Lacan to the Letter

Reading Ecrits Closely

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by Bruce Fink

University of Minnesota Press

Due/Published May 2004, 328 pages, paper

ISBN 0816643210

To read Lacan closely is to follow him to the letter, to take him literally, making the wager that he comes right out and says what he means in many cases, though much of his argument must be reconstructed through a line-by-line examination. And this is precisely what Bruce Fink does in this book, a fine analysis of Lacan's work on language and psychoanalytic treatment conducted on the basis of a very close reading of texts in his Écrits: A Selection. 

As a translator and proponent of Lacan's works, Fink is an especially appropriate guide through the complexities of Lacanian literature and concepts. He devotes considerable space to notions that have been particularly prone to misunderstanding, notions such as "the sliding of the signified under the signifier,"or that have gone seemingly unnoticed, such as "the ego is the metonymy of desire." Fink also pays special attention to psychoanalytic concepts, like affect, that Lacan is sometimes thought to neglect, and to controversial concepts, like the phallus. 

From a parsing of Lacan's claim that "commenting on a text is like doing an analysis," to sustained readings of "The Instance of the Letter in the Unconscious," "The Direction of the Treatment," and "Subversion of the Subject" (with particular attention given to the workings of the Graph of Desire), Fink's book is a work of unmatched subtlety, depth, and detail, providing a new perspective on one of the twentieth century's most important thinkers. 

Review

“What may at first seem nonsensical or absurd often, in my view, becomes comprehensible and even sensible when understood in context.” – Bruce Fink, Lacan to the Letter

One can detect a faint sense of surprise in Bruck Fink’s “even sensible” (see quote) in his reference to Lacan’s texts. Lacan is famously difficult, particularly for those reading him in English, a fact Fink attributes to poor translations. Fink, whose own translations of Lacan are considered some of the best, also shows himself to be a helpful and insightful explicator and interpreter of Lacanian thought. As his title suggests, Fink takes Lacan at his word, arguing that Lacan’s writing is at once evocative and precise. Lacan to the Letter differs from previous interpretations in its emphasis on the applications of Lacan’s theories to clinical practice. Without ignoring the rich theoretical aspects of Lacan’s work, Fink sees his texts as addressed to fellow psychoanalysts. In Lacan to the Letter Fink lays out some of the most basic features of Lacan’s approach to psychoanalytic treatment and discusses his interpretations of Freud. Fink also provides close readings of some of the chapters in Ecrits, including “The Instance of the Letter in the Unconscious, or Reason since Freud” and “The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire in the Freudian Unconscious.” Through his readings of Lacan’s work, Fink makes better sense of Lacanian understandings of knowledge, truth, castration, and jouissance. Without negating the complexity of Lacanian thought, Fink brilliantly unpacks the phrases and concepts in Lacan’s work that have been especially prone to misunderstanding and draws our attention to the richness of his ideas.

For more titles by and about Jacques Lacan.