ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a description and clarification of the fear of death from both a psychoanalytic (mainly Freudian) as well as from a philosophical (mainly Heideggerian) perspective. The psychoanalyst and trauma researcher R.J. Lifton describes an ability to transcend catastrophic and death anxieties thanks to what he has termed ‘symbolic immortality’ (1973). I explain and demonstrate how symbolic immortality was revealed to be one of the key transcendental platforms offered by literature. To this I have added ‘symbolic timelessness’ and ‘symbolic placelessness’ as two phantasies gained from the reading experience. Once more I turn to Semprún’s Literature or Life in which symbolic immortality is illustrated. Even when confronted with the most tangible and cruel faces of death and murderous intent, we see how Semprún can still turn to literature and with it transcend beyond the horrific situation and acquire the capacity to hold and cherish internal (and eternal) qualities such as a sense of meaning, self-dignity, moral ethics, friendship, love and even beauty. Assisted by Sartre’s The Words ([1964] 1981), I show how reading also serves us in our more daily struggles against finitude and separations.
