Customer Reviews

Jung: A Biography

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Bair's biography of Jung is a well-written but ultimately rather disappointing book, not up to the high standard Bair set for herself in her earlier biographies of Beckett and de Beauvoir. Her treatment here is so replete with detail about Jung's life that it sometimes seems slightly obsessive; the opening chapter on Jung's grandparents and parents, for example, offers way more information than the typical reader is likely to want or need. But there's little effort in all the minutiae to offer analysis or even description of Jung's thought. At best, Bair throws in a short paragraph every other chapter or so that summarily announces a central Jungian concept. But even then, the paragraph is frequently a quotation, laden with jargon that hasn't been explained. This seems strange, given that Jung himself insisted that inner life was constitutive of his outer one. The upshot is that the reader who knows little about Jung's psychology will walk away from the book with his/her ignorance pretty much intact. This is frustrating.

One thing that the book does accomplish is to give the reader a good idea of the terrible jockeying for intellectual authority that consumed the Viennese Freudian school as well as the Zurich Jungian school. The life of the mind, at least in the context of early twentieth-century psychoanalysis, comes across as cutthroat and down-and-dirty, with both Freud and Jung seeming pretty shameful. Here's where good discussions of the intellectual issues at stake would've been helpful. In their absence, the major players in this story come across as pretty cynical.

It might be expected that Bair, the author of two feminist biographies (Anais Nin and Simone de Beauvoir) would have an interesting take on the women in Carl Jung's life. And it is these portraits of Jung's mother, the "strange and mysterious Emilie, his wife, Emma, patient and mistress Toni Wolff, therapist and OSS spy, Mary Bancroft , and his American patient and publisher, Mary Mellon, that Bair excels. In addition, Bair has mined the archives to give a fair-minded appraisal of Jung's complex and compromising relation to the Nazis and, above all, what it meant for Jung to be Swiss. Jung was a complicated man and this is a compelling book. This will be the definite biography for years to come.

Some have knocked this latest bio of C.G. Jung for not explicating his philosophy. But that is precisely one of its strengths! There are innumerable books that try to explain Jung's thought. Bair's focus is on Jung's life, told objectively, with particular attention to the many controversies about him that persist to this day. She doesn't flinch from such tough issues as his rumored womanizing or his alleged support for the Nazis. (On which point she reveals, among other surprises, that Jung actually worked as a special agent for the U.S. in Switzerland during WWII, reporting to Allen Dulles, future head of the CIA.) Unlike such writers as Richard Noll in "The Jung Cult," her goal isn't to vilify her subject. Ultimately she pictures a man who was far from perfect but deserved his place among the great thinkers. A must for anyone interested in Jung.

C.G. Jung spoke about his number one and number two personalites, one corresponding to his physical/outer life experiences and the other to his psychological/inner life experiences. Like some of the editorial reviews above, I found Bair's biography to be sorely lacking in coverage and understanding of this second and most important aspect of Jung's life and work. The following quote he used in Memories, Dreams, Reflections to describe someone else could just as easily be applied in this case:

"Without the psyche there would be neither knowledge nor insight. Yet nothing was ever said about the psyche. Everywhere it was tacitly taken for granted, and even when someone mentioned it...there was no real knowledge of it but only philosophical speculation which might just as easily take one turn as another. I could make neither head nor tail of this curious observation" (MDR,98).

Look up "psyche" in the index of Bair's biography and you'll make the following unbelievable discovery: it's not there. She has written a biography on psychology and somehow left out the psyche, its most essential aspect.

After reading Bair, I picked up Sonu Shamdasani's "Jung Stripped Bare By His Biographers, Even." Rather than containing a heavy dose of vitriol, it is a very level-headed overview of biographical writing in general as well as of many of the bios on Jung up to the current one under discussion. Shamdasani proceeds to attack this latest biography from his carefully laid foundations. Highly erudite and equally highly readable.

In the case that you do decide to read Bair's book, I would label Shamdasani's book a "must-read" as well. Some tout Bair's as an effective means of counteracting the transference that so often surrounds Jung, making him out to be a god, but in so doing she leaves out half the picture of the man--arguably the most important half. On top of this, Shamdasani raises some serious questions about Bair's treatment of and scholarship contained within her many pages on that which Jung himself claimed to be his less important half.

I picked up Deirdre Bair's book "Jung: A Biography" because of my long held interest in 20th century European history, particularly the halcyon years before World War I. Certainly Carl Gustav Jung made a significant impact on European intellectual culture over is long life (1875-1961). Our very language is enriched by terms derived from his work: "archetype", "collective unconscious", "introvert" and "anima". The impact of psychoanalysis extended so far beyond the clinical interpretation and treatment of mental disorders that by 1935 "Politicians were being psychoanalyzed by reporters in the daily newspapers, the literary world was entranced with the possibilities the new science offered for individual creativity, and critics in every field were busy applying and misapplying its doctrines to many disparate genres and disciplines".

