/jp/ - Otaku Culture

At long last, the promised story has arrived

>>19428226
>Barthes
>His first book, Writing Degree Zero, was a study of how even an apparently neutral style of writing carries political implications that the writer may not even be aware of.

Interesting, though I dare say him suggesting that the political implications are the writer not being aware is a very charitable allowance on his part. In addition to his tvtropes page, I read his Death of the Author essay - this bit stuck out to me

>Is it the author Balzac, professing certain “literary” ideas of femininity? Is it universal wisdom? or romantic psychology? It will always be impossible to know, for the good reason that all writing is itself this special voice, consisting of several indiscernible voices, and that literature is precisely the invention of this voice

Yes, deliberate ambiguity is part of the beauty of writing, although ambiguity can also, in a work full of structure, be a cheap cope out. In any event Death of the Author doesn't mean "The truth is what you make of it."

Or in other words, Death of the Author, or at least how I view it, means that when faced with this deliberate ambiguity, we can come up with several interpretations with a good deal of validity, but we can't come up with infinite interpretations as valid as the other.

Making the wrong friends at the wrong place at the wrong time

TFW a promise your dumb cousin makes to your maid friend who is actually a guy when he was ten causes the maid friend to arm a giant bomb and hand out Winchesters to your family of psychopaths and you get your head bashed in by a thug who didn't even end up escaping with the gold.