Volume 40, Number 8 · April 22, 1993
Lost Illusions
By William J. McGrath
The Secret Ring: Freud's Inner Circle and the Politics of Psychoanalysis
by Phyllis Grosskurth
Addison-Wesley, 245 pp., $12.95 (paper)
The Diary of Sigmund Freud: 1929–1939, A Record of the Final Decade
translated, annotated, and with an introduction by Michael Molnar
Scribners/A Robert Stewart Book, 326 pp., $50.00
Toward the end of his life, Freud must surely have imagined at times that he had somehow wandered into his own real-life version of Karl Kraus's drama The Last Days of Mankind. During his final decades, nightmarish political developments, painful physical illness, and deep disappointments in his relations with his psychoanalytic followers all combined to produce in him a deepening sense of resignation. The popularity of such works as Civilization and its Discontents has made the somber tone of Freud's thought during his final years well known, but what is less widely appreciated is the stark contrast between this period and the bright hopes of his youth.
Review, 3783 words
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