
Barthes’ thoughts and feelings so closely reflected my own and my spouse’s during our own grief. His desire to be alone and stay in one place, yet his knowledge that he needs to be productive to stay alive, was very relatable to me.
His maman sounds merveilleuse to moi, and I’m interested to read Barthes’ other works!
I bought this on a whim and then 2 weeks later, lost my mother-in-law tragically. I was a bit afraid to read it after that. But I decided to give it a go, and it was quite nice.
Barthes’ thoughts and feelings so closely reflected my own and my spouse’s during our own grief. His desire to be alone and stay in one place, yet his knowledge that he needs to be productive to stay alive, was very relatable to me.
His maman sounds merveilleuse to moi, and I’m interested to read Barthes’ other works!