Object-Choice: (All You Need Is Love ...)

by Klaus Theweleit

Whom do we choose when we fall in love? How do we make the love-object into what we want? These are questions which only became important at the end of the nineteenth century, as Freud began to formulate a new discipline which would be called psycholanalysis. Freud argues Klaus Theweleit, was the first theoretician of the new boy versus girl in the world series of love.

Theweleit looks at a number of Alfred Hitchcock and Alma Reville; the triangle of Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger and Elfriede Heidegger; Jung and Sabina Spierlrein. But the key figure is Freud himself. Who would, who could Freud choose? As it happened, Freud proposed to Martha Bernays. The 1,500 letters of Freud’s courtship became something like the first psychoanalysis; without knowing it, Martha Bernays became an analytic-instance.

But Object-Choice is not only a study of the founder of psychoanalysis, it is also an illuminating lexicon of love in the twentieth century. Freud is accompanied here by Jimi Hendrix, the Kinks and the Velvet Underground. Like Theweleits’s Male Fantasies , this is a collage book, mixing auto-biography, theory and pop culture, and always haunted by history, above all the history of Nazism.

As an epilogue, Theweleit brings Freud back to the scene of his courtship, and the Beatles back to Hamburg, in an exploration of that city’s Wandsbek district, once home to an important Jewish community. His comments on the transformations and destruction that Wandsbek has endured form an elegiac tribute to German Jewry, and a powerful conclusion to this remarkable book.

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology

124 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Klaus Theweleit is a German sociologist and writer.

Theweleit studied German studies and English studies in Kiel and Freiburg. From 1969-1972, he worked as a freelancer for a public radio station (Südwestfunk).

His book Männerphantasien (1977); translated as Male Fantasies (1987), a study of the fascist consciousness in general and the bodily experience of these former soldiers in particular, easily detected in their hatefilled, near-illiterate books, was well received and much discussed.

Theweleit writes in a non orthodox, highly personal and associative style. His book are heavily illustrated with cartoons, advertisements, engravings, posters and artwork.

Theweleit lives in Freiburg, he teaches in Germany, the United States, Switzerland, and Austria. He was a lecturer at the Institute of Sociology at the University of Freiburg and lecturer at the film academy in Berlin. From 1998 until retirement he was a professor for "art and theory" at the Staatlichen Akademie für Bildende Künste, the art college, at Karlsruhe.

Source: Wikipedia

Reviews

[Franziska Nyffenegger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aus dem Regal gekramt, jetzt wo Theweleit wegen der Neuauflage seiner "Männerphanatasien" wieder im Gespräch ist. - Ein Lieblingsbuch, vielfach gelesen, insbesondere die Passage über das richtige Finden des falschen Partners. Für mich in den 1990er Jahren ein Augenöffner und immer noch überaus anregend.

[Berend Vendel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really loved the short biography of Freud's own libidinal struggles. Apart from that, it's too fragmentary to stand on it's own. Very interesting interpretations though.

[Jonny Lawrence · Rating 2 out of 5]

In some ways frustrating. There are some fascinating ideas — and when he is narrating them through Freud’s life, Thewelweit’s arguments really sing. But — and maybe it is because I am not that familiar with modern German literature? — I find the choppy nature of the prose irritating. His constant stylistic interruptions can become tiresome and confusing as you plod through a book that is more parts than a concrete whole.

Some good ideas in particular around p54!