Pillow Book and S/Z

Pillow Book authored by Sei Shonagon, is the pre-modern version of a series of observations and events much like a diary of sorts, however it concerns happenings of other people more so then occurrences of the author explicitly. This form of writing is very easy to read, however to comprehend and absorb it all is the true task. This task was apparent in Roland Barthes’ S/Z as well. Thanks to his constant nagging commentary in the parentheses, actually interpreting the text consumed much revisiting the previous sentence to find the context (despite his claim that “re-reading” is something to ignore).