FRAGMENT OF A GREAT CONFESSION

Not too fragmentary, this ""confession"" runs to close to 600 pages and is actually a psychoanalytic autobiography. Opening with a study Theodor Reik made some twenty years ago which was based on his absorption in Goethe as a young man, he applies the analytic method to the unknown, unsolved motivation behind Goethe's abandonment of Friederike, whom he loved. This leads to an identification with Reik's own life, his sexual relationship with his wife- who became ill, and later with another woman, and the various manifestations of the unconscious which took place.... The fullblown and digressive sentimentality which has characterized all of Reik's books is once more a part of this which is chiefly valid as personal self-expression and holds little professional interest.