Parole désaffectée et pulsions de mort dans Retour définitif et durable de l’être aimé d’Olivier Cadiot

Abstract

Abstract The narrator of Olivier Cadiot’s Retour définitif et durable de l’être aimé has been described by critics as idiotic on several occasions, but these analyses imply that he is, deep down, a subject. This article proposes a different reading, according to which Robinson is, rather, an anti-subject, that is, he is incapable of any real, efficient subjectivation. It suggests, through a Lacanian reading of the text, that the narrator’s speech is disaffected and lacking all Eros, which prevents him from anchoring himself in his relation to the Other. His speech, thus cast adrift, leads to a double fragmentation: on the one hand, Robinson’s discourse presents itself as a series of incoherent photographic moments, since it either repeats the words of others or submits to other characters’ orders; on the other hand, the protagonist is literally dismembered, his fragmented psyche ultimately inscribing itself in his very flesh. This desubjectivation, which suggests that Cadiot’s novel is an anti-heroic quest towards the ‘être aimé’ rather than the tale of their return, attests to Robinson’s regressive tendencies — closer to Freud’s Thanatos than to his Eros.