Katja Behling, Martha Freud: A Biography

What was it like to be Sigmund Freud's wife?

Sigmund Freud with his wife, Martha Bernays Freud (center), and her sister, Minna Bernays (left) in 1929.

Jenny Diski reviews Katja Behling's Martha Freud: A Biography (translated by R.D.V. Glasgow) in the London Review of Books:

In the membership roll of the worshipful guild of enabling wives, the name of Martha Freud ranks with the greatest: Mrs Noah, Mrs Darwin, Mrs Marx, Mrs Joyce, Mrs Nabokov, Mrs Clinton, and their honorary fellows, Mr Woolf and Mr Cookson. Wives, of either sex, are what keep the universe orderly and quiet enough for the great to think their thoughts, complete their travels, write their books and change the world. Martha Freud was a paragon among wives. There is nothing more liberating from domestic drudgery and the guilt that comes of avoiding it than having a cleaning lady who loves cleaning, a child-carer who’s content with child-care, a homebody who wants nothing more than to be at home. And Martha Freud was all those things. Quite why she was those things is something that her husband might have been the very person to investigate, but Freud was nobody’s fool and knew when to leave well alone in the murkier regions of his personal life – especially that dark continent in his mind concerning women. [Read More]

Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• On the Couch: Freud and the New Yorker
• David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method
• Sigmund Freud: The Reluctant Philosopher
• Freud and Global Economic Collapse
• Ballard: 'Freud was a born storyteller'
• Freud and Yeats on Wikipedia
• Sigmund Freud and Cocaine
• Freud and Love
• Open Yale Courses: Theories of Literature
• Mary Gabriel, Love and Capital

The South Bank Show: J. G. Ballard

Documentary first broadcast in 2006

Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• Writers: J. G. Ballard

Roberto Bolaño on Literature, Kafka and the Abyss

An interview with Roberto Bolaño

Roberto Bolaño

Cynthia Haven's excellent blog, The Book Haven, hosted on the Stanford University website, has posted an extract from an interview with the late Chilean poet and novelist Roberto Bolaño (link via Daniel Medin):

Which authors would you number among your precursors? Borges? Cortázar? Nicanor Parra? Neruda? Kafka? In Tres you write: “I dreamt that Earth was finished. And the only human being to contemplate the end was Franz Kafka. In heaven, the Titans were fighting to the death. From a wrought-iron seat in Central Park, Kafka was watching the world burn.”

I never liked Neruda. At any rate, I would never call him my one of precursors. Anyone who was capable of writing odes to Stalin while shutting his eyes to the Stalinist terror doesn’t deserve my respect. Borges, Cortázar, Sábato, Bioy Casares, Nicanor Parra: yes, I’m fond of them. Obviously I’ve read all of their books. I had some problems with Kafka, whom I consider the greatest writer of the twentieth century. It wasn’t that I hadn’t discovered his humor; there’s plenty of that in his books. Heaps. But his humor was so highly taut that I couldn’t bear it. That’s something that never happened to me with Musil or Döblin or Hesse. Not with Lichtenberg either, an author I read frequently who fortifies me without fail.

Musil, Döblin, Hesse wrote from the rim of the abyss. And that is commendable, since almost nobody wagers to write from there. But Kafka writes from out of the abyss itself. To be more precise: as he’s falling. When I finally understood that those had been the stakes, I began to read Kafka from a different perspective. Now I can read him with a certain composure and even laugh thereby. Though no one with a book by Kafka in his hands can remain composed for very long. [Read More]

Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• Roberto Bolaño on Lost Books

Fifty Years of A Clockwork Orange

The International Anthony Burgess Foundation celebrates landmark anniversary

Fifty Years of A Clockwork Orange: A Multi-Disciplinary Conference

28 June to 1 July 2012

To mark the fiftieth anniversary of Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange (1962), the International Anthony Burgess Foundation is holding a multi-disciplinary conference to examine its profound and enduring impact on literature, film, music, theatre and society.

Call for Papers

The conference will assess the history and reception of A Clockwork Orange in all its manifestations. Papers of 20-30 minutes in length are invited on any aspect of A Clockwork Orange and its legacy. Possible topics might include the linguistic and/or musical aspects of Burgess’s novel; invented languages; the film versions directed by Andy Warhol and Stanley Kubrick; the stage adaptations by John Godber, Anthony Burgess and Ron Daniels; translations into other languages and media; the history of book design; the political and Cold War contexts of the book and films; and the continuing influence of Burgess’s text on popular music, fashion, or other aspects of youth culture and counter-culture.

The conference will be supported by the UK premiere of Burgess’s Clockwork Orange music, a new Burgess/Kubrick exhibition at the John Rylands Library (in collaboration with the Stanley Kubrick Archive), and a film season at the Cornerhouse cinema.

If you would like to submit a paper, please send an abstract of 200-300 words to director@anthonyburgess.org

The closing date for submissions is 31 March 2012.

Burgess Foundation PhD bursary

Call for applications

Applications are invited for a PhD bursary, to support research into the literature or music of Anthony Burgess. The bursary will support a scholar beginning his or her studies in the academic year 2012-13.

Areas of research might include Anthony Burgess and his contemporaries, or a critical investigation into one of the areas in which Burgess published (e.g. dystopia, historical fiction, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Joyce, literary journalism, literary biography, or translation).

Applicants should submit a detailed proposal and two academic references (in English). To be eligible, applicants should already have been offered a place on an accredited university PhD programme.

For further information please write to director@anthonyburgess.org.

The closing date for applications is 31 March 2012.

Website

The International Anthony Burgess Foundation

Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• 20 Most Iconic Book Cover Designs?
• Anthony Burgess: Unpublished Work Discovered
• Anthony Burgess on Finnegans Wake
• 'A House of Life': Anthony Burgess on James Joyce
• Writers' Autographs
• Stanley Kubrick's Still Photography

Seán Sheehan, Žižek: A Guide for the Perplexed

A new title from Continuum

Seán Sheehan, Žižek: A Guide for the Perplexed

Another interesting new title from Continuum: 'One of the most widely-read thinkers writing today, Slavoj Žižek’s work can be both thrilling and perplexing in equal measure. Žižek: A Guide for the Perplexed is the most up-to-date guide available for readers struggling to master the ideas of this hugely influential thinker. Unpacking the philosophical references that fill Žižek’s writings, the book explores his influences, including Lacan, Kant, Hegel and Marx. From there, a chapter on 'Reading Žižek' guides the reader through the ways that he applies these core theoretical concepts in key texts like Tarrying With the Negative, The Ticklish Subject and The Parrallax View and in his books about popular culture like Looking Awry and Enjoy Your Symptom! Major secondary writings and films featuring Žižek are also covered.' The Continuum website includes an online preview of the book, and endorsements from Donagh Brennan, Editor of the Irish Left Review [Read More]

Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• Slavoj Žižek on Philosophy
• Alain Badiou on Slavoj Žižek
• