No denunciation without its proper instrument of close analysis, Roland
Barthes wrote in his preface to Mythologies. There is no more proper
instrument of analysis of our contemporary myths than this book--one of
the most significant works in French theory, and one that has
transformed the way readers and philosophers view the world around them.
Our age is a triumph of codification. We own devices that bring the
world to the command of our fingertips. We have access to boundless
information and prodigious quantities of stuff. We decide to like or
not, to believe or not, to buy or not. We pick and choose. We think we
are free. Yet all around us, in pop culture, politics, mainstream media,
and advertising, there are codes and symbols that govern our choices.
They are the fabrications of consumer society. They express myths of
success, well-being, or happiness. As Barthes sees it, these myths must
be carefully deciphered, and debunked.
What Barthes discerned in mass media, the fashion of plastic, and the
politics of postcolonial France applies with equal force to today's
social networks, the iPhone, and the images of 9/11. This new edition of
Mythologies, complete and beautifully rendered by the Pulitzer
Prize-winning poet, critic, and translator Richard Howard, is a
consecration of Barthes's classic--a lesson in clairvoyance that is more
relevant now than ever.
