To Write a Work in C Major : Barthes's Final Project The Preparation of the Novel: these published lectures from Roland

Barthes seminars at the Collge de France offer a palimsest-in-process of Barthes's preparation for his unfinished novel, Vita Nova. In the sessions starting on December 1st, 1979, Barthes writes, "we're going to think of the Course that's beginning as a film or a book," and that " its structure will be somewhat like that of a play." These different Trials of Writing process are: 1) that of Choice; 2) that of Patience of writing (divided into two parts: the methodical organization and the practice of writing); 3) there is the Separation trial (of the creator and the world); 4) and then it ends (which is different then a conclusion). Just like how Edward Said in On Late Style talks about how some musicians reinvigorate their forms later in their career (Gould, Mozart), with this book-form publication of his oratory lectures Barthes paratextual writing style attains a new hight (Belle-Lettrism + Proust). This late perspective from Barthes also offers an extension of Barthes other writing and a revision of a few of his interest. By examining why people write seems to correspond with The Pleasure of the Text. As well many Barthien stables are further commented upon, like Chateaubriand, Flaubert, Kafka, Mallarm, Nietzsche and so on (the index itself is a treasure trove of mid-Twentieth century Parisian intellectual life). Some particularly interesting picaresque episodes (we are dealing with play trials, bien sur) include a discussion of the daily realties of being a published writer, Managing writing (pg.217), with a lengthy discussion about correspondences, accounts, and luxuries and so on. There is an interesting close-up (to use a cinematic term) of a hand and its role in the writing process (cf. The Slow Hand), and where just like how in Camera Lucida Barthes highlights that the photographer's primary organ is his finger, which pushes down on the clicker, here the physical writing process is given its due and attention. As well Marx is brought to comment on the social status of the writer, which for Barthes, lies "halfway between the Bourgeois and the Petit Bourgeois," and, "It's because the writer is De-classed that he energetically, sometimes hysterically, sets himself the problem of Commitment. By way of Nietzsche ("Become what you are.") and Kafka ("Destroy yourself... in order

to make yourself into that which you are."), Barthes' conclusion reaches its crescendo which, like all of his writing, will be remembered for a long time, even after his end: "Thus, in this way, the distinction between the Old and the New would quite naturally be abolished, the path of the spiral marked out, and these words from Schonberg, who founded contemporary music and reinvigorated the music of the past, honored: it's still possible to write music in C major. There, to brings things to a close, you have the object of my desire: to write a work in C Major." After reading the entirety of the seminar, including Barthes' own comments of the work in progress Vita Nova (pg.212), it is a revelation to finally discover Barthes' original Vita Nova manuscript. Which is located at the back of the book, in both the original eightpage French manuscript (photocopied) and with a tremendously helpful English translation.Vita Nova, more so than Barthes actual last piece of writing on his trip Italy and the ideas of Stendhal (One Always Fails in Speaking of What One Loves) is his work in C Major, and it definitively deserves a Sarrasine (S/Z) close analysis.