ANALYSIS PG 122-123 NICE WORK, DAVID LODGE

In this scene David Lodge provides an example of a typical weekend spent by Robyn with his lover Charles. The narrator exploits their dialogue to discuss about the de-centring of the subject through a significant quotation of Lacan:

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["Penso dove non sono, dunque sono dove non penso (...). Non sono, là dove sono il trastullo del mio pensiero; penso a ciò che sono, là dove non penso di pensare.]

This quotation is linked with the thesis which states that the process of assimilation of language is a process of de-centring of the subject compared to the speaking ego. It’s not about the question if the subject is speaking in accordance to what he/she is, but the question is: when the subject is speaking of what he/she is, is he/she the same that is speaking?
So that quotation is a sort of enigma which reveals the language have an illusionary effect: the subject believes he is speaking, but actually the language is speaking, the unconscious, since the subject is constructed after his submission to the language. But, since the subject is exactly that speaking, he/she has the illusion to be the origin of speaking and to be an autonomous self.
So this submission to the language is also the illusion of an autonomy.

Another quotation follows:

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This quotation introduces the discussion about the concept of realism.
Through characters’ observations the narrator asserts the concept of truth is used ironically, that there is no truth in absolute sense, no transcendental signified and that “truth is just a rhetorical illusion, a tissue of metonymies and metaphors, as Nietzsche said”.
Then, with another quotation the narrator opens the discussion about the distinction between “truth” and “meaning” and makes Robyn explain, in reference to her experience in the factory, that truth is to meaning as metonymy is to metaphor: the world of factory can be “truly” represented with metonymies, but the “meaning” of a factory is understood by metaphor. So truth and meaning are on different level of comprehension such as metonymy and metaphor and you can really understand the the meaning of the factory only through the metaphor of hell, not just through the metonymies of dirt or noise.