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Freud: The Paris Notebooks
Book by Cohen, Matt
Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
4 people want to read
About the author
Matt Cohen
89 books10 followersMatt Cohen studied political economy at the University of Toronto, and taught political philosophy and religion at McMaster University in the late 1960s before publishing his first novel, Korsoniloff, in 1969.
His greatest popular success as a writer was his final novel, Elizabeth and After, which won the 1999 Governor General's Award for English-language Fiction only a few weeks before his death. He had been nominated twice previously, but had not won, in 1979 for The Sweet Second Summer of Kitty Malone and in 1997 for Last Seen.
A founding member of the Writers' Union of Canada, he served on the executive board for many years and as president in 1986. During his presidency the Writer's Union was finally able to persuade the government of Canada to form a commission and establish a Public Lending Right program. He also served on the Toronto Arts Council as chair of the Literary Division and was able to obtain increased funding for writers. In recognition of this work he was awarded a Toronto Arts Award and the Harbourfront Prize.
Cohen died after a battle with lung cancer. A Canadian literary award, the Matt Cohen Prize - In Celebration of a Writing Life, is presented in Cohen's memory by the Writer's Trust of Canada.
He also published a number of children's books under the pseudonym Teddy Jam. Cohen's authorship of the Teddy Jam books was not revealed until after his death. The Fishing Summer was also nominated for a Governor General's Award for children's literature in 1997, making Cohen one of the few writers ever to be nominated for Governor General's Awards in two different categories in the same year.
A film adaptation of his 1990 novel Emotional Arithmetic has been produced by Triptych films starring Max von Sydow, Christopher Plummer, Gabriel Byrne and Susan Sarandon. It was the closing Gala at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2007.
His greatest popular success as a writer was his final novel, Elizabeth and After, which won the 1999 Governor General's Award for English-language Fiction only a few weeks before his death. He had been nominated twice previously, but had not won, in 1979 for The Sweet Second Summer of Kitty Malone and in 1997 for Last Seen.
A founding member of the Writers' Union of Canada, he served on the executive board for many years and as president in 1986. During his presidency the Writer's Union was finally able to persuade the government of Canada to form a commission and establish a Public Lending Right program. He also served on the Toronto Arts Council as chair of the Literary Division and was able to obtain increased funding for writers. In recognition of this work he was awarded a Toronto Arts Award and the Harbourfront Prize.
Cohen died after a battle with lung cancer. A Canadian literary award, the Matt Cohen Prize - In Celebration of a Writing Life, is presented in Cohen's memory by the Writer's Trust of Canada.
He also published a number of children's books under the pseudonym Teddy Jam. Cohen's authorship of the Teddy Jam books was not revealed until after his death. The Fishing Summer was also nominated for a Governor General's Award for children's literature in 1997, making Cohen one of the few writers ever to be nominated for Governor General's Awards in two different categories in the same year.
A film adaptation of his 1990 novel Emotional Arithmetic has been produced by Triptych films starring Max von Sydow, Christopher Plummer, Gabriel Byrne and Susan Sarandon. It was the closing Gala at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2007.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 28, 2021
Creo que simplemente no es mi tipo de lectura, pues me pierde el interés al desconectar y dejar todo en solo pensamientos y muy pequeñas historias.
April 28, 2018
I am writing this review from my home in retirement beside a lake in western Quebec on April 28, 2018. It almost May. It is supposed to be a spring of sunshine, flowers and balmy temperatures. It isn’t. It is a real spring of a slow transition from a harsh winter to a brief summer. It is cold, windy and the lake is still covered with ice. This contrast between the ideal and the actual, the ostensible and the internal is the essence of Mett Cohen’s novel “Freud; the Paris Notebooks”.
Paris provides the background for three major characters – Robert Freud – the fictional psychiatrist nephew of the great Sigmund Freud, George Hinton Trevanien, an American reporter and book publisher and Maurice a Canadian wiring his first novel. These people are of Paris but not the Paris of the ideal with its endless sunshine and beautiful architecture. They are of the real Paris with its interminable rains and 3-star hotels. The novel consists of three sections which describe the separate but interlinked lives of each of them. Each section describes the contrast between the external appearance and the inner doubts of each of the characters. Each The novel is an exploration of the common feeling that one is unworthy. That despite external acceptance, one is at base inadequate, and that inadequacy will inevitably be discovered.
The novel is psychologically percipient. It is written in a engaging slightly ironic tone. It has insight and is accessible without being obvious. Its humour draws the reader into the lives of these characters. They are not pasteboard stereotypes created to further a theme. They interact like real people and their inner dialogue of insecurity and doubt feels genuine
Paris provides the background for three major characters – Robert Freud – the fictional psychiatrist nephew of the great Sigmund Freud, George Hinton Trevanien, an American reporter and book publisher and Maurice a Canadian wiring his first novel. These people are of Paris but not the Paris of the ideal with its endless sunshine and beautiful architecture. They are of the real Paris with its interminable rains and 3-star hotels. The novel consists of three sections which describe the separate but interlinked lives of each of them. Each section describes the contrast between the external appearance and the inner doubts of each of the characters. Each The novel is an exploration of the common feeling that one is unworthy. That despite external acceptance, one is at base inadequate, and that inadequacy will inevitably be discovered.
The novel is psychologically percipient. It is written in a engaging slightly ironic tone. It has insight and is accessible without being obvious. Its humour draws the reader into the lives of these characters. They are not pasteboard stereotypes created to further a theme. They interact like real people and their inner dialogue of insecurity and doubt feels genuine
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews