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  1. Oct 2022
    1. So there is nothing exaggerated in thinking that Barthes would havefinally found the form for these many scattered raw materials (indexcards, desk diaries, old or ongoing private diaries, current notes,narratives to come, the planned discussion of homosexuality) ifdeath had not brought his work and his reflection to an end. Thework would certainly not have corresponded to the current definitionof the novel as narration and the unfolding of a plot, but the historyof forms tells us that the word ‘novel’ has been used to designate themost diverse objects.

      Just as in Jason Lustig's paper about Gotthard Deutsch's zettelkasten, here is an example of an outside observer bemoaning the idea of things not done with a deceased's corpus of notes.

      It's almost like looking at the "corpus" of notes being reminiscent of the person who has died and thinking about what could have bee if they had left. It gives the impression that, "here are their ideas" or "here is their brain and thoughts" loosely connected. Almost as if they are still with us, in a way that doesn't quite exist when looking at their corpus of books.