The Seventh Function of Language

by Laurent Binet

  He passes the statue of Montaigne without seeing it, crosses Rue des Écoles and enters the Sorbonne. Superintendent Bayard understands that he understands nothing, or at least not much, about all this rubbish. What he needs is someone to explain it to him: a specialist, a translator, a transmitter, a tutor. A professor, basically. At the Sorbonne, he asks where he can find the semiology department. The person at reception sharply replies that there isn’t one. In the courtyard outside, he approaches some students in navy-blue sailor coats and boat shoes to ask where he should go to attend a semiology course. Most of them have no idea what it is or have only vaguely heard of it. But, at last, a long-haired young man smoking a joint beneath the statue of Louis Pasteur tells him that for “semio” he has to go to Vincennes. Bayard is no expert when it comes to academia, but he knows that Vincennes is a university swarming with work-shy lefties and professional agitators. Out of curiosity, he asks this young man why he isn’t there. The man is wearing a large turtleneck sweater, a pair of black trousers with the legs rolled up as though he’s about to go mussel fishing, and purple Dr. Martens. He takes a drag on his joint and replies: “I was there until my second second year. But I was part of a Trotskyite group.” This explanation seems to strike him as sufficient, but when he sees from Bayard’s inquiring look that it isn’t, he adds: “Well, there were, uh, a few problems.”

  Bayard does not press the matter. He gets back in his 504 and drives to Vincennes. At a red light, he sees a black DS and thinks: “Now, that was a car!”

  9

  The 504 joins the ring road at Porte de Bercy, gets off at Porte de Vincennes, goes back up the very long Avenue de Paris, passes the military hospital, refuses to yield to a brand-new blue Fuego driven by some Japanese men, skirts around the chateau, passes the Parc Floral, enters the woods, and parks outside some shack-like buildings that resemble a giant 1970s suburban high school: just about humanity’s worst effort in architectural terms. Bayard, who remembers his distant years spent studying law in the grandeur of Assas, finds this place utterly disorienting: to reach the classrooms, he has to cross a sort of souk run by Africans, step over comatose junkies sprawled on the ground, pass a waterless pond filled with junk, pass crumbling walls covered with posters and graffiti, where he can read: “Professors, students, education officers, ATOS staff: die, bitches!”; “No to closing the food souk”; “No to moving from Vincennes to Nogent”; “No to moving from Vincennes to Marne-la-Vallée”; “No to moving from Vincennes to Savigny-sur-Orge”; “No to moving from Vincennes to Saint-Denis”; “Long live the proletarian revolution”; “Long live the Iranian revolution”; “Maoists = fascists”; “Trotskyites = Stalinists”; “Lacan = cop”; “Badiou = Nazi”; “Althusser = murderer”; “Deleuze = fuck your mother”; “Cixous = fuck me”; “Foucault = Khomeini’s whore”; “Barthes = pro-Chinese social traitor”; “Callicles = SS”; “It is forbidden to forbid forbidding”; “Union de la Gauche = up your ass”; “Come to my place, we’ll read Capital! signed: Balibar” … Students stinking of marijuana accost him aggressively, thrusting thick pamphlets at him: “Comrade, do you know what’s going on in Chile? In El Salvador? Are you concerned about Argentina? And Mozambique? What, you don’t care about Mozambique? Do you know where it is? You want me to tell you about Timor? If not, we’re having a collection for a literacy drive in Nicaragua. Can you buy me a coffee?” Here, he feels less at sea. Back when he was a member of Jeune Nation, he used to beat the crap out of filthy little lefties like these. He throws the tracts in the dried-out pond that serves as a trash can.

  Without really knowing how he got there, Bayard ends up at the Culture and Communications department. He scans the list of “course units” displayed on a board in the corridor and finally finds roughly what he came for: Semiology of the Image, a classroom number, a weekly timetable, and the name of a professor—Simon Herzog.