Deirdre Bair's book is masterful historical biography. Anyone with a serious interest in the evolution of psychological theory, treatment, and philosophy will benefit from this work. She explains the man and the people around him, his peers - particularly his relationship with Sigmund Freud -- , his travels, and professional activities. The book is monumentally detailed as evidenced by the 200 pages of notes and is a great source for understanding the publication and translation issues in bringing his major works to publication. The World War II period was particularly interesting, when Jung who was suspected as a Swiss German of being a Nazi sympathizer, actually was providing analysis of the German leadership to Allen Dulles.

I agree with Louis Jaffe, that this a great contribution to an
understanding of Jung. Here is no 'saint', but in an strange and
wonderful way, the man emerges despite all the shadows, as the rich, profound and complex man we have come to know. Bair starts
out rather unsure of her subject's "likeableness", yet by the end of the story, she grows in respect for this great man, despite her intense objectivity (unlike the review of the NewYork Times, or Publishers Weekly, which says more about the reviewrs' agenda, than it does about Jung!) In this regard, she is a master of fairness, incredible research and new information; and even his very-'Swissness', (which is not always positive) sheds new light on his psychic backgound.
Like all circles around agreat personality, the infighting is
legendary, and gives a fascinating insiders view. Her detail is
amazing, and sometimes threatens to overwhelm the reader, but those who persist will be amply rewarded.

This book is obviously long and detailed, but Ms. Bair loses the forest for the trees. She gives far too much detail about personal matters, family tree stuff, and the like. What I wanted was a lot more about Jung's mind and how it evolved. I wanted to read a lot more about how he arrived at his intellectual break with Freud, his development of specific concepts, like "collective unconscious," "archetypes," and such. Perhaps this book should have consisted of two volumes, in which Jung's psychology is more adequately described.

One other thing that troubled me a bit was her use of "centered around" throughout the book. It's perhaps a minor quibble, but every time I came across it, I was stopped in my tracks.

Although exhaustingly and thoroughly researched, this biography ultimately disappoints the reader. The book provides way more detail than anyone needs to know about the circle of therapists and patients around Jung. Yet, it doesn't provide even the most elementary description of his basic philosophy. Someone who is not familiar with Jung's ideas will learn nothing from the book, although those who are already knowledgeable about and enamored with his philosophy should enjoy it.

I have been reading Jung since the 1980's. The Jungian Institute is just down the street from my office. I used to talk to Mrs. Lori Zeller all the time-a shrewd, to the point, fun and caring individual. Her husband was Max Zeller. Both studied with Jung.

I have talked to people at the Institute about it and one response hit me-"it covers all the questions. I may not agree but it hits the questions."

What struck me was there was a new comprehensiveness. For example the struggle over how to publish Memories, Dreams, and Reflections. I never knew about the Red Book until now. I laughed at the episode of the Harvard Degree. His remarks of how Americans and the British differ were on target.

It's a good guide for the background behind each of his important books.
A good framework. I think it explained well the controversy that accompanies Jung.

This is a much needed biography that supplies a new dimension from which to read Jung's books. To me it's comprehensive. It's rich.

I have just read two other psychological biographies-one on Otto Rank-Acts of Will by Lieberman, and one on Harry Stack Sullivan. I have also take Progof's Journal Workshop. All these people are interrelated.
Funny, Deidre Bair wrote a biography of Anais Nin-one of Otto Rank's girlfriends. Progof asked Jung about Rank three times and Jung wouldn't answer. The index is a great reference.

My thesis is that you can't really understand a person and their ideas until you read a good biography of the person. This is that biography.
A great jumping off point. This is a biography with a lot of new information breaching a lot of the Swiss penchant for privacy.

Finally.

Ted Humphreville-Los Angeles

Having been a Jung devotee since my college days in the 70s, I was enthralled to pick up the latest entry on the subject of the great Master. However, I must say to D. Bair what the emperor said to Mozart in the movie, Amadeus; TOO MANY NOTES. In this case, footnotes. There are 202 PAGES of them. One chapter had 171, another 168. My only wish here is that the writer herself would be forced to read the book, having to flip time and time and time again, from the text to the footnotes. If this had been a PHD dissertation, then maybe one could get away with the neverending notes, but to the general reader and buyer, it was overkill. And even sadder was that you HAD to read them, because occasionally one would be vital to ones understanding. In addition, this was a book sadly in need of a proofreader and an editor. Typos, misinformation, sentences that were incomplete or made no sense; all of these abounded in the book. But most important of ALL, and this is a CONDEMNATION of the whole publishing industry: IF THE BOOK IS PUBLISHED IN ENGLISH THEN YOU MUST PRINT IN ENGLISH ALL QUOTES IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE !! Which this book doesnt do at all! Now having said all of that, I did plod through to the end and I was glad I did, because the bottom line is I do know more now about the man that I did before hand and aint that what reading is all about.