BOO KS
695
NOTHING NEW ABOUT FREUD
LETTERS OF SIGMUND FREUD. Selected and edited by Ernst
l.
Freud. Translated by Tania and James Stern. Basic Books. $7.50.
I wish I could say these letters add to our knowledge of
Freud. They do not. They do not make us see him in a new light.
All
the material presented here is familiar:
it
was used, and cited,
by Ernest Jones in the three volumes of his study of the life and
work of Freud. Even the photographs we get from the family
album are those that we have looked at before. I think Papa
would not have approved of this project.
This volume is also put together in an odd, uneven fashion.
The first half consists of about one hundred letters which Freud
wrote to Martha Bernays during the four and a half years of
their engagement (1882-1886). The second half is a miscellany
of highlights from the correspondence over some fifty years (1887-
1939 ) between marriage and death. In other words, only the first
part
is a record in depth; yet, to be honest, even here there is
nothing, or very little, that we haven't read before-in Jones, who
studied this record of Freud's engagement carefully and with great
insight. The letters confirm the story and meaning he extracted
from them.
Thus we learn again about the fluctuations in Freud's moods :
his shyness and awkwardness, his jealous flare-ups and quick re–
morse, his fears, depressions, and self-doubt. And we encounter
again the well-known assets of his character: his courage and
self-confidence, his tenacity and patience, his spirit of defiance,
his incredible capacity for work, and above all his unconditional
commitment to Martha-all fluctuations in mood and fortunes
to the contrary notwithstanding. "How bold one gets when one is
sure of being loved!" And how "wonderful is the institution
[of nature] that every man finds a girl who sees in him the per–
fection of manhood, whereas in reality he is a miserable devil
living by the grace of God's patience." It's nice to read these
things in Freud's own words, but there is nothing here that will
come as a surprise to anybody who has read his Jones. And I have
nothing to add but a few private footnotes.
