Seminar XXIV Final Sessions 1 - Lacan in Ireland

music on you, is that it has this power, as one might say, of metamorphosis,of transmutation, that one could summarise rapidly as follows, by saying forexample that it transmutes the sadness that is in you into nostalgia, I meanby that that if you are sad, the fact is that you can designate, whether you aresad or depressed, you can designate the object that you lack, whose lack youare missing, makes you suffer, and it is sad to be sad, I mean, it is not thesource of any enjoyment. The paradox of nostalgia – as Victor Hugo said,nostalgia is the happiness of being sad – the paradox of nostalgia is thatprecisely in nostalgia what happens, is that what you are lacking is of anature that you cannot designate and that you love this lack. You see that inthis transmutation, everything happens as if the object which was lackingreally evaporated, has evaporated, and that what I propose to you, is tocomprehend effectively the enjoyment, one of the articulations of musicalenjoyment, as having the power to evaporate the object. I see that the word‘evaporate’, we can almost take it in the physical sense of the term, in whichphysics has located sublimation: sublimation, is effectively a matter ofmaking a solid pass into the state of vapour, of gas; and sublimation, is thisparadoxical path by which Freud teaches us – and Lacan has articulated in amuch more sustained way – it is precisely the path along which we can haveaccess, precisely along the path of desexualisation, to enjoyment.Therefore, you see, in this second moment – what I am marking, at the topof the circuit: the reversal of the drive – a first torsion – it is perhapsstarting from this notion of torsion that Dr Lacan thought of inserting thislittle topo at the point that he is in his progress – a second moment therefore,a first torsion appears where there is the apparition of a new subject and of anew object. The new subject precisely, is me who from auditor becomes, Iwould say, I cannot say speaker, speaking, musicing, one would have to saythat it is the point in music where, the notes that go through you, everythinghappens as if paradoxically, it is not so much that you hear them, it is as ifeverything happens as if – I insist on the ‘if’ – everything happens as if youwere producing them yourself: you are the author of this music. I put herean arrow which goes there from the subject to the separating little o,wanting to indicate by that that in this second perspective of separation, this35