Empire of Signs

Barthes' Empire of Signs is a difficult read by the fact that it requires a lot of concentration and careful rereading of sentences to fully grasp its meaning as much of it is quite dense. As a French speaker, I found myself going to the original French-language book to compare with the English version for further parsing (which, in retrospect, didn't change much since Richard Howard's translation is flawless and virtually word-for-word).

That being said, Barthes' discussion of signs and signifiers is one I am already acquainted with, but his choice to bring the discussion to an imaginary Japan (though how imaginary is debatable–Barthes clearly references the real Japan throughout his text) is unique and of particular interest for scholarly work.

The haiku has the purity, the sphericality, and the very emptiness of a note of music; perhaps that is why it is spoken twice, in echo; ... the echo merely draws a line under the nullity of meaning.