Abstract
In certain cases, the feeling of loss can be the cause of the loss itself, such as an idealized situation whose non-realization gives rise to a lack, and where the present invents a loss in relation to an ideal it has invented for itself.
The confrontation of two authors, James Joyce and Théodore Reinach, allows us both to experience this sense of loss and to repair the present loss (i.e., to rediscover what has never been lost). Indeed, through their work on Antiquity, they both did something to avoid a disappearance, either through the fictional novel Ulysses, given as a reading program to rediscover theOdyssey, or through the reconstitution of a dreamed reality thanks to the Villa Kérylos (commissioned by Reinach from the architect Pontremoli in 1902). Cross-referencing the two approaches reveals two gaps : the chapter " Wandering Rocks " lacks the tangibility ; the villa lacks the vital " élan ". The intersection of the two would allow us to imagine Wandering Rooms.
This imaginative contribution, obtained by crossing two losses, could constitute a new form of comparative literature. Restoration could be complemented by instauration, the creation of gaps, by inventing encounters that open up new fictional possibilities.
