The Words to Say It [Paperback]

Marie Cardinal (Author), Bruno Bettelheim (Introduction)

Product Details

• Paperback: 308 pages
• Publisher: Van Vactor & Goodheart; 1ST edition (September 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0941324095
• ISBN-13: 978-0941324090
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #180,469 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A journey in self-discovery, January 18, 2007

By 

L. Chinchilla (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Words to Say It (Paperback)

This book is one of the best novels I've ever read. Cardinal's struggle to find herself in the mysterious depths of the unconscious is not just a story about psychoanalysis, it's a book about the ordinary processes that occur in our minds when we experience things we cannot handle growing up. It's about forgetting and remembering. It's about making discoveries and letting things go. Reading her story will make you think about how fragile our understandings of ourselves really are. I admire this book not just for its honest and captivating prose. I think it accurately portrays some of the most valuable ideas behind Freud's psychoanalytic theory.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The fear of a child, January 12, 2008

By 

Luc REYNAERT (Beernem, Belgium) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Words to Say It (Paperback)

In this forceful and disturbing novel, a woman discovers slowly the real (psychic) reason of her illness: an irresistible continuing loss of blood.
During her psychoanalysis, she succeeds in demolishing the thick wall that separates her from the extremely painful truth and the origin of her disorder: the fear of a child. The story unveils masterly the reasons of this fear.

Marie Cardinal evocates fiercely her violent psychic battle with her unconscious in order to force it to reveal its secrets, her fear to (re)discover forgotten painful, but crucial, incidents or the psychic violence needed to open the doors of the subconscious.

Her book is also a profound meditation on the impact of a `colossal' religion on people's lives (interdiction of divorce) and on the female condition and female psychology.

A formidable and shocking book.
A must read.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "...a beautiful and terrifying story...", November 27, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Words to Say It (Paperback)

"...a beautiful and terrifying story in honor of all people.... Van Vactor and Goodheart's decision to publish Cardinal in an elegant translation opens the door to a world rich in language and thought that we should be grateful to share." --The Philadelphia Inquirer.

"...a profligate yet impeccably controlled work.... "...chilling set pieces are shrewdly paced to create primitive, almost horror-story suspense. "One apt work that kept occurring to me as I read was 'gorgeous.' ... Miss Cardinal bowls over her audience with dazzling verbal artistry and emotion-stirring tours de force." --The New York Times Book Review

"Words can be guides too, escape routes marked on tattered old maps, and here the novel and the analysis come together since both are journeys towards a language that is sane and shared, visibly free of the worst of the darkness." Michael Wood, The Sunday Times (London)