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The Wolf Man's Magic Word: A Cryptonymy (Volume 37)
The Wolf Man's Magic Word reopens the examination of the "Wolf Man," a Russian emigre who was Freud's patient and who wrote his own memoirs. Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok's work is at once the account of the Wolf Man's psychological inventions, a reading of his dreams and symptoms, and a critique of basic Freudian notions.
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 29, 2025
bit of a wild ride this one. As a Deleuzoguattarian I must say I'm not the biggest fan of interpretation so I struggled at times to follow this book, and trust me this book is hard to follow from beginning to end. However with a bit of secondary research it's doable and it's a pretty enjoyable experience when at the end you feel like you properly have a grasp of what Abraham and Torok are talking about (I'm sure it'll be even more understandable when I read the Shell and the Kernel).
Derrida's foreword is probably the hardest part about this book funnily enough, especially for someone who isn't all too familiar with some of the terms introduced by this strand of psychoanalytic thought, but it's certainly incredibly helpful.
In many ways they remind me of Deleuze and Guattari and in others not so much at all and I'll explain why. Firstly I read this mostly as a critique of psychoanalysis or at least the beginning of one, one that still falls into the same perhaps limited barriers of psychoanalytic tradition but one that also radically rethinks it as a project. I got the impression that by including the figure of the analyst alongside the analysand it proposes something new that it doesn't quite develop fully here but lays some powerful groundwork for, especially in the Afterword. I especially enjoy how it plays around with language, specifically allosemes and synonyms within the dreams of the Wolf man as a way to reinterpret his trauma in a way Freud was never able to. The Crypt as a theoretical concept is especially useful in this sense and is really the key takeaway from this book. Effectively the wolf man had some trauma locked up in his Unconscious, forming a secondary Unconscious within him known as the crypt, a place where the trauma can exist and be incorporated into one's psyche and be also completely unknown. This of course opens up dream interpretation to a whole new array of possibilities as the crypt expresses itself through little hints within the languages the wolfman uses to describe his experiences, mostly rhymes, allosemes and synonyms. Thus the authors use the languages of English, German and Russian to decipher what is truly being said between the lines. And this all sounds a bit ridiculous when you explain it but after reading the book it ends up actually forming a fascinating jigsaw puzzle of the wolf man's trauma.
It's overall a bit of a slog to read after you get through the first part because it's all a game of translation and re-interpretation which can get confusing at times but once you read the last chapter it all connects together to form a nice whole which makes me excited to check out the Shell and the Kernel to see these concepts developed in their whole conceptual potential.
Overall I really enjoyed this and I'm glad I was recommended to read it.
Derrida's foreword is probably the hardest part about this book funnily enough, especially for someone who isn't all too familiar with some of the terms introduced by this strand of psychoanalytic thought, but it's certainly incredibly helpful.
In many ways they remind me of Deleuze and Guattari and in others not so much at all and I'll explain why. Firstly I read this mostly as a critique of psychoanalysis or at least the beginning of one, one that still falls into the same perhaps limited barriers of psychoanalytic tradition but one that also radically rethinks it as a project. I got the impression that by including the figure of the analyst alongside the analysand it proposes something new that it doesn't quite develop fully here but lays some powerful groundwork for, especially in the Afterword. I especially enjoy how it plays around with language, specifically allosemes and synonyms within the dreams of the Wolf man as a way to reinterpret his trauma in a way Freud was never able to. The Crypt as a theoretical concept is especially useful in this sense and is really the key takeaway from this book. Effectively the wolf man had some trauma locked up in his Unconscious, forming a secondary Unconscious within him known as the crypt, a place where the trauma can exist and be incorporated into one's psyche and be also completely unknown. This of course opens up dream interpretation to a whole new array of possibilities as the crypt expresses itself through little hints within the languages the wolfman uses to describe his experiences, mostly rhymes, allosemes and synonyms. Thus the authors use the languages of English, German and Russian to decipher what is truly being said between the lines. And this all sounds a bit ridiculous when you explain it but after reading the book it ends up actually forming a fascinating jigsaw puzzle of the wolf man's trauma.
It's overall a bit of a slog to read after you get through the first part because it's all a game of translation and re-interpretation which can get confusing at times but once you read the last chapter it all connects together to form a nice whole which makes me excited to check out the Shell and the Kernel to see these concepts developed in their whole conceptual potential.
Overall I really enjoyed this and I'm glad I was recommended to read it.
March 19, 2020
The Wolf Man's twisted, cryptic desire, bound in the play of cryptonymy, was to speak without saying it, to say it without speaking it, and thus to speak his secret while leaving it unsaid - that is to say, a secret.
