Given that I can't read or speak French the name of this blog involves a stretch. I've had an interest in the slips that exist when words sound a like. A favourite is the easy confusion in French between ‘l'amour’ love and ‘la mort’ death. Lacan pushed it a little further when he added ‘la mur’ the wall. Talking to the wall apparently has a similar sense to the English. It gives the task of speech it's necessary hopelessness. One chatters, the truth falls out, but if the listening is too generic it all shuts down and is lost.

Lacan was fond of this poem by Antoine Tudal

Entre l'homme et l'amour, il y a la femme. Entre l'homme et la femme, il y a un monde. Entre l'homme et le monde, il y a un mur.

Which has been rendered into English as

Between man and love, there is woman. Between man and woman, there is a world. Between man and the world there is a wall.

Paris en l'an 2000

Talking to the walls

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