Marie Bonaparte: A Life

by Célia Bertin

Relying heavily on Marie Bonaparte's own writings, including her copybooks, letters, memoirs, and stories, Celia Bertin has constructed an interesting and serviceable biography of one of Freud's most loyal disciples. She was active both in rescuing Jews from the Nazis and in establishing psychoanalysis in France.

Marie Bonaparte descended from the Bonapartes on one side and from the developers of Monte Carlo and its casinos on the other; she was married to a member of Europe's leading royal family. Despite these advantages, she seems to have lived a life, particularly in childhood, that was emotionally barren, with a relative lack of warmth, social interaction, and parental concern.

Troubled by her difficulty in achieving sexual fulfillment, Marie engaged in research. In 1924 she published her theory of "frigidity." Having measured the distance between the clitoris and the vagina in 243 women, she concluded after analysing their sexual history that the distance between these two organs was critical for the ability to reach orgasm.

Genres: Biography

286 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1982

Reviews

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

princess marie bonaparte. marie, the admirable. born 1882. her childhood—cut-off; spent years (minute by minute) holed-up in a stone mansion with her grandmother, princess pierre, and father, prince roland. aside from seaside “holidays”—as isolated as her own home—marie attended no social gatherings of any sort until her early twenties. excluding governesses, had no friends. how does one overcome the death of a mother? marie’s died shortly after her birth—tuberculoses. tho servants whispered: poisoned? princess pierre, prince roland? no matter. marie remained fearful of ‘consumption’ her entire life. brief moments of bliss: when marie is sixteen, she meets a man with black hair and blue eyes and a pointed beard. almost twice her age, the man coquettes with finesse—walks through the garden, kisses behind the curtains, gushy letters that, upon his “urgent” request, are “to be burned” after reading. one afternoon he is so bold as to ask marie for a lock of her hair; dutifully, she agrees. proof in hand—he blackmails her for 200,000.

marie’s childhood—and subsequent marriage—reminded me often of anna kavan’s early novels. the hope (however short-lived) that marriage will be a way out. remember vividly—how heartbroken i was, really—when i first read kavan’s let me alone: “Anna began to think seriously about Matthew Kavan. Perhaps she really had made a mistake in not marrying him. At any rate it would be an adventure...an escape from the horrible empty rush of Blue Hills social existence...and surely with him she would have had some sort of an independence.”

marie’s husband prince george of greece was emotionally and physically distant. certain implications were clear to almost everyone but marie: george was only happy if his uncle waldemar was near. kavan’s words are again apt: “It was repulsive to her, his assumption of understanding, sympathetic intimacy when she knew only too well the seas of the flat incomprehension that flowed between them.” early in their courtship, george had endeared himself to marie with stories of his sorrow and loneliness; however, when marie shared her own feelings, he remained unresponsive. the loss of her virginity followed suit. from marie’s diaries: “you took me that night in a short, brutal gesture, as if forcing yourself, and apologized, “I hate it as much as you do. But we must do it if we want children.”

after a child was conceived, sex ceased. marie pursued other men—each lover failing to satisfy her sexually. ever unsure of her desirability, marie internalized her inability to orgasm, developing her own theory of female frigidity. by the time she began her famous analysis with freud, she had conducted her clitoral research. after measuring the distance between the clitoris and the vagina in 243 women, she concluded that women with short distances achieved orgasm easily during intercourse while women with greater distances did not. recently, she had undergone an unsuccessful procedure performed by dr. joseph halban to move her clitoris closer to her vagina.

in her 1924 article entitled Considerations on the Anatomical Causes of Fidgety in Women she writes, “There are three attitudes towards the problem of female frigidity. Men are not really interested; ardent women despise frigid women; frigid women console themselves for their misery by attributing their affliction to the whole feminine sex.”