And his fetish? The "shine on the nose" "Glanz auf der Nase" - or should it be said the "Blick auf der Nase", the "glance at the nose?" But what is this supposed to mean? What sort of cryptic sign, and play of signs, is this? As Abraham and Torok point out time and again, the Wolf Man's life, his story, and his fantasies are all bound up and unraveled multilingually - across Russian, German, and English (not to mention, with the analytic intercession of Abraham and Torok, of French). And what then might this signal out to us? Might the sign be right at the tip of our nose, staring us in the face, so to speak? Hidden, as all concealments must be, through appearing, but appearing otherwise, as other. What gets the Wolf Man off, yet without collapsing the crypt which constitutes his cryptic identity as the play of so many psychic figures or roles? What allows him to alleviate some of the pent up force of desire, without blowing the whole thing to pieces, giving it all away, giving the tell, so to speak? For he mustn't give up the act - without the act, his role(s), as Wolf Man, he is no one. What, then, of this "glance at the nose"?
This is the desirous release - to speak, cryptically, so as to tell without telling or giving the tell, and thus, having said it without saying it (for he cannot say it, though he must speak to it, of it), he casts a glance, a knowing glance, at the one who now knows - who knows the secret, but as secret. At the one who knows, perhaps without knowing. They are marked, scarred, by this cancerous secret which marks him - they share in the burden of this crypt, but by being locked out of it (and thus, ever outside, are they entombed in it).
The Wolf Man plays us all, suffers and delights through us all. A striking coup de théâtre, one might say, in a word. Striking, marking us, and the cryptic interplay of consciousness and the unconscious, the inside and the outside, of this death-in-life, this living-death. We owe Abraham and Torok a word of thanks, then. But what do we mean by this? And by the previous statement?
Another session, perhaps; another word. For now, we have said enough. There is always another word; something, the essential thing, always remains unsaid, avoided and voided, absent.
And his fetish? The "shine on the nose" "Glanz auf der Nase" - or should it be said the "Blick auf der Nase", the "glance at the nose?" But what is this supposed to mean? What sort of cryptic sign, and play of signs, is this? As Abraham and Torok point out time and again, the Wolf Man's life, his story, and his fantasies are all bound up and unraveled multilingually - across Russian, German, and English (not to mention, with the analytic intercession of Abraham and Torok, of French). And what then might this signal out to us? Might the sign be right at the tip of our nose, staring us in the face, so to speak? Hidden, as all concealments must be, through appearing, but appearing otherwise, as other. What gets the Wolf Man off, yet without collapsing the crypt which constitutes his cryptic identity as the play of so many psychic figures or roles? What allows him to alleviate some of the pent up force of desire, without blowing the whole thing to pieces, giving it all away, giving the tell, so to speak? For he mustn't give up the act - without the act, his role(s), as Wolf Man, he is no one. What, then, of this "glance at the nose"?
This is the desirous release - to speak, cryptically, so as to tell without telling or giving the tell, and thus, having said it without saying it (for he cannot say it, though he must speak to it, of it), he casts a glance, a knowing glance, at the one who now knows - who knows the secret, but as secret. At the one who knows, perhaps without knowing. They are marked, scarred, by this cancerous secret which marks him - they share in the burden of this crypt, but by being locked out of it (and thus, ever outside, are they entombed in it).
The Wolf Man plays us all, suffers and delights through us all. A striking coup de théâtre, one might say, in a word. Striking, marking us, and the cryptic interplay of consciousness and the unconscious, the inside and the outside, of this death-in-life, this living-death. We owe Abraham and Torok a word of thanks, then. But what do we mean by this? And by the previous statement?
Another session, perhaps; another word. For now, we have said enough. There is always another word; something, the essential thing, always remains unsaid, avoided and voided, absent.
July 15, 2020
I appreciated Derrida’s cryptic foreword. The book itself is quite dazzling and I cannot help connecting the notion of the crypt with ’collectivisation’ and myths; cryptomyths, perhaps, as a way of dealing with cultural trauma. I was particularly fond of the dynamic between introjection-incorporation in the process of mourning.
October 13, 2022
Riveting and magical. This will keep you on your toes (but don't let them touch)! Also, very creepy. What's Freud hiding....?
June 10, 2013
Startlingly, craftily, innovatively insane. Absolutely without cause, a brilliant exercise in the superfluities of psychoanalytic depth.
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November 15, 2023Simultaneously intriguing and exasperating (the latter in the best of ways); I'm going to have to write a full-blown essay on this one to figure out my feelings here.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews