ABSTRACT
The puns Jacques Lacan produced following James Joyce were all liberties taken with lalangue, liberties taken with spelling, but limited by the aims of the saying and always motivated by a reason. The meaning is consistent with his thesis and limits all jouissance to the letter, in contrast to what eventually happens in Joyce, where the letter controls the lightning flashes of possible meaning, that is, meaning reduced to enigma. In July 1907, Joyce left; Sigmund Freud arrived in September. For 'Jim', leaving Rome was the escape from eight trying months in a city he abhorred. In brief, it would make a nice thesis to say that Rome inherited the relationship of the son to the Father: for Freud, a respectful emulation which makes the son excel, for Joyce an insolent rejection which 'sends packing the whale of an imposture'. A singular 'sint'home rule' which made him into a heretic, a double heretic of the Church and of Ireland.
