Roland Barthes is a sort of serious joke. It first appeared in a series called x par lui-même—for example, Michelet by Himself, to name the volume for which Barthes happens to have been responsible. So to ask a writer to do his own "par lui-même" was part compliment, part gag, and Barthes followed up by reviewing the book himself in the Quinzaine litteraire, under the heading "'Barthes by Barthes' by Barthes." But the joke is serious because there is more to it than literary frivolity or once-off publicity value. Asking Barthes to do something so close to autobiography is no light challenge; for to anybody holding his views on writing (and this remains true however they change) autobiography ought to be anathema. Consequently the book is partly about the problem he must have in writing it and partly about other and related problems such as...