when people write about marie they say “product of her time.” for sure: marie echoed frued in that she believed the vaginal orgasm was superior. but marie’s insights are often startling: “But when they happen to love an egoist, who has no thought for the woman, their situation becomes dramatic. They are reduced either to chronic deception, which leads to nervous disorders, or to masturbation which is always psychically unsatisfactory, or to the search of a more attentive lover.” marie tried all three. her epic search for the “vaginal orgasm” could be read as having nothing at all to do with the orgasm, but feeling it, at the same time, with someone else. in that sense, her contribution to women’s psychology is immense.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first became aware of Marie Bonaparte when reading the book The life and works of Edgar Allan Poe : a psycho-analytic interpretation that was written by Marie. I was so impressed by her logical thought process and analytical ability (though I confess I am not a 100% advocate of Freudian theory) I found her analysis interesting and quite enlightening in understanding Poe's fascination with the death of beautiful young women that I wanted to learn more about her life.
"If anyone writes the story of my life, it should be called The Last Bonaparte, for I am the last. My cousins of the imperial line are only Napoléons. - Marie Bonaparte" (p.3)

I found the following quote from Marie Bonaparte quite illuminating concerning her thoughts about biographies.
"Biographers and psychologists will reply that a biography that is as real and human as possible will not detract from the reputation of the dead. Through the medium of the written word they will at least live on in the reflection on paper of the thoughts of their minds and their feelings in their once beating hearts .They will be far more vividly represented than in the pages of some frigid and false idealization. Biography indeed has another and higher function than the mere satisfaction of an idle and or unhealthy curiosity. For those who understand—and they are the only people who count—biography reaching out beyond the uncomprehending thousands, becomes a means of communing with a wider humanity . . . . In order for these portraits should be faithful likenesses it is however essential that the subjects' most lovable characteristics, although they may be considered by some as the least desirable, should not be removed for what is supposed to be respect but is in reality sacrilege. And these are the very characteristics that are usually preserved in intimate papers such as letters or diaries, which are so often threatened by the devoted persons who inherit them." — Marie Bonaparte Defense of Biography, International Journal of Psychoanalysis, VOL. XX (1939), p. 239 I believe that the author of this biography Célia Bertin has upheld Marie Bonaparte's wishes for her own biography.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

A biography of Princess Marie of Greece, born Princess Marie Bonaparte. Princess Marie was married to Prince George of Greece, an uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. In this biography, the psychological nature of the Princess is examined. The Princess was extremely interested in human sexuality and spent a great portion of her life studying the subject. A friend and patient of Freud, the Princess took up her own psychiatric practice, seeing patients while she sat in bed. It's a sad look at her life, while she was learning all she could from Freud, her children were suffering from her absence. Princess Marie made it clear to them that her happiness and research came first.

It's an interesting book, yet one that can get long and drawn out.

[Kay Baird]

In 1953 the Freudian therapist Marie Bonaparte, in her book Female Sexuality, advocated surgery to move the clitoris closer to the vagina. In "The Myth of the Female Orgasm" Anne Koedt relates how Bonaparte had "discovered a strange connection between the non-frigid woman and the location of the clitoris near the vagina." Koedt goes on to quote Bonaparte: "It then occurred to me that where, in certain women, this gap was excessive, and clitoral fixation obdurate, a clitoral-vaginal reconciliation might be effected by surgical means, which would then benefit the normal erotic function. Professor Halban, of Vienna, as much a biologist as surgeon, became interested in the problem and worked out a simple operative technique. In this, the suspensory ligament of the clitoris was severed and the clitoris secured to the underlying structures, thus fixing it in a lower position, with eventual reduction of the labia minora." (Female Sexuality, p. 148) Apparently Bonaparte herself underwent the procedure, and it did not work the way she expected. I

[Martha Zavala · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es un texto interesante y con mucha información histórica , a partir del capítulo 7 narra su encuentro con Freud y el Psicoanalisis
Su aporte no se reduce a la publicación de las cartas de Freud a Fless también apoya el análisis infantil y el trabajo analítico por no médicos
Describe las luchas en la sociedad Psicoanalitica francesa y sus diferencias con Lacan, quien retoma en La carta robada una parte de lo que ella trabaja sobre Poe
Anima a leer sus trabajos originales que son difíciles de conseguir

[Stefania · Rating 4 out of 5]

And interesting biography about the "last Bonaparte" a closer look at her lonely childhood and traveled mind/life.

[David Buhler · Rating 5 out of 5]

First rate!