Raul Moncayo

I read this book near the beginning of my research into Lacan, and since I'd read [b:The Sinthome: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XXIII|29277160|The Sinthome The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XXIII|Jacques Lacan|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1472826670s/29277160.jpg|2900394] - the object of Moncayo's commentary - I thought I could handle it with no problems.

This book, after all, markets itself as a "reading companion" and "commentary" to Lacan's seminar, recently translated into English, but that title is kind of misleading. For while it is true that Moncayo, after some introductory remarks and a mildly interesting meditation on the development of Lacan's ideas about psychosis in the twenty years between Seminar III and XXIII, Moncayo structures each chapter around a "commentary" on the sessions from Seminar XIII, usually taking on two lectures at a time.

The trouble here is that Moncayo makes no genuine attempt at commentary, at least not the type that illuminates the original text. Instead, what he provides is an extremely complicated interpretation of these lectures that is full of jargon and involves numerous intellectual somersaults. Worst of all, though, is that there is little attempt to ground this "commentary" in a close reading of Lacan's actual text. Moncayo parses almost everything into the most arcane Lacanese with almost no quotations from the original text.

This was my impression on a first reading of Moncayo's text, and it hasn't improved much with a second reading. Yes, I could spend hours and hours unraveling the intricacies of his commentary, but I really don't see the point in acquainting myself with the derivative work of a disciple rather than the original material. A commentary should illuminate and clarify a text, not obscure it further.… (mais)