Slate: The novel seems to gently mock the study of semiotics, but at the same time it has a sense of reverence for it. What was your take on it at the time?

Eugenides: I’m ambivalent. My intention wasn’t just to mock it because I found a lot of value in many of the theorists that I read, and I continue to wrestle with and against their pronouncements. It still has a meaning for me. On the other hand I do remember the way people took to theory as if it were some kind of creed. Almost took it up as a religion. That seemed comic to me and excessive even at the time. It seems more comic to me now that the grip of French theory seems to have loosened.