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Drawing inspiration from the myth of Telemachus, Recalcati interprets the discontent of the younger generation in the hypermodern society and the decline in the symbolic authority of the father. In the Odyssey, Telemachus is the son of Odysseus and his father abandons him to join the Trojan War. Telemachus looks to the sea for 20 years and waits for his father. Young princes overrun his father's house and plunder everything, rape the female servants, and seek to marry Odysseus' wife, Penelope. They behave like arrogant masters in a house that does not belong to them. Telemachus asks the people for help to save his land and undertakes a dangerous journey in the hope of finding a clue about his father. Eventually, Odysseus returns and the two regain their land with the help of each other and bring back justice. In this book, Recalcati speaks about an epoch in which the hypermodern human seems to have refused to be a child, and this is the root of our present problems.
According to the author, clinical symptoms such as drug addiction, panic, depression, pathological dependencies, anorexia, and bulimia suggest a profound crisis in the symbolic relationship between the father and the child and indicate the new discontent of civilization. Recalcati attributes these symptoms and discontent to the lack of intergenerational transmission of desire and considers them as screams in the night to be heard by the Other. In conditions where the symbolic authority of the father and the Law of the word are declined and the law is the Law of enjoyment, the hypermodern human wants to completely satisfy the urge to enjoy beyond desire. Recalcati sees the root of the contemporary discontent in the inability to form a bond with the Other. In this regard, he refers to Pasolini's film, Salò, and considers this terrifying drama as an instance of what Lacan calls jouissance mortelle or deadly enjoyment. This enjoyment, which is the same as the surplus jouissance of Lacan, does not respect any