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{{BSZ}}This is how one should approach Odradek, one of [[Kafka]]'s key achievements:1<ref>[[Franz Kafka]], "The Cares of a [[Family]] Man," The [[Complete]] Stories, New York: Shocken Books, 1986.</ref>

Some say the [[word ]] Odradek is of Slavonic origin, and try to account for it on that basis. [[Others ]] again believe it to be of [[German ]] origin, only influenced by Slavonic. The uncertainty of both [[interpretations ]] allows one to assume with justice that neither is accurate, especially as neither of [[them ]] provides an intelligent [[meaning ]] of the word...

Odradek is thus simply what Lacan, in his Seminar XI and in his seminal écrit "Positions de l'inconscient,"2 <ref>Jacques Lacan, "Les positions de l'inconscient," Écrits, Paris: Seuil, 1966.</ref> developed as lamella: libido as an organ, the inhuman-human "undead" organ without a body, the mythical pre-subjective "undead" life-substance, or, rather, the remainder of the Life-Substance which has escaped the symbolic colonization, the horrible palpitation of the "acephal" drive which persists beyond ordinary death, nomadic, outside the scope of paternal authority, with no fixed domicile. The choice underlying Kafka's story is thus Lacan's le père ou pire, "the father or worse": Odradek is "the worst" as an alternative to the father.

==Source==* [[Odradek as a Political Category]]. ''[[Lacanian]] Ink''. Volume 24/25. Spring. pp. 136-153. <http://www.lacan.com/frameXXIV7.htm>.  [[Category:Articles by Slavoj Žižek]][[Category:Works]]