Abstract
Is the ghost a figuration of the hiatus, of de hole in which the word is released from its material referent and thus from its realistic effect and remains floating somehow as a mere sign? The operation of the sign, the relationship between signified and signifier evokes the spectral and also that (the thing) that it can potentially become or designate. The ghost is the figure and the measure of the distance between the sign and the referent. This paper seeks to explore the moment of interruption in which words and things overlap only to the extent of a certain distance, as reading notes of some texts that, from Saussure to Mark Fisher, allow us to find formulations of that distance to read their effects on the invention of realism in Aira's work and specially in his novel Ghosts.
Keywords:
sign; ghost; realism; novel; César Aira