The 7th Function Of Language Laurent Binet Sam Taylor by Laurent Binet, Sam Taylor 9781473524637, 1473524636 instant download after payment.

Laurent Binet’s comic secret history of the French intelligentsia is both a wild send-up and an exuberant celebration of French intellectual tradition. Translated by Sam Taylor.

Roland Barthes is knocked down in a Paris street by a laundry van. It’s February 1980 and he has just come from lunch with politician François Mitterrand. Barthes dies soon afterwards. History tells us it was an accident. But what if it were an assassination? What if Barthes was carrying a document of unbelievable, global importance? A document explaining the seventh function of language - an idea so powerful that whoever masters it is able to convince anyone, in any situation, to do anything.

"...a cunning, often hilarious mystery for the Mensa set and fans of Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose and Tom Stoppard's Arcadia ... In addition to some challenging thickets of language theory, the novel is packed with drama — car chases, mutilations, suicide, graphic sex, and multiple murders. There are Russian spies, Bulgarian assassins, Venetian thugs, Japanese saviors, a wily North African gigolo — Foucault's pendant! — and a secret debating society in which the stakes range from digital amputation to castration. Sam Taylor's deft translation encompasses heavy linguistic exegeses, political discussions, oratory duels, and even some puns, including echo and Eco ... Like Nabokov's Lolita, this wonderfully clever novel can be enjoyed on multiple levels. But to fully appreciate its ingenious metafictional complexities, be prepared to do some Googling."   -   Heller McAlpin, NPR

Laurent Binet was born in Paris, France, in July 1972.  His first novel, HHhH, was an international bestseller. It won the prestigious Prix Goncourt for a first novel and was shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year. Binet won the Prix de la FNAC and Prix Interallié for The 7th Function of Language.