barthes--incidents

''incidents is the writing down, the collection, of what barthes saw and heard in morocco. for the most part in tangiers and rabat, then in the south, in 1968 and 1969. ... the text is the written account of meetings--incidents--that could of woven the fabric of a novel. without the support of people; also with practically no continuous thread to the story, which would necessarily force a 'message'. into it: the 'novelistic', in essence, is fragmentary. ...

''this is clear when roland barthes par roland barthes twice alludes to this text; under the heading 'projeto de livres' [ book projects ]: 'incidents [ mini-texts; wrinkles, haikus, everything that falls, like a leaf ]; and under the title 'qu'est ce que ca vent dire?' [ what does that mean ]: 'a non-book could be conceived; one which would relate a thousand incidents, by keeping itself from ever drawing one line of meaning; it would be exactly a book of haikus?' ...

''one may note that here, in fact, the genre is constantly emphasized by a particular attention to surprise, to a break in continuity, to the incongruous. the incident is there: the one thing that falls outside all codeification.''

roland barthes, incidents; english by teresa lavender fagan, from the publishers notes of francois wahl.