486
PARTISAN REVIEW
BOOKS
CONTEXTUALIZING FREUD
FREUD: A LIFE FOR OUR TIME. By
Peter
Gay. W.W.
Norton.
$25.00.
Reviewers of this brilliant book who accept psycho–
analysis, such as Richard Wollheim, appreciate Mr. Gay's abil–
ity "to conjure up a scene, a panorama, a story line by using
some telling detail" of Freud's life and work. But detractors of
psychoanalysis, such as Thomas Szasz (writing in
The Wall Street
journal,)
have used the book to savage Freud and the Freudians
once again, to compare them to "our gurus and televangelists
with whom American analysts must now compete." Proponents
of feminist and deconstructionist criticism, such as
Jill
Johnston,
who believe, for instance, in Mary Balmary's speculations about
Freud's father's "hidden fault" (which, if analyzed, allegedly
would make Freudians abandon the Oedipus complex) tend to
disparage Gay's approach as old-fashioned. Gay's immediate col–
leagues, the historians, vote in line with their own methodologi–
cal prejudices. Thus Peter Loewenberg, who favors the sort of
psychohistory Gay employs, is bound to praise him. William
McGrath, whose own book stresses the influence of Freud's intel–
lectual milieu, inevitably cannot but chide Gay for focusing on
Freud rather than on his environment until it "crashed in" on
him. Still, Gay does weave in, for instance, a section on the First
World War he calls "The End of Europe" and some pages on the
Weimar Republic. He also provides an overview of the accepted
role of women, of the conditions influencing the American
Freudians' decisions against lay analysis, and of the circum–
stances that allowed for the Nazi takeover. In sum, the only thing
all the reviewers agree upon is the fact that Freud was a great
man.
Gay's book is impressive because it presents theoretical com–
plexities simply without simplifying them and explains them in
