Barthes was a real mama’s boy. Therefore, he took the passing of his mother very hard. In fact, he was to expire himself soon after he wrote this text. The “mourning diary” was never intended for publication, at least not in its present form, but the Barthes estate decided it unfair not deprive the world of Barthes fans this manuscript of personal notes on the grief felt during the period after his mother’s death.
I have gravitated to this kind of book, because I too have lost a parent – but this is the first time I read of a mother lost. Some forays into the genre have been Philip Roth‘s Patrimony, Leon Wieseltier‘s Kaddish and more recently, parts of a book by Tom Malmquist. But next to those books, Barthes thin collection seems like a rough draft. It’s more of a collection of notes – aphorisms is a word one could use if one feels generous.
It seems Barthes used Marcel Proust‘s notes on his mother as a model for grieving (Proust being a fellow writer with close relations to his mother). Some times after the event, Barthes goes to Morocco, but he can’t enjoy himself – the grief is overpowering. Sometimes he jots down a movie he saw – most often described as “very bad”. He goes back to village where he spent his childhood, to take tare of maman‘s things, and one senses he has a heartfelt connection to the place. In fact, Barthes never writes her name, or even maman – he always refers to her as “mam.” which is a bit touching. Does he think that the pain subsides more quickly if he avoids spelling out the full word? Or maybe it is only a question of writerly economy – these are just notes, after all.
I’ve only dipped into Barthes’ catalog intermittently, and only engaged with one of his works more thoroughly (Mythologies), so I can’t tell whether this prose is similar to his more theoretical writings, like S / Z, le Plaisir du texte or A Lover’s Discourse (which, incidentally, also is written in fragments).
Reviewers off this book often mention it being a helpful book for anyone in mourning, but I couldn’t really relate. It did made me think of my mother (who is very much alive), but I wasn’t transported to my own personal history. Finally, compared to Simone de Beauvoir’s similar book about her mother’s death (Une morte très douce, 1964), which is lavish in its details of her mother and their family circumstances, Barthes remains surprisingly silent about everything but his own sorrow. He mentions almost nothing of his mother’s life, only his own grief. After all, maybe that is fitting for a journal de deuil.
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Kinship of all Species 