Introduction

G. K. Chesterton was fascinated by closed spaces – into which there can be no entrance and out of which there can be no egress – and by the way a crime could, in these conditions, be committed. In the tale entitled ‘The invisible man’, an enigma is presented where it appears that nobody has entered or left the house in which the murder occurred. ‘Who is Nobody?’ is the implicit question formulated to himself by Father Brown, after reflecting that, if a lady says that ‘Nobody is listening to our telephone conversation’while a maid is in the room, she may not necessarily be lying. The answer might merely mean that there is ‘Nobody’ whom she would care about; of the ‘same social condition’, adds the Chestertonian priest maliciously and subversively. In the case of this crime there is nobody who could ever be considered responsible. The murderer, a postman, belongs to the invisible environment of everyday life. So we see that ‘Nobody’ is ‘Somebody’ who does not belong to the world of the person who is speaking – he does not count, he is invisible. However, he becomes visible when he is contemplated from a different point of view. It is not a question of seeing well or poorly; here we are more concerned about the conditions that allow something to become visible and somebody to become capable of seeing it.

Freud constructed a new theoretical object: the concept of the Unconscious and a new method for gaining access to this world. With this concept, an ‘invisible man’, an invisible object takes shape. Hysterics were considered as ‘liars’ until their truths became audible and the unconscious scene evident. After all, when Freud said that he had discovered something evident, namely infantile sexuality, he was pointing to this paradoxical phenomenon: We do not see what is so evidently there. Edgar Allan Poe in a masterful way showed us that the best way to hide a letter was to leave it where it could be seen.

This book deals with different kinds of ‘invisible’ object and ‘inau