Lie true? La Septième fonction du langage by Laurent Binet
Journal: Écho des études romanes
Year: 2017

Laurent Binet's novel is a game of simulation and dissimulation by its very intrigue. Who killed Roland Barthes and why? The police investigation conducted by the commissioner Jacques Bayard and the semiologist Simon Herzog is gradually transformed into questions about the relationship between fiction and reality and the nature of language. Is it knowledge or a misunderstanding? What is its noetic, ethical and political scope? What powers does it confer? The historical events of 1980 and the ref