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    Mythologies: The Complete Edition, in a New Translation
    Mythologies: The Complete Edition, in a New Translation
    Mythologies: The Complete Edition, in a New Translation
    Audiobook9 hours

    Mythologies: The Complete Edition, in a New Translation

    Written by Roland Barthes

    Narrated by John Lee

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    What is astrology? Fiction for the bourgeoisie. The Tour de France? An
    epic. The brain of Einstein? Knowledge reduced to a formula. Like iconic
    images of movie stars or the rhetoric of politicians, they are
    fabricated. Once isolated from the events that gave birth to them, these
    "mythologies" appear for what they are: the ideology of mass culture. When Roland Barthes's groundbreaking Mythologies first
    appeared in English in 1972, it was immediately recognized as one of
    the most significant works in French theory-yet nearly half of the
    essays from the original work were missing. This new edition of Mythologies is
    the first complete, authoritative English version of the French
    classic. It includes the brilliant "Astrology," never published in
    English before.Mythologies is
    a lesson in clairvoyance. In a new century where the virtual dominates
    social interactions and advertisement defines popular culture, it is
    more relevant than ever.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMar 13, 2012
    ISBN9781452676197
    Mythologies: The Complete Edition, in a New Translation

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    Reviews for Mythologies

    4/5

    439 ratings16 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This book is my favorite kind of conversation. A bunch of things are broken down and analyzed. You get to agree or disagree and just enjoy the ride. The narrator is a nice voice to clean or make dinner to.
    • 3/5
      Seen as a series of monthly essays, Barthes’ Mythologies makes a narrative sort of sense. In twenty nine pieces, Barthes moves to consolidate observations about the messages of culture into a coherent system of myth. The short topical essays occasionally give way to essays of analysis, presenting ideas he eventually unites in the last and longest, “Myth Today,” and this creates an almost narrative arc. I’m not sure if the essays were arranged in the order they were written, but it seems as if they grow and wander until they are mature enough to be fully articulated.
      First of all, I hate the way Barthes represents his signifier/signified/sign system. Thanks to a relative clarity of writing and translation, his examples serve to illuminate the idea, but my god, it’s unattractive as a visual, and he replaces half the words with more accurate ones in the next few paragraphs, so what the hell is it good for? On the other hand, I think by this third time I’ve seen the graphic I actually understand the concept, although I’m inclined to think that’s because of the clarity of writing rather than any graphic excellence.
      His idea is that communication in culture happens through myth, a system which overlays the actual text (or photo, or audio recording) with a motivated concept. He offers three perspectives on myth: that of the mythmaker, who sees the myth as literal, the words or image as an example of the concept, like a journalist who writes a charged headline; that of the mythologist, who separates the meaning from the form it’s presented in and understands the distortion; and the reader of myths, who accepts the unification of the object and the concept, or most of the audience of a given piece of content.
      The most useful ideas Barthes presents are his seven principal figures of myth, roughly:
      1.The inoculation: an acknowledgement of a small evil to compensate for the preservation of a majority of the status quo
      2.Privation of history: origin, choice, and context of the original object removed, to enable irresponsibility and possession without qualm
      3.Identification: an inability to coexist with or understand the Other
      4.Tautology: a murder of rationality and language; motionlessness
      5.Neither-norism: creation of a false binary with the rejection or acceptance of both, for a solution to the problem based on bourgeois premises
      6.Quantification of quality: evaluating worth based on quantities of unmeasurable things (talent, emotion, etc.)
      7.The statement of fact: solidification of active speech, about tools and phenomenon that the speaker knows and uses, to reflexive speech, often proverbs or “common sense”
      Even without lengthy mythological analysis, it’s easy to see where these techniques come into play in our contemporary society. I nearly overdosed on 3, 6, and 7 while hacking my way through a New Yorker issue this morning.
      His conclusion is almost martyr-like. The study of myth, he says, isolates the mythologist from the rest of society. His concluding paragraph presents the mythologist as an academic Atlas, his responsibility a vast task of reconciliation, perhaps more bridge than man: “And yet, this is what we must seek: a reconciliation between reality and men, between description and explanation, between object and knowledge.”
      I’m sure this would give my mother flashbacks to my visits home from college during the trial that was Lit Theory. It’s easy to get stuck in the existentialist babble phase of reading theory, the desire to explain and analyze every myth we come across, which is essentially all of it. Mom’s saintly patience in listening to me was dotted with optimistic and practical suggestions that perhaps there was more to think about than what it all means. It might be a contrary interpretation after the preceding essays, but “Myth Today” seems more like a call to live a more aware and articulated life than as a command to record and dissect individual myths.
    • 4/5
      A sort of 1960's George Monbiot.Barthes has some pretty interesting ideas; particularly, if one considers that these pieces were written in the 1950's. The language is a little forced and flowery but, that may be because I am reading this in translation.
    • 4/5
      The first part of Mythologies is a collection of short individual pieces written by Barthes on the semiology - the underlying symbolism and meaning, of a selection of commonplace phenenomena of contemporary society in the 1950s. What Barthes reads into things is frequently amusing and often enlightening. The reason that the book is entitled "Mythologies" is that he aims to expose the modern myths and demystify the symbolism of contemporary mass culture. Sometimes the targets of his pieces come off worse than others, and on the whole this provides an interesting sociological insight on things, and sometimes even scope for some philosophical reflection. Whether the topic is Wresting, Margarine, the latest Citroen model, French attitudes to Wine, Soap powders, Steak and Chips, or the Brain of Einstein, they are made consistently interesting topics and analysed intellegently and concisely. Many of the pieces just a couple of pages long. The last third of the book ties up a number of themes and provides a more over-arching perspective on the modern mythologies and their semiological analysis. This is a lot denser than the individual pieces and often lacks their clarity, but does provide a vaguely useful theoretical framework for the understanding of semiology. He presents mythology as a category of language that has a specific semiological meaning, that has a second layer of meaning compared to the first order meanings found in ordinary language and word. This expands the usage of the term mythology beyond its traditional meaning, but this makes sense in the way that the word is used currently in phrases such as "urban myths", which are analagous to the cultural myths presented in the first section - though they are not usually identified as such. Gives a new way of looking at popular culture.