  10

  “Today, we are going to study figures and letters in James Bond. If you think of James Bond, which letter comes to mind?” Silence, as the students consider the question. At least Jacques Bayard, sitting at the back of the classroom, is familiar with James Bond. “What is the name of James Bond’s boss?” Bayard knows this! He is surprised to find himself wanting to say the answer out loud, but several students get there before him, giving the response simultaneously: M. “Who is M, and why M? What does M signify?” A pause. No answer. “M is an old man, but is a feminine figure. It’s the M of Mother, the nurturing mother, who provides and protects, the one who gets angry when Bond does something silly but who always indulges him, who Bond wants to please by succeeding in his missions. James Bond is a man of action but he is not a lone gunman, he is not on his own, he is not an orphan (he is biographically, but not symbolically: his mother is England; he is not married to his homeland, he is its beloved son). He is supported by a hierarchy, an organization, an entire nation that assigns him impossible missions—which the country takes great pride in him carrying out (M, the metonymical representation of England, the representative of the queen, often repeats that Bond is his best agent: he is the favorite son)—but that provides him with all the material means necessary to accomplish them. James Bond, in fact, has his cake and eats it, too, and that is why he is such a popular fantasy, an extremely powerful contemporary myth: James Bond is the adventurer-functionary. Action and security. He commits offenses, misdemeanors, even crimes, but he is permitted, he has the authority; he won’t be punished because he has the famous ‘license to kill’ signified by his identification number. Which brings us to those three magic figures: 007.

  “Double 0 is the code for the right to commit murder, and here we see a brilliant application of the symbolism of figures. How could the license to kill be represented by a figure? Ten? Twenty? A hundred? A million? Death is not quantifiable. Death is nothingness, and nothingness is zero. But murder is more than mere death, it is death inflicted on another. It is death times two: his own inevitable death, whose probability is increased by the dangers of his job (we are often reminded that the life expectancy of double 0 agents is very low), and that of the other. Double 0 is the right to kill and to be killed. As for 7, it was obviously chosen because it is traditionally one of the most elegant numbers, a magical number charged with history and symbolism; but in this case, it complies with two criteria: it is an odd number, of course, like the number of roses we give to a woman, and prime (a prime number is divisible only by one and by itself) in order to express a singularity, a uniqueness, an individuality that confounds the whole impression of interchangeability suggested by an identification number. Let’s cast our minds back to the series The Prisoner, with its protagonist, Number 6, who desperately, rebelliously repeats: ‘I am not a number!’ James Bond, on the other hand, is perfectly comfortable with his number, all the more so as it confers upon him extraordinary privileges, making him an aristocrat (in Her Majesty’s service, naturally). 007 is the antithesis of Number 6: he is satisfied with the extremely privileged place society gives him, he works devotedly for the preservation of the established order, without ever questioning the enemy’s nature or motivation. Where Number 6 is a revolutionary, 007 is a conservative. The reactionary 7 here opposes the revolutionary 6, and as the meaning of the word reactionary supposes the idea of posteriority (the conservatives ‘react’ to the revolution by working for a return to the ancien régime, i.e., the established order), it is logical that the reactionary figure succeeds the revolutionary figure (to put it as plainly as possible: that James Bond is not 005). The function of 007 is, therefore, to guarantee the return of the established order, threatened by a menace that destabilizes the world order. The end of each episode coincides always with a return to ‘normality,’ i.e., ‘the old order.’ Umberto Eco calls James Bond a fascist. In actual fact, we can see that he is, above all, a reactionary…”

  A student raises his hand: “But there’s also Q, the guy in charge of gadgets. Do you see a meaning in that letter too?”

  With an im
mediacy that surprises Bayard, the professor goes on:

  “Q is a paternal figure, because he is the one who provides James Bond with weapons and teaches him how to use them. He passes on his savoir faire. In this sense, he ought to be called F, for Father … But if you watch the scenes involving Q carefully, what do you see? A distracted, impertinent, playful James Bond, who doesn’t listen (or pretends not to). And, at the end, you have Q, who always asks: ‘Questions?’ (or variations on the theme of ‘Do you understand?’). But James Bond never has any questions; although he plays the dunce, he has assimilated what has been explained to him perfectly because he is an extraordinarily quick study. So Q is the q of ‘questions’—questions that Q calls for and that Bond never asks, except in the form of jokes, and his questions are never those that Q is expecting.”

  Another student speaks up now: “And in English, Q is pronounced exactly the same way as the word queue, which implies shopping. People queue outside the gadget store, they wait to be served; it is a dead time, a playful time, between two action scenes.”

  The young professor waves his arms enthusiastically: “Exactly! Well observed! That’s a very good idea! Don’t forget that one interpretation never exhausts the sign, and that polysemy is a bottomless well where we can hear an infinite number of echoes: a word’s meaning never runs dry. And the same’s true even for a letter, you see.”

