"Barthes' preferred way of presenting his hypotheses was in the form of linked aphorisms, and, as Susan Sontag noted, 'it is the nature of aphoristic thinking to be always in a state of concluding.' The paradox, then, is that this man who liked first words (and adored paradoxes) offered his provisional findings as if they were the last word. Needless to say, this last word was always susceptible to further elaboration and refinement, to further beginnings. This is how Barthes' prose acquires its signature style of compression and flow, a summing up that is also a perpetual setting forth."
~ Geoff Dyer on Roland Barthes
[Sofitel]
