The Dinner:

Notes to Continue Thinking about the Modes of Transmission of Desire and the Law

Abstract

How are we affected by literary works in our psychoanalytic practice and theorization? I resort to some notes from my reading of La cena (The dinner), by Herman Koch, in order to continue our reflection on the forms of transmission of the wish and the law and their effects; the family beyond the «mess» (Roudinesco, 2002), parenthood and filiation outside legality. How do we transmit the wish from one generation to the next? Which wish are we talking about when it is not within the frame of prohibition? The actual absence of the father does not in itself imply a trauma; his absence becomes traumatic only if it implies a symbolic absence. In this sense, I will also mention Telemachus, the character in The Oddisssey, son of Oddisseus and Penelope, who was raised in the actual absence of his father. The dinner and The Oddissey are very distant accounts in chronological time; however, there is a thematic continuity which in this case contributes to our understanding of the changes in the subjectivities which, we believe, are dependent on historical variation, though we consider it is also possible to sustain that the Unconscious ignores time. What changes? What remains? Finally, I refer to Dany-Robert Dufour. Does the subject of contemporary civilization continue to organize his suffering in a neurotic way? Is the existence of the «Freudian subject», paradigm of modernity, under threat, and therefore its forms of organization, defenses and pleasures are also under threat?