  The professor looks at his watch: “Thank you for your attention. Next Tuesday we’ll talk about clothes in James Bond. Gentlemen, I’ll expect you in tuxedos, naturally [laughter in the classroom]. And ladies, in Ursula Andress–style bikinis [men whistling, women protesting]. See you next week!”

  While the students leave the hall, Bayard goes up to the young lecturer with a discreetly malicious smile that the lecturer does not understand, but which means: “I’m going to make you pay for that baldy’s bad attitude.”

  11

  “Just to be clear, Superintendent, I am not a specialist in Barthes, nor strictly speaking am I a semiologist. I have an MAS in modern criticism of the historical novel, I’m preparing a linguistics thesis on acts of language, and I also run a tutorial. This semester, I’m giving a specialized course in semiology of the image, and last year I ran an introductory course on semiology for first-year students. I taught them the basics of linguistics because that’s the foundation of semiology; I told them about Saussure and Jakobson, a bit of Austin, a bit of Searle; we worked mainly on Barthes because he’s the most accessible and because he often chose his subjects from popular culture, which are more likely to pique my students’ interest than, say, his critiques of Racine or Chateaubriand, because these kids are doing media studies, not literature. With Barthes, we could spend a lot of time discussing steak-frites, the latest Citroën, James Bond … it’s a more playful approach to analysis, and that is in a sense the definition of semiology: it applies literary criticism methods to nonliterary subjects.”

  “He’s not dead.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You said ‘we could.’ You were talking in the past tense, as if it were no longer possible.”

  “Um, no, that’s not what I meant…”

  Simon Herzog and Jacques Bayard walk side by side down the university’s corridors. The young lecturer holds his satchel in one hand and a sheaf of photocopies in the other. He shakes his head when a student tries to hand him a leaflet. The student calls him a fascist, and he responds with a guilty smile, then corrects Bayard:

  “Even if he did die, we could still apply his critical methods, you know…”

  “What makes you think he might die? I didn’t mention the seriousness of his injuries.”

  “Well, er, I doubt whether superintendents are sent to investigate all road accidents, so I deduce from that that it’s serious, and that there’s something fishy about the circumstances.”

  “The circumstances are pretty straightforward, and the victim’s condition is really nothing to be worried about.”

  “Really? Ah, well, I’m glad to hear it, superintendent…”

  “I didn’t tell you I was a superintendent.”

  “No? I just thought Barthes was so famous that the police would send a superintendent…”

  “I’d never even heard of this guy until yesterday.”

  The young postgrad falls silent. He looks disconcerted; Bayard is satisfied. A student in socks and sandals hands him another tract: Waiting for Godard: A One-Act Play. He puts it in his pocket and asks Herzog:

  “What do you know about semiology?”

  “Um, well, it’s the study of the life of signs within society.”

  Bayard thinks about his Roland Barthes Made Easy. He grits his teeth.

  “And in plain French?”

  “But … that’s Saussure’s definition…”

  “This Chaussure, does he know Barthes?”

  “Er, no, he’s dead. He was the inventor of semiology.”

  “Hmm, I see.”

  But Bayard does not see anything. The two men walk through the cafeteria. It looks like the ruins of a warehouse and smells strongly of merguez sausage, pancakes, and marijuana. A tall, awkward-looking guy in mauve lizard-skin boots is standing on a table. Cigarette in mouth, beer in hand, he harangues some students who listen, eyes shining. As Simon Herzog has no office, he invites Bayard to sit down and, automatically, offers him a cigarette. Bayard refuses, takes out a Gitane, and says:

  “So, in concrete terms, what’s the point of this … science?”

  “Um, well … understanding reality?”

  Bayard grimaces imperceptibly.

  “Meaning?”

  The young lecturer takes a few seconds to think about this. He gauges his interrogator’s capacities for abstraction—clearly quite limited—and adapts his response accordingly. If not, they’ll be going around in circles for hours.

  “In fact, it’s simple. There are loads of things in our environment that have, uh, a function of use. You see?”

  Hostile silence from the policeman. At the other end of the room, the guy in mauve lizard-skin boots is telling his young disciples about the events of May ’68, which, in his account, sound like a mixture of Mad Max and Woodstock. Simon Herzog tries to keep his explanation as simple as possible: “A chair is for sitting on, a table is for eating on, a desk for working at, clothes for keeping warm, et cetera. Okay?”

  Icy silence.