    • 4/5
      Mythologies (1957) is one of Barthes' first major works, following on from Le degré zéro de l'écriture of 1953 and taking its ideas beyond literature into the area of culture in general. If you have only come across it in the form of excerpts before, its structure is a little unexpected: part one "Mythologies", which takes up about two-thirds of the book, is a loose and rather random-looking collection of around fifty short essays on themes taken from contemporary culture, and we don't get into the brain-frying theoretical analysis until part two "Le Mythe, aujourd'hui". When, of course, we realise that the essays in part one are there precisely as real-world examples of the kind of analysis you can do with the techniques he discusses in part two. The essays draw their subject-matter from all kinds of different areas, mostly steering clear of "literature". The pieces on professional wrestling, the Tour de France as an epic, strip-tease, the new Citroën DS, and detergent advertisements are probably the most famous, but we also get pieces on current murder trials, photography, wine vs. milk, steak & chips, Garbo, Brando, Einstein's brain, jet pilots, Billy Graham, and much more. Just at present, there is a special resonance in the pieces about the populist leader of the time, Poujade (Le Pen père started out as a Poujadist) and the way his particular type of ideology works. Everyone confronted with the current type of populist imbecility should read "Poujade et les intellectuels" and decide for themselves whether there is anything new under the sun... The essays are for the most part a straightforward, easy read, and lull you into a slightly misleading sense of security, but of course your brain has to start working sooner or later, at the latest when you get to part two. To be fair, it's not quite as tough as you might suspect: Barthes writes very clearly, without much in the way of jargon, and he builds his ideas up in easy stages, starting out from the basics of semiology as set out by Saussure. What he means by a "myth", it turns out, is the extra, culturally-defined layer of meaning that co-exists with the literal meaning expressed by a sign. He uses two famous examples, a sentence from a Latin grammar (which stands as an example of a particular construction, not for its literal meaning) and the Paris-Match cover he came across at the hairdresser's whilst having his highlights done, which shows a young black soldier saluting, and which he decodes as conveying messages about colonialism and militarism. He would probably be highly amused that those messages have now been pushed into the background for most people who see this image today by their awareness of its importance in the history of semiotics! There's a very interesting discussion about the extent to which the two meanings of the sign coexist (Barthes uses the metaphor of the revolving door to illustrate how you can't fully see both at once). Needs a lot of digging into, but definitely worth spending a weekend on.A few phrases that caught my eye:On modern poetry: "...il est certain que sa beauté, sa vérité viennent d’une dialectique profonde entre la vie et la mort du langage, entre l’épaisseur du mot et l’ennui de la syntaxe."The scope of myth: "Tout peut donc être mythe? Oui, je le crois, car l’univers est infiniment suggestif."Images versus text: "L’image devient une écriture, dès l’instant qu’elle est significative : comme l’écriture, elle appelle une lexis."Literature: "Le langage de l’écrivain n’a pas à charge de représenter le réel, mais de le signifier."Ideological function of myth: "Le mythe ne nie pas les choses, sa fonction est au contraire d’en parler ; simplement, il les purifie, les innocente, les fonde en nature et en éternité, il leur donne une clarté qui n’est pas celle de l’explication, mais celle du constat ..."
    • 3/5
      This is definitely not a book to casually pick up and read for fun. I read it as part of an independent study project myself. Barthes is extremely brilliant and deep, but not always as approachable as one might like him to be. In the end, it might take some rereading, discussion, analysis, and even outside research to truly feel as though you are understanding what he is saying and doing. Still, his method of thought is fascinating, as are many of his conclusions.
    • 3/5
      At times keenly engrossing, at others baffling, Barthes is definitely worth reading if only because he takes wrestling so seriously.
    • 5/5
      "[Mythologies] illustrates the beautiful generosity of Barthes's progressive interest in the meaning (his word is signification) of practically everything around him, not only the books and paintings of high art, but also the slogans, trivia, toys, food, and popular rituals (cruises, striptease, eating, wrestling matches) of contemporary life . . . For Barthes, words and objects have in common the organized capacity to say something; at the same time, since they are signs, words and objects have the bad faith always to appear natural to their consumer, as if what they say is eternal, true, necessary, instead of arbitrary, made, contingent. Mythologies finds Barthes revealing the fashioned systems of ideas that make it possible, for example, for 'Einstein's brain' to stand for, be the myth of, 'a genius so lacking in magic that one speaks about his thought as a functional labor analogous to the mechanical making of sausages.' Each of the little essays in this book wrenches a definition out of a common but constructed object, making the object speak its hidden, but ever-so-present, reservoir of manufactured sense.
    • 5/5
      This book was my introduction to Roland Barthes and semiology, and I can't believe what I've been missing. He examines relatively mundane cultural myths, and it is simply brilliant. His use and examination of language is perfect, and I will reread this book regularly. My favorite essay, by far, was "Novels and Children." He examines an Elle article about female novelists, and notes their writing is heralded along with (and truly, secondary to) their maternal accomplishments. Given that Wikipedia's American Novelists list was recently pared of female writers, who were shunted to a category just for lady writers, this is still a painfully relevant topic. It was a delight to read.It is not a "beach read" by any means; it requires quite a bit of thought and consideration. I loved his perspective, and I'm inspired and awestruck. Though I'm not a French speaker, I would assume I have to praise the translations of Barthes' Mythologies by Richard Howard and Myth Today by Annette Lavers.I highly recommend this to anyone who is looking for an intelligent read. Many of the myths he examined from 1954-56 in French culture are relevant to American culture in 2013. I hate to say I found it surprising and a touch mind-boggling, but I do. I truly loved his linguistic and cultural examinations. I cannot recommend this enough; I would give a copy to everyone I know if I could.
    • 4/5
      Brand new translation!

