The Seventh Function of Language
A Novel
Farrar Straus & Giroux · Print & ebook · August 1, 2017
From the prizewinning author of HHhH, “the most insolent novel of the year” (L’Express) comes a romp through the French intelligentsia of the twentieth century.
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- Who it’s for
- A layered literary read that balances wit, analysis, and sustained narrative pull.
- Genres
- Satire, 20th-Century French Fiction, International Crime Fiction
- Published
- Farrar Straus & Giroux, August 1, 2017
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Start with this bookAbout this book
From the prizewinning author of HHhH, “the most insolent novel of the year” (L’Express) comes a romp through the French intelligentsia of the twentieth century. Paris, 1980. The literary critic Roland Barthes dies—struck by a laundry van—after lunch with the presidential candidate François Mitterand. The world of letters mourns a tragic accident. But what if it wasn’t an accident at all? What if Barthes was . . . murdered?
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In The Seventh Function of Language, Laurent Binet spins a madcap secret history of the French intelligentsia, starring such luminaries as Jacques Derrida, Umberto Eco, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Julia Kristeva—as well as the hapless police detective Jacques Bayard, whose new case will plunge him into the depths of literary theory (starting with the French version of Roland Barthes for Dummies). Soon Bayard finds himself in search of a lost manuscript by the linguist Roman Jakobson on the mysterious “seventh function of language.” A brilliantly erudite comedy with more than a dash of The Da Vinci Code—The Seventh Function of Language takes us from the cafés of Saint-Germain to the corridors of Cornell University, and into the duels and orgies of the Logos Club, a secret philosophical society that dates to the Roman Empire. Binet has written both a send-up and a wildly exuberant celebration of the French intellectual tradition.
Literary Play
A layered literary read that balances wit, analysis, and sustained narrative pull.
Come here for
- literary playfulness
- serious-minded, with a comic tilt
Expect
- French literary criticism frame
- an edgy, playful, prestige-leaning tone
Where it sits
| Satire | 40% |
|---|---|
| 20th-Century French Fiction | 38% |
| International Crime Fiction | 36% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Funny Fiction
- Literary Fiction
- International Crime Fiction
- Authors
- Laurent Binet, Sam Taylor
- Publisher
- Farrar Straus & Giroux
- Published
- August 1, 2017
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Reading lane
- Funny Fiction