  “Except that, in addition to their function of … um, their usefulness … these objects also possess a symbolic value … as if they could speak, if you like: they tell us things. That chair, for example, that you’re sitting on, with its zero design, its low-quality varnished wood, and its rusted frame, tells us that we are in a community that doesn’t care about comfort or aesthetics and that has no money. Added to this, those mingled smells of bad food and cannabis confirm that we’re in a higher-education establishment. In the same way, your manner of dressing signals your profession: you wear a suit, which indicates an executive job, but your clothes are cheap, which implies a modest salary and/or an absence of interest in your appearance; so you belong to a profession in which presentation doesn’t matter, or not very much. Your shoes are badly scuffed, and you came here in a car, which signifies that you are not deskbound—you are out and about in your job. An executive who leaves his office is very likely to be assigned some kind of inspection work.”

  “I see,” says Bayard. (A long silence, during which Herzog can hear the man in lizard-skin boots telling his fascinated audience how, back when he was head of the Armed Spinozist Faction, he defeated the Young Hegelians.) “Then again, I know where I am, because there’s a sign saying ‘University of Vincennes—Paris 8’ over the entrance. And the word ‘Police’ is also written in bold on the red, white, and blue card I showed you when I came to talk to you after your lecture, so I don’t really see where you’re going with this.”

  Simon Herzog starts to sweat. This conversation brings back painful memories of oral exams. Don’t panic,
just concentrate. Don’t focus on the seconds passing in silence; ignore the falsely sanctimonious attitude of the sadistic examiner who is secretly enjoying his institutional superiority and the suffering he’s inflicting on you because in the past he suffered the same himself. The young postgrad thinks fast, attentively observing the man facing him, and proceeds methodically, stage by stage, as he’s been taught. Then, when he feels ready, he lets a few further seconds pass, and says:

  “You fought in Algeria; you have been married twice; you are separated from your second wife; you have a daughter under twenty, with whom you have a difficult relationship; you voted for Giscard in both rounds of the last presidential election, and you’ll do the same again next year; you lost a colleague in the line of duty, perhaps it was your own fault, in any case you blame yourself or feel bad about it, though your superiors decided it was not your responsibility. And you went to see the latest James Bond film at the cinema, but you prefer a good Maigret on TV or films starring Lino Ventura.”

  A very, very long silence. At the other end of the room, the reincarnation of Spinoza is recounting, to the cheers of the crowd, how he and his gang overcame the Fourier Rose group. Bayard mutters tonelessly:

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Well, it’s very simple!” (Another pause, but this one is the young professor’s. Bayard does not react at all, except for a slight quivering in the fingers of his right hand. The man in mauve lizard-skin boots starts singing a Rolling Stones song a cappella.) “When you came to see me at the end of the lecture earlier, you instinctively placed yourself in a position where you wouldn’t have your back to the door or the window. You don’t learn that at police school, but in the army. The fact that this reflex has stayed with you signifies that your military experience was not limited to the usual National Service but marked you sufficiently that you have kept some unconscious habits. So you probably went to war and you’re not old enough to have fought in Indochina, so I think you were sent to Algeria. You’re in the police, so you’re bound to be right-wing, as confirmed by your hostility to students and intellectuals (which was plain from the minute we started talking), but as an Algerian veteran you considered de Gaulle’s granting of independence as a betrayal. So you refused to vote for the Gaullist candidate, Chaban, and you are too rational (a condition of your job) to give your vote to a candidate like Le Pen, who has no chance of making it through to the second round, so your vote naturally went to Giscard. You came here alone, against all the rules of the French police, where officers always go about in twos, so you must have been given special dispensation, a favor that could only have been granted for a serious reason such as the death of a colleague. The trauma is such that you cannot bear the idea of having a new partner, so your superiors allow you to operate solo. That way, you can pretend to be Maigret, who, judging from your raincoat, is a role model, consciously or not. (Superintendent Moulin, with his leather jacket, is probably too young for you to identify with, and, well, you don’t have enough money to dress like James Bond.) You wear a wedding ring on your right hand, but you still have a ring mark on your left ring finger. You presumably wished to avoid the feeling that you were repeating yourself by changing your ring hand for the second marriage, as a way of warding off fate, or something like that. But apparently it didn’t work, because your rumpled shirt, this early in the day, proves that no one is doing the ironing at your house; and, in conformity with the petit-bourgeois model, which fits your sociocultural background, if your wife were still living with you, she would not have let you leave the house wearing an unironed shirt.”