Sally, Barthes

In this week's reading, The Pleasure of the Text caught my interest. Throughout my life I have been an avid reader, so this topic was of particular interest. Unknowingly, I've experienced "The Pleasure of the Text"....but, chalked it up to a great book; an author with something to say. As Barthe describes the pleasure of the text as "that moment when my body pursues its own ideas..." (p. 111) I realize that is exactly what I experienced while reading 2 books in the last few years. Each book was quite different from the other - one was by a Southern author who was recalling his life, and the other was by a New York novelist recounting the history of a house he had bought in Little Rock, Arkansas. On the surface, either work may sound boring and typical. However, I found those 2 books to be engrossing...to bring forth moments when my "body pursued its own ideas." The first book, All Over But the Shoutin', resonated with the truth of a culture (Southern) that I had all but disowned, in a sense. The author's (Rick Bragg)reflections on the good and the bad aspects of a Southern upbringing and familial relations stunned me, took my breath away, and plunged me into deep thought. Sitting by the water at Sanibel Island on the gulf, I digested those pages and sometimes spent what seemed like an eternity on a few paragraphs as I grappled with the images and truth of the pictures the author was painting - the text, in other words. I got my money's worth from that book as I lingered over passages pondering what-ifs and what-had-beens.....I laughed, I cried, I closed my eyes and was still for long periods of time. Was it because I was reading an autobiography full of pain, struggle and triumph that I was transfixed? Was it the author's "way with words" that gave me such pleasure? Yes to both of the questions, but it was something so much more. We've all read good books written by talented folks, so why was this one a work I will remember for a lifetime? The same is true for the 2nd book mentioned - Autobiography of a House. Sounds pretty boring, huh?! Again, this work took on a life of its own for me. I derived great pleasure as "my body pursued its own ideas." Ideas that came to my mind were not found in the pages of these books. The text set a stage and my mind and emotions responded in kind. Barthes has so much more to say, but I found this simple observation to be very profound.