THIRD WHEEL FOR ELIZABETH RUDINESCO’S TRIUMPH

Abstract

Probably already by the relatability of the traditional plot elements – the title and the denouement – the story «The Third Extra» pretends to a special reader, if not capable of risk, then at least inquisitive, ready to live a small space of text at least for the purpose of waiting for the novelty of the story under the provocatively formulaic words of the title cartouche. And such a reader will be rewarded with a tangible reward even for the sophisticated law of double-finality familiar in contemporary literature. Despite the fact that the decoding of the title in the last lines of the text is in the style of the retreat «from a day of direct sight to a day of avoidance.» This definition of reality by the famous philosopher and psychoanalyst Elisabeth Rudinesco could be applied to characterize in the story the fate of the man of comfort, who subordinates life to the cult of reason (simple) necessity, where there is no place for passions or affects, where everything is meant to be an alternative to the Freudian metaphor of man – not a master in his own home, simply because financial wealth allows this man to «unfroyd» multiply the number of buildings of which he is the owner. But it is in the light of Rudinesco’s theory that the man of comfort in The Third Man appears as a subject who has suffered an indescribable total defeat. The comfort person in the book may fail to observe the interdependence of the unproblematic nature of her living in society and her reproductive death, caused by sluggish, depleting cells that have a purpose in prolonging life in children. She may not notice that the discovery by science of the mystery of the beginning of life and the banalized already practice of IVF is accompanied by a periodic rebellion of the irrational, the unconscious and the superconscious, so that a reasonable plan is provided to cross the random encounter of germ cells. But in the eyes of the reader, the catastrophe of mere repose will appear more terrible than the catastrophe of explosive events. And the reader will experience the need to get out of the comfort zone of the characters, who refuse NOT planned to the same physically weak third child, as the inhabitants of the ancient Greek city of Kamiros went out into the desert behind the protective walls, to feel real life among the dangers and risks, to experience in the desert unpredictable own complexity as a challenge to the simplicity of the certainly understandable.