This is a difficult book to analyze in isolation, because truly, this book is part of a conversation amongst thinkers and academicians and philosophers. The goal is simply to arrive at an understanding of the quality and nature of the human experience, which is so vast and complex that it must be reduced to a more digestible level before it can be communicated. Therefore, art. And now, Barthes is attempting to explain the way art goes about its agenda, by suggesting that the reader interpret the books symbols and plot devices as meaningful, without explaining what the meaning should be.
That means that Barthes is resisting the antithetical view that a novel's meaning is imbedded in the text, hidden by the author who must have had a goal in mind, or else, why write at all? Well, Barthes notices some problems in that idea, because meaning is most clearly derived not when the author tells the reader what to think, but when the reader's reasoning and emotional faculties lead them to their own conclusions.
One must also mention that these conversations are imbedded in the real life of a man who lived during a season of art when mythological points of view were being rejected and disregarded for their religious aspect. Therefore, when Barthes discusses the way meaning actually works, he is careful to avoid mystic ideas, but also, his contemporaries both in academia and literature were sympathizing with that point of view. The reduction of the mystic component of reality is called, "Realism," and that is the school to which these ideas might be classified. In other words, Barthes suggesting a pragmatic and technical about what might be seen as a mystical problem.
