ABSTRACT
In The Perfect Crime (1995), Jean Baudrillard argued that the murder of reality brought about by the development of the new technologies has given rise to a “new victim order” characterised by violence and mourning, general indifference, profound disaffection and a phobic relationship with an artificial other, idealised by hatred. This definition of the technological society provides the cultural background for Tom McCarthy’s third novel, C (2010). Situated between 1898 (when Marconi started his experiments in telecommunication) and 1922 (the year the BBC was founded), the novel narrates the life quest of Serge Carrefax, alongside the development of the technological society. Marked by the suicide of his beloved sister Sophie, Serge suffers from a trauma of loss that associates him with Freud’s Wolf-Man and Orpheus. The novel challenges the traditional reliance on psychological realism of liberal humanism by depriving Serge of any psychological depth, empathy or capacity for affect. For this reason, C has been considered an emblematic example of post-humanist fiction. However, at the centre of Serge’s mournful emotional paralysis lies an unspeakable family secret whose perception by readers provides an unexpected psychological ground for his behaviour, casting a heroic stance on his strenuous attempts to derealise the world.
