If There’s One Way To Piss Off Roland Barthes, This Is It

One of my pet hates is where someone who has been reading a book, or watching a film, or listening to a song and then proclaims that the book/film/song/whatever is autobiographical because some of the details of the incidental details of the characters match slightly those of the author.

I’m not sure why this annoys me, but I find it cheapens the whole work. If all the author is merely and directly trying to work through some of their issues (not that this matters of course) than it doesn’t have the richness of possible interpretation I like.

Take for example, The Little Mermaid, you know the one Disney fucked up the ending of. Comparisons have been made, for example on his Wikipedia page, about the love of the Little Mermaid for the unattainable prince, to the love of HC Anderson for  Edvard Collin to who he wrote:

I languish for you as for a pretty Calabrian wench… my sentiments for you are those of a woman. The femininity of my nature and our friendship must remain a mystery.

Now, I don’t personally see the connection between the mermaid and Mr Anderson, but maybe I’m missing something. This article about Hans Christian is much more interesting.

When drunk, for some reason gin does it the best, you could be sat there listening to music and then realise that a particular piece of music speaks to you personally and you try to tell everyone about it but they’re not interested and then the next day you wake up and you were loud and annoying and that song doesn’t represent you at all. But that’s just the way things go.