Atdtda26: Lovely to see you, 728-730

[Michael Bailey]

 Mark Kohut wrote:
> If I understand all you wrote, you've convinced me......
> If I don't, I'm acting convinced......
>

yes, that post's crying to be cleaned up.

Applying Lacan's Mirror Stage directly to the text,
it seems to bounce off at an angle.

I think Lacan's treatment of paranoia, if I knew it
better, could be profitably applied to GR (just as
D&G's treatment of schizophrenia could be refracted
to illuminate better _Vineland_)

In matters of ego formation, though, and in preference
to most psychoanalytic theorists, I cleave more
to Nabokov's notions on "the magic of consciousness"
(quote from Brian Boyd, _Vladimir Nabokov, the Russian
Years_ p 45)

Nabokov's and Lacan's ideas have the notion in common,
which also seems true to me (I'm sure they are relieved (-;)
that notions of self are formed by encounters with others,
beloved ones according to Nabokov, while Lacan seeks
a more mechanistic interpretation allowing mirrors into the equation.
Deleuze brings steak to the picnic, however, when he
suggests that perhaps there is no outside to experience,
no "ideal self" but only a succession of experiences had
by no one in particular, and recommends "amor fati"

Dalley looks into the mirror as a young adult;
presumably her notion of self is in progress - perhaps
her growth into wisdom isn't excessively swift, this is
the girl who almost walked into a mirror at Smokefoot's -
The repetition of  "American" and "same" seems
to indicate some disappointment on her part ("You were
ekshpecting maybe Lessie?" GR)

The denigration of nation states is not necessarily implicit,
it's eqully likely that Dalley, lured by the quality of light, was
expecting to be transformed into an Italian girl, rather than
trying to transcend nationality...