      This edition is in two parts - the first being a series of some fifty or so short essays on certain events or things, and their symbolic/semiotic meanings. Everything from wrestling to Greta Garbo to margarine to a populist conservative who supported Vichy France and reminds me of the fringes of the Tea Party.

      My favorites are the essays on Wrestling - it is a story, more so than a physical competition, and Toys - which directly shape a child's occupations and thoughts. Even magazine articles, steak, and anti-masturbation campaigns have a signified depth. Barthes is both entertaining and very informative.

      The end of the book is a longish essay, "Myth Today". This is a founding text of semiotics and structural analysis. It first goes into detail on the definition of 'myths', the deeper meanings behind objects, and offers some examples, (as seen earlier) and applies them directly to political dialogues of both left and right, and the symbols they use to attract or seduce adherents.

      A very interesting book, carrying a lot more than its small size would imply.
    • 4/5
      This was good bitesize subway reading. Geeky, whimsical application of theory to pop-culture at its best. But serious in its way too. Didn't leave much of a lasting impression on me though. Probably worth revisiting at some point when I know more and can get more of the references and context.
    • 5/5
      Great book, I have to say I felt really sorry for the poor guy when I got to the end, he sounded so sad and...well, alienated, in his conclusion. Bless his little Commie socks.Joking aside, Barthes created here a genuinely accessible explanation of structural linguistics as first written on by Saussure. The book is a a compilation of articles, followed by a chapter at the end going into a vigerous explanation of the throey underlying the practise of a semiotic analysis. Essential for anyone studying Marx, or culture. It's also generally interesting and a good book even for those who have no real sociological grounding, and is a pretty easy read.
    • 3/5
      The book works in two parts, firstly as a journalistic foray into debunking the ideological underpinnings for a number of myths which have taken Barthes eye over a number of years, usually composed as counterpoints to mainstream bourgeois press like Elle magazine and L'express in France. And the second part of the book is espousing the theory of semiotics. If I start with the weakest, the later is a rather wordy and turgid read consisting of just over a third of the book, giving the background to the signalling process which conveys ideas and themes from a particular source within bourgeois society and its wider reverberations. The theory clearly could be an integral part of any cultural critic's arsenal, but suffers from not being lucid or over-concise. I would even go far as to say it reads academic and I was at pains to understand his point in some of the passages. To the main core of the book, I would say almost the opposite. A number of cultural items come under Barthes cross-hairs; wrestling, plastic, steak & chips, margarine, etc, etc. He examines the cultural significance and the underpinning politics of the topic at hand. This works particularly well in pieces like, 'Poor and the Proletariat', 'Novels and Children', 'Striptease' and 'Astrology' where his better sensibilities are able to takeover and round on what the ideology espousing really reads like. I would suggest avoid reading the later 'Myth Today' piece unless you have a particular need.
    • 4/5
      If you're interested in some thoughtful reading, this is a good choice. Barthes' ideas are relevant, intriguing, and very useful for literature studies.
    • 5/5
      "I think that cars today are almost the exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals: I mean the supreme creation of an era, conceived with passion by unknown artists, and consumed in image if not in usage by a whole population which appropriates them as a purely magical object."
    • 5/5
      Barthes - genius! Life changing author!