THE LIFE AND WORK OF SIGMUND FREUD: VOL. I. (428 pp.)—Ernest Jones—Basic Books ($6.75).
The late famed Sigmund Freud was a 28-year-old nobody when he wrote to his fiancee: "I have just carried out one resolution which one group of people . . . will feel acutely . . . my biographers. I have destroyed all my diaries . . . Let the biographers chafe; we won't make it too easy for them. Let each one believe he is right in his 'Conception of the Development of the Hero': even now I enjoy the thought of how they will all go astray."
It is Biographer Ernest Jones's earnest hope that this "interesting fantasy" may "prove to have been exaggerated," and his hope is justified. When young Freud poked precocious fun at his biographers, he had not so much as glimpsed the theory that was to revolutionize much of 20th century thinking. It had not occurred to young Dr. Freud that 13 years later (1897) he would discover psychoanalysis by psychoanalyzing himself, and that this self-analysis would force him to resurrect memories and facts of greater importance than those he destroyed at 28. Nor could he imagine that a day would come when his fantasy of greatness would have turned so real that he would stand in need of a friendly, well-informed biographer.
Britain's Dr. Ernest Jones is just the right man for the job. For years he was one of Freud's closest friends (TIME, Aug. 10), and the Freud family has turned over to him a trove of unpublished letters and confidential information. The present volume is only the first of a projected three, but it is enough to suggest that the completed work will be a masterpiece of contemporary biography.
Psychologist Jones describes his task as "dauntingly stupendous." What makes it so, apart from the mass of research involved, is the special relation between Hero Freud and Biographer Jones. As analyst, Disciple Jones has to analyze the master of analysis. As biographer he must try to be objective about a man toward whom he has every reason to be subjective. Anyone who lacked Jones's imperturbable patience and sense of humor would collapse into hysterical symptoms at the thought of such a business.
Feeling of a Conqueror. Looking into Freud's childhood is like looking at psychoanalysis studying its reflection in a mirror. All the principal Freudian units are, quite "unconsciously," making their first grand march through the streets of Wonderland—with lusty Private Libido (infantile sexuality) beating his big drum, and General Repression sternly rebuking Major Oedipus (for jealousy of father coupled with excessive love of mother). And yet an air of medieval superstition mingles with this up-to-date atmosphere. Sigmund was "born in a caul," i.e., with part of his prenatal envelope still swaddling him, and an old woman, straight out of folklore, turned up to assure the proud mother that she had brought "a great man into the world." A wandering poet confidently predicted that the "little blackamoor" (as mother Freud called her jet-haired "Sigi") would "probably become a [cabinet] minister."