Friday 26 June 2009

Animaux d(h)om(me)estiques



Lacan


It's just because I've spent a lot of time "with" him recently, trying to write a paper about his "aesthetics" if you can call it that. I've just found this video of him lecturing, on youtube. He seems even more mad and even more french in real time. A tad shocking, that!




But, facetiousness aside, he does have a point, I think. Several, in fact. On the other hand - the points might be mine, and I might be reading them into every opaque string of words that crosses my path. I might be a little bit in love with the notion that everything (or everyone) is dominated primarily by a feeling of a lack, and that all we do is motivated by the desire to fill this emptiness, though this can, by definition, never be done. Also it reminds me of something Adam Roberts, a much valued professor back in Royal Holloway who also wrote an excellent essay about "Byron's vagina" - google it! -, once said in his course, and I believe he was quoting some philosophical pop star or the other way around: "The glass is neither half full nor half empty, it's twice as large as it needs to be."

That noted, I can only end upon a soppy note, saying that for whatever undetectable reasons - it might or might not be related to the apocalyptic rain falls of the last few days - my glass is positively overflowing at the moment, and I think if I wait a little longer it might become enough to fill a bathtub or a small paddling pool.
But, apologies, apologies, apologies! The above paragraph is exactly the reason why you never get to read books written by happy people: They'd be crap!

2 comments:

Alex said...

oh my. please please pleeeease recommend me a book specifically. I wanted to red the four remaining books of harry potter and much else - slightly free summer evenings looming - but I really want to read Lacan now, first.

Alex said...

p.s.: he's VERY french. Yes.
Wicked! Haha