The Secret Artist: A Close Reading of Sigmund Freud

Rating:
Summary: Modernity's debt to Freud
Review: Early in this terrific book the versatile British scholar Lesley Chamberlain writes of the young Sigmund Freud that what he "wanted and already expected was success," and that his writings "radiate the confidence and ambition and talent that would make it possible; but also the complexity that would not make it easy." This is a complex story and a scholarly work that presupposes the reader's positive regard for Freud (if not as a scientist, as an artist) and then aims to greatly enlarge upon it.

Freud the analyst is revealed as a "secret artist," not furtively artistic but, rather, unconsciously artistic. He was, she writes, a pioneer and an utterly original thinker and writer who contributed amply to our present-day notions of the forms and possibilities of literature. In her view Freud virtually "fathered the creative writing class" by legitimizing not only subject matter but writing forms that had hitherto been considered unsuitable for public consumption. From Freud we inherited new literary forms for self-revelation, self-discovery, and confession.

Chamberlain shows how Freud devised "the "double-well," an "artistic form with a moral component," a new way to tell a story in which "a dream sits on the divide." His stories about his patients have more in common with contemporary novellas than the medical case histories of their time, extending at times "a typical Freudian invitation to the reader, to pull the [...] thread and see where it leads."

Chamberlain examines Freud positively without minimizing his shortcomings. "Freud was not a model of tolerance by today's standards, " she writes, and cites his views on homosexuality, women's sexuality (on which she says he was "underinformed"). Nonetheless, Chamberlain writes that Freud "gave us a more relaxed attitude toward sex, freed from values of God and the soul, and gender, and divorced from insensitive stereotypes." This is, then, no small thing.

Chamberlain has accomplished an unusual and stimulating combination of biography, literary analysis, intelligent conjecture, and thrilling narrative. Her writing is crystal-clear, she tackles complicated things, and explains them wonderfully well. Freud's wide-ranging creative and personal relationships to philosophy, the visual arts, poetry, nature, music are explored. Along with a good index and bibliography, here are over a hundred pages of fluid and impossible-to-resist (because so interesting and energetic) "Notes, Arguments, and Explanations."

Well worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: For students of Freud's pioneering work
Review: The Secret Artist: A Close Reading Of Sigmund Freud by journalist and educator Lesley Chamberlain is a deep and perceptive study of the written works of Sigmund Freud, considered to be the founder of modern psychotherapy. In an effort to help readers better understand the mind of Freud, The Secret Artist closely dissects his writings with intense attention to detail. A thoughtful, scholarly, erudite, informative work, The Secret Artist is very highly recommended reading for students of Freud's pioneering work, as well as the non-specialist general reader with an interest in the history of psychotherapy.

Rating:
Summary: The Secret Irony
Review: This book is a failure. While Chamberlain attempts to create both an authentic biograhpy and insightful literary criticism, she succeeds at neither. Her central premise relies upon the notion that Freud was really an artist at heart, who invented a new artistic practice to complement these repressed desires. While this idea on its own is not altogether flawed, the argument is marred by Chamberlain's constant cries to be heard as an intelligent and unconventional author. Chamberlain pretensiously reminds the reader of the apparent ingenuity and unorthodox nature of her claim every 7 pages; a claim mind you, that is as unprovable as it is unsupportable. There is no additional perspective gained from this reading. Shocking fact: their is no clear boundary between science and art! This book illustrates controversy for controversy's sake and is its own best example of "pen envy." Freud or Chamberlain: who really wishes to be The Secret Artist? Don't waste your time with this one.

Rating:
Summary: The Secret Irony
Review: This book is a failure. While Chamberlain attempts to create both an authentic biograhpy and insightful literary criticism, she succeeds at neither. Her central premise relies upon the notion that Freud was really an artist at heart, who invented a new artistic practice to complement these repressed desires. While this idea on its own is not altogether flawed, the argument is marred by Chamberlain's constant cries to be heard as an intelligent and unconventional author. Chamberlain pretensiously reminds the reader of the apparent ingenuity and unorthodox nature of her claim every 7 pages; a claim mind you, that is as unprovable as it is unsupportable. There is no additional perspective gained from this reading. Shocking fact: their is no clear boundary between science and art! This book illustrates controversy for controversy's sake and is its own best example of "pen envy." Freud or Chamberlain: who really wishes to be The Secret Artist? Don't waste your time with this one.