Readers with an interest in the history of science—and with a taste for the dark side of scholarship—will find this...
Revealing analysis of the man who made the work of Sigmund Freud accessible to readers in English.
Ernest Jones, suggests seasoned biographer Maddox (Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, 2002, etc.), was fortunate to have found psychoanalysis; otherwise, he might have remained a Harlow Street surgeon or doctor, for which he had a good mind but no real inclination. He may also have found it easier to disguise himself in the arcana of analysis, for very early in his medical career he was charged with behaving indecently toward mentally handicapped adolescent patients. He was acquitted, but his life, by Maddox’s account, was dogged by unseemly and strange incidents, possibly even criminal ones. One such mystery was the death of his first wife, without the benefit of autopsy; Maddox notes that Jones’s explanation that “a wartime diet low in sugar had made his wife susceptible to chloroform poisoning” is unconvincing, adding that even Freud himself sensed that something was amiss. Jones had by this time been Freud’s champion and representative for several years, first among a group of peers who deemed themselves “paladins” defending the true church of Freud against its many critics. The knightly circle soon collapsed through infighting, and Jones’s own politicking had its role in what would be a Hobbesian war within the psychoanalytic profession; still, Freud recognized the value Jones brought as one of the few non-Jewish members of his inner circle. Nonetheless, with the rise of Nazism, all forms of Freudian thought were tarred as non-Aryan perversions, and it was Jones—who, among other things, introduced terms such as id, cathexis and repression into English—who rescued Freud from Nazi Vienna, at considerable personal risk.
Readers with an interest in the history of science—and with a taste for the dark side of scholarship—will find this irresistible.Pub Date: March 30, 2007
ISBN: 0-306-81555-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Da Capo
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2007
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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