Charlus/z

In Marcel Proust's Sodome et Gomorrhe, the Baron de Charlus lists Honoré de Balzac's ‘Sarrazine’ (sic) among his favourite works by the author. Through a comparison of Roland Barthes's reading of Balzac's novella in S/Z (1970) and his seminar in 1977 at the Collège de France on what he calls the ‘Discours-Charlus’ (which refers to a weird verbal confrontation between Charlus and Marcel in Le Côté de Guermantes), this article explores what Proust's orthographical slip tells us about his unpredictable Baron. It also considers the extent to which Barthes's reading of Charlus's discourse marks a significant reassessment of the limits of structural analysis.