henry james freud janet malcolm jeffrey

Henry James, Freud, Janet Malcolm, Jeffrey Masson, Peter Swales

Daisy Miller (1879) by Henry James, In the Freud Archives (1983) by

Janet Malcolm

I love Janet Malcolm's writing. It's clear and beautiful, like early

Joan Didion, before Didion got all sour. On the same day I read Daisy

Miller and then ITFA. From ITFA: "There are a few among us --

psychoanalysts have encountered them -- who are blessed or cursed with

a strange imperviousness to the unpleasantness of self-knowledge."

Daisy Miller was one of them.

Malcolm herself invokes James's The Aspern Papers -- her story is a

real-life Aspern Papers.

In the Freud Archives is an intellectual romp. (The story in brief --

Jeffrey Masson contended that Freud changed his view of his patients'

experiences of sexual abuse as children from memories to fantasies for

self-serving reasons. The Freudian establishment of the time closed

ranks against him.) I remember reading the story when it was published

in the New Yorker in the 80's and being fascinated by Peter Swales,

the self-taught Freud historian. Today, he would have a blog and email

-- in the 70's and 80's, he did it all with Xeroxing and letters. The

issues he and Masson and others were arguing over were serious issues.

But Masson was naive to think his book (The Assault on Truth, 1984)

would doom psychoanalysis. Freud had great insights into our inner

lives. Our unconscious and fantasy lives are important. But child

abuse really does exist. Sadly, it abounds. Reality does matter, but