Suicide

This might go along with what others have said about Anders's objet petit a and his self-destructive behavior.

Anders's arguably suicidal behavior—evidence of his thanatos—gets him shot in the head, and the bullet piercing his brain awakes a memory of when he momentarily obtained his objet petit a in the form of the "pure unexpectedness and . . . music" of the misspoken They is (268). This is interesting. Suicidal actions help Anders reach what he's longing for. They also give him relief from his hatred and anger at the people around him, from the "boredom and dread" (267) that come with his job. This makes me wonder whether the text is suggesting that thanatos (if it's saying anything at all about the subject) is not entirely negative or maybe that it has a sort of balancing force other than eros. I mean, we learn about a number of unpleasant, though some pleasant, things that he could have remembered but doesn't. This not remembering could be a little of the mercy he had requested for the suicidal woman who had leaped "to her death from the building opposite his own just days after his daughter was born" (267). And when the bullet leaves "the troubled skull behind, dragging its comet's tail of memory and hope and talent and love" (268), maybe those things are all that are in him at the end. Maybe I'm just being generous.