The Letter, Issue 51, Autumn 2012, Pages 1 - 22
READING L’ETOURDIT: FIRST TURN
CHAPTER 1 : MEANING – RELATIONSHIP AND SENSE
Christian Fierens
(25) Here are two morsels of the psychoanalytic discourse (…ou pire):
(1) ‘That one might be saying remains forgotten behind the said in what is understood’.
2) ‘This statement which appears to be assertive since it is produced in a universal form, is in fact modal, existential as such: as is testified by the subjunctive by which its subject is modulated.’ (5d; 449)
These two sentences or these two morsels plunge us into double presentation, into the representation of one (1) for and in the other (2) and this re-presentation will lead us to the barred subject and to the o-object.
The first morsel speaks about saying as impersonal process. This saying where the persons are not yet determined is not directly available: it is forgotten behind the said. Is it enough then to obliterate the said for saying to supervene? Would it be enough to efface the statement for the mystery of enunciating to appear? No: there are not too many saids, turns said, d’étourdit: the understudy (doublure) is welcome so that the said can be understood. The difference between the said and what is understood, between the presentation and representation, will reveal saying: even if it is forgotten behind the said, it only comes about because there is something understood. [From a technical point of view, the abbreviation of the said, the ‘short sessions’ will only be justified in as much as they produce an ‘understood’].