The Freud Journal

by Lou Andreas-Salomé

BRAND NEW softcover, Quartet Encounters 1987, clean text, solid binding, NO remainders NOT ex-library slight shelfwear / storage-wear; WE SHIP FAST. Carefully packed and quickly sent. 201601813 Lou Salome offers an inside look into the early Freudian circle through her correspondence with Adler, her personal impressions of the group and her love of life. Close to Nietzsche and Rilke she dazzles with her beauty and wit. We recommend selecting Priority Mail wherever available. (No shipping to Mexico, Brazil or Italy.) 3

211 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1958

About the author

Lou Andreas-Salomé (née Louise von Salomé or Luíza Gustavovna Salomé) was born in St. Petersburg, Russia to parents of French Huguenot and northern German descent. Her diverse intellectual interests led to friendships with an astounding array of luminaries, including Nietzsche, Wagner, Freud, and Rilke.

Andreas-Salomé was a prolific author, writing several plays, essays and more than a dozen novels. It was Andreas-Salome who began calling Rilke "Rainer" instead of "René." Her Hymn to Life so deeply impressed Nietzsche that he was moved to set it to music. She was one of the first female psychoanalysts (a career she maintained until a year before her death) and also one of the first women to write on female sexuality. Her book, Lebensrückblick, written toward the end of her life, is based on her memories as a liberated woman.

Reviews

[Bob Wake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lou Andreas-Salomé (1861-1937), a trailblazing feminist psychoanalyst and writer, interacted with one iconic personality after another. Freud was entranced by her beauty and intellect. Nietzsche was head over heels in love with her. Rainer Maria Rilke was her lover. The Freud Journal, a slim, even breezy, 200-pager that covers a wealth of cultural history, pairs nicely with the 2016 German film, Lou Andreas-Salomé: The Audacity to be Free, currently streaming on Tubi.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

My familiarity with European literature extends mostly to British and Irish literature. Thus, while I had read extensively about Lou Andreas-Salome's lengthy friendship with Sigmund and Anna Freud, I never realized what an honor she was bestowing on the Vienna Psychoanalytical Society by attending their events. She was the most renowned German-language novelist of the time! While Freud is often portrayed as a deeply conservative figure, his respectful relationship with the liberated Andreas-Salome is revealing. He encouraged his daughter Anna's friendship with Andreas-Salome despite the older woman's scandalous affairs and radical views about sexuality.
Written during the years 1912-1913, Lou Andreas-Salome's journal discusses her participation in Freud's Wednesday evening study group and Saturday evening lectures. Her journal entries on psychoanalytical concepts are very thoughtful and provocative. What I like best, admittedly, are her personal anecdotes of encounters with Freud--the one-on-one conversations in his office (she was never analyzed), the occasions he walked her back to her hotel after these late-night talks, the times he gave her roses. She was extremely important to the fledgling psychoanalytic movement, and Freud likewise was significant in her life. "As I set out home with his roses," she says, "I rejoiced that I met with him on my journey and was permitted to experience him--as the turning-point of my life."

[Octavia Cade · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unutterably tedious twaddle. No wonder they call this pseudoscience.

Look, I don't know anything about psychoanalysis. I admit it. I picked this up, thinking "Oh, a journal by a woman who studied with Freud, this might be interesting" and it was very much not. This is not your average journal. This is academic recapping, and even her reports of the constant low-level bitching between practitioners is not enough to inject a sense of life and motion into the prose. Which is a shame, as when the author's not waffling on about what sounds like absolute rubbish, her prose is lucid and entertaining. Unfortunately, ninety-five percent of this is her brain on psychoanalysis, and it is unconvincing woolliness all the way through. I don't understand what she's on about... which wouldn't be a problem, necessarily, except I'm not convinced any of them understand it either. They sound like people convinced of their own bullshit more than anything else, and there's so much here that is clearly claptrap (albeit I at least am writing with the benefit of hindsight).

I am fully prepared to read wrong or confusing things so long as the prose is entertaining. To my great regret, this is a translation. I wish it were not. The opportunity for someone - anyone! - to encourage Andreas-Salomé to take her fascination with human sexuality and reflect on the multiple meanings of the word "turgid" would be too great to ignore.

Never again.

[Marco Sán Sán]

Esta mujer es realeza. Maravillosa la comprensión del presente de Salomé, las descripciones que hace de Freud, Rilke, Breuer, Jung, etc, son profundas aunque sin distanciamiento, sus observaciones son tan sensibles y formales, una combinación extraña, deliciosa. Sus notas, tan apretadas, tan profundas, textos pequeños pero rebosantes, quedo maravillado por esta mujer.

[Sheziss · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF página 74 de 206.

Me gustaría ser capaz, pero no puedo terminarlo. Tenía tantas ganas de que me gustara esta autora, pero para mí se va a quedar en el tópico de "la mujer de...".