ABSTRACT
Roland Barthes has likened the production of a text to the creation of Valenciennes lace, and he has said of the distinctively postmodern
text, the writerly text, that it is ourselves writing} The writerly text is
postmodern in being indifferent to the distinction between classic and
modern, and one effect of this indifference is the beginning of the
unravelling o f the distinction. Any text, no matter its birth date and
the sign of literature under which it was born, can be read in a writerly way. Lacem akers make lace. We write. I know what lacemakers are and what they do. I want to know now what we are and what writing is. I want to know, also, if whatever we write is meaningful and, if not,
what is the criterion of the meaningful. Barthes sometimes speaks as though the act of writing were the act
of love and the creation of meaning were the climax of love, bliss.
