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cannot deconstruct or construct a text. In fac t, the inventive do-i t–
yourself reader turns out to be the critic himse lf, tha t is, Ba rthes, or
Derrida, o r Lacan . And thoug h some o f these critics exhibit eno rmous
virtuos ity a nd orig ina lity, their ac tua l exegeses as we ll as their con–
structio ns a re open to ques tio n. Ta ke the reconstruc ti on o f Ba lzac's
Sarrasin e,
in
S / Z,
by Barthes, pro ba bly the mos t brilliant and mos t
pla usible writer assoc ia ted with French struc tura lism, perhaps because
he is the mos t traditiona l. Barthes's exercise o f pseudo-fictional free
associa tio n around an or ig ina l text is no do ubt a dazz ling pe rfo rmance,
but it demo nstra tes little more tha n tha t Ba lzac 's fi ctio na l ta lent was
immeas ura bl y grea ter than tha t o f Ba rthes . O r, to consider two o ther
examples: Laca n 's examina tio ns of
H am let
and o f Poe's
Purloined
L etter.
In bo th there is a dep loyment of terms and ca tegor ies from
ling uistics and psychoa na lys is, heav il y sp iced w ith structura list jar–
gon. But neither Hamlet nor Poe's story is furth er illuminated nor
g iven a new dimension . On the contra ry, bo th works a re reduced
to
sexua l symbolisms, reminiscent of bad psychoana lytic cr iticism . Ernes t
J ones a t least tr ied to exp la in Hamlet's irreso lution . Laca n simp ly
plays with pha llic assoc ia tio ns. His one ori g ina l o bserva ti on , for wha t
it is worth , consists in ca lling Ophelia " the bait." As for the
Purloined
L etter,
Laca n constructs a sexua l triumvira te, with the leu er, itse lf,
a long with o ther o bjects, g iven pha llic and cas tra ting meanings, thus
missing the essentia l q ua lity o f the story as a model for a lo ng line of
detec tive fi ctions, in whi ch the log ica l mind o f the detec ti ve outthinks
his opponents and ri va ls. Nor does Laca n have a nythin g to say abou t
Poe's distinc tive style which is a t the same time a rch , abstrac t, p rec ise,
and deceptively popular. But struc tura list theories avo id the charge of
reductionism , by no t recognizing there a re limits to the liberties that
can be taken with a text. Even Lev i-S tra uss ba lked a t stre tching it too
fa r when he sa id: "A wo rk o f a rt is an o bjec t endowed with prec ise
p roperties, tha t must be ana lytica lly iso la ted , and thi s work can be
entirely defined on the grounds o f such p ro perties." And in the we ll –
known piece on Ba udelaire's
L es Chats,
by Lev i-Strauss and Jakobson ,
the a na lys is, whi ch resembles class ic close reading , is based on the
ass umption tha t struc tura list cr iticism does no t require the inven tion
o f a new text. I mig h t a lso mention Derr ida's study of Ro usseau , which
is a chao tic and a rbitra ry reconstructio n o f Ro usseau 's thinking,
Soll er's essay on J oyce, which is a hodge -podge o f free-whee ling
rhetoric, and Ba rba ra John son 's examina ti on of Derr ida's and Laca n 's
method , which is a jugg ling o f terms a nd ca tegories, tha t I can bare ly
fo ll ow . Also it is worth no ting tha t critics like Ba rthes and Todorov use
