Laurent Binet's The 7th Function of Language: A Review

Laurent Binet. The 7th Function of Language (Londres: Harvill Secker, 2017). 390 pages. Translated from the French by Sam Taylor.

Should I say I was lucky to study and read Roland Barthes at university? I believe so. I remember enjoying his Mythologies and wondering about what other product-signs we should be demythologising and deconstructing, yet at the time, most nights I would go out and I sort of ended up being interested in, well, different things.

Sort of a myth himself now, isn't he? Young Roland Barthes, Photograph by Fragolaleone

Barthes died in an accident in the streets of Paris. He was knocked down by a laundry van in late February 1980, and passed away a month later. I certainly found his work inspirational, and we could well ask ourselves what, were he still alive, he would be making of contemporary signs such as the bitten-off apple of the software and hardware giant or the M-shaped arches of the multinational you-want-fries-with-your-burger? company that has been clogging the arteries of millions of people all over the world for years.

Binet takes the fact of Barthes’ accident and makes it into a fictional murder. But why would a semiotician be murdered? Because he had with him the only copy of a text authored by Russian linguist Roman Jakobson. Allegedly, this text would identify the seventh function of language, which would be a magical performative function giving its possessor the power to make people do things. Something every politician might kill for, of course.

In a parody of detective novels, thrillers and similar, Binet constructs a big metafictional joke. The policeman in charge of the investigation into Barthes’ death, Bayard, starts by interviewing Foucault about semiotics and semiology. He understands fuck-all, obviously, so he tries to read Barthes and others, which angers him even more, and so he will seek the aid of a lecturer on semiotics: enter Simon Herzog, who impresses Bayard by revealing his background and most of his personality traits by simply looking at him and his clothes.

What happens next (and the above is just the beginning of this bizarre, hilarious and crazy fiction) is a long story. The unlikely duo are partnered in the pursuit of the mysterious document in a journey that takes them from Paris to Bologna, where they witness political vendettas, are allowed entrance to a secret Logos Club in which orators and debaters engage in rhetorical duels, with the loser getting a finger chopped off when defeated, and miraculously escape the bombing of the railway station.

They next travel to a big conference at Cornell University, in Ithaca, NY. Their stay is punctuated by various strange episodes, amongst them the death of Jacques Derrida, savagely killed by dogs while a girl named Cordelia was giving him a blowjob.

No, Derrida did not die here. Binet chooses to kill him at Cornell, but only in fiction. Photograph by Laurenvhs.

The final part takes them to Venice. More Logos Club challenges, more chopped fingers (and other body parts, too!) street skirmishes and kidnappings. Outlandish events and conversations are too numerous to recap; characters come and go without rhyme or reason. And after winning his oratorial challenge at the Club, Simon is made to pay a huge price.

With The 7^th Function of Language, Binet enjoys himself a lot, and if you are game to take a refreshingly quick dip into the theory of semiotics, linguistics and metafiction, this is a novel that will make you laugh out loud. The list of real people Binet makes irreverent use of is inexhaustible: from Umberto Eco to Julia Kristeva, from Michel Foucault to Noam Chomsky, from Bjorn Borg to Vitas Gerulaitis. Presidents such as Giscard d’Estaing and Mitterrand, prime ministers such as Laurent Fabius, and a noticeably young Afro-American politician named Barack Obama.

There is comedy, there is Hollywood-style action, car chases, sex, hot steamy baths where old men and young gigolos meet. There are also puns, play on words and names, a constant game played between fact and fiction in which Binet deliberately shows his hand by using the first person, a bold interference in the narrative that not always pays dividends.

The volcano crater of Pozzuoli near Naples is where Simon exacts his revenge. What a scenic spot to finish the novel! Photograph by I. Shevtsov.

The 7^th Function of Language is a delicious parody, yet to me it felt more like fanciful, delightfully absurd and exhilarating entertainment than a thriller. The plot is far more sophisticated than any bestseller might ever dream of; yet underlying the playful, the profane, and the mocking the novel does offer aplenty there is also a deeply felt homage to the sciences of language and a clever invention from historical materials. And I’d bet my little finger that Barthes would have given Binet his tick of approval.