top of page

What Thrilled Me in Fierens’ Book

The Letter, Issue 41, Summer 2009, Pages  133 - 140


What Thrilled Me in Fierens’ Book Charles Melman


The following paper, translated into English by Cormac Gallagher, was read by Charles Melman during a two-day conference in 2003 on the themes of Christian Fierens' book Lecture de L'Etourdit. Lacan 1972, Paris: L'Harmattan, 2002.

Keywords: Christian Fierens; L'Etourdit; lalangue; saying; topology

I got to know Fierens' book through Jean-Pierre Lebrun who sent it to me and I immediately found that it was an amazing work and that even if I was not necessarily in agreement with the reading that he gave of this text, it was one of the most stimulating and successful works to be met in our domain.

I am saying this all the more because I have with this text of L'Etourdit - I told Christian Fierens about it yesterday - a rather particular relationship. Because, I will pass over this very quickly, Lacan had given me this text for me to publish in Scilicet 4. I had given it back to him telling him that it was an absolutely unreadable, impossible text; that no one would ever understand anything in it; and that the sense of such a publication seemed to me to be absolutely not obvious. Which he did not take very well.

Want to read more?

Subscribe to theletter.ie to keep reading this exclusive post.

Related Posts

See All

Issue 41: Editorial

This issue of The Letter concentrates on Lacan's L'Etourdit from 1972, published in Scilicet in 1973. While Charles Melman had originally...

Response to Tom Dalzell

Christian Fierens argues in this paper against understanding Lacan's exception as a transcendental reality and, preferring L'Etourdit's...

bottom of page