The Seventh Function of Language

De: Laurent Binet, Sam Taylor - translator

Narrado por: Bronson Pinchot

From the prizewinning author of HHhH comes The Seventh Function of Language, a romp through the French intelligentsia of the 20th 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?

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, and Julia Kristeva - as well as the hapless police detective Jacques Bayard, whose new case will plunge him into the depths of literary theory. 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 that recalls Flaubert's Parrot and The Name of the Rose - with more than a dash of The Da Vinci Code - The Seventh Function of Language takes us from the cafés of Paris to the corridors of Cornell University and into the duels and orgies of the Logos Club, a secret philosophical society that dates to the era of the Roman Empire. Binet has written both a send-up and a wildly exuberant celebration of the French intellectual tradition.

©2017 Laurent Binet (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

A great story underpinned by a great narration

The book includes a decent detective story and a discussion of philosophical ideas on the backdrop of 1980s French politics making it not only a detective but an educational read. The complexity of the ideas allows for the re-reading.
The narration is very good as well. Thoroughly recommended.

Grad school fun

If you've spent any time reading Barthes, Derrida, and Foucault, you'll have fun seeing them transplanted into a witty detective/espionage novel loaded with sex, violence, and political commentary. Poor Phillip Sollers!

Outstanding reader! Excellent choice of victim(s).

Starts Sherlock Holmes nee deconstructor, spins Pychon-esque. Ends Hollywood. Hard to stop listening, so I didn't.

meh

lot of french philosopher name dropping, interesting ending. sadly, it's been many years since i've read them. add 2 stars if you were a philosophy major.

This Is My Favorite Book on Audible!

Binet’s hilarious, scathing send-up of 1980’s intellectual culture is brought to life by the masterful narration of Bronson Pinchot. Weaving history and philosophy with taut pacing and scintillating suspense, Binet and Pinchot take the listener on a madcap romp through a world rife with secret societies, conspiracies, and magic that feels deceptively real. Part political thriller, buddy-cop comedy, and magical quest, The Seventh Function of Language is an unpausable adventure that will thrill any listener.