Fiction. Translated from the French by Bruce Benderson and Urule Molinaro. With an essay by Roland Barthes. "A superbly translated coupling of Sollers's Drame (1965) and Barthes's contemporary commentary. In this early piece, Sollers, subsequently a best-selling author because of his smug Don Juan persona, discreetly keeps watch over his fictionalizing self as it moves from nonverbal impressions to verbalized thoughts. He wants to escape the limitations imposed by language ('a trap that works...when I think I am the most free'). Inevitably failing, he delivers an open narrative in which 'I,' 'he,' and 'you' interact by association. Barthes's approving essay, containing Sollers's footnotes, translates this doomed narrative quest into critical discourse, thereby assuring readers that they have indeed understood Sollers."
—Marilyn Gaddis Rose