Iser, Lacan and the hermeneutics of literary text as a filling of white spaces An application in Thomas Landolfi and Georges Perec

In the first part of this article the compares the way in whichIser and Lacan conceive ofthe forms taken by the words of a work, specifically in relationship to its direct user, the reader. In describing the interaction between the text and the reader Iser writes that it’s nature is«reciprocally limiting and amplifying between the explicit and the implicit, between rivelation and concealment» (The Act of Reading).A similar vision of the reader’s role is present also in Lacan’s reflection on the differences between the «empty word» and «the full Word». The heart of his analysis is the identification that youand Iare necessarily linked through the word: the latter establishes its value only allowing the former the possibility to answer. Therefore, the reader plays a role which could be defined as that of a psychoanalyst: he puts himself in the position of listener and interpreter of the word. In some cases, the act of writing is an attempt to make the word inter-personal, in other cases the psychoanalyst-reader has to fill the blanks of the word with meaning.Finally,in the second part of the article, using the instruments provided by Lacan and Iser, the author attempts a comparative analysis of Tommaso Landolfi’s diaries and Georges Perec’spseudo-autobiographic novel W out le souvenir d’enfance. In these two works, the borders between the roles of author, character and reader are vague and the writing is divided into two parts: one is more direct; the other, instead, is an attempt of telling the whitewhich accompanies the act of remembering and writing and which, through this method, the critic can try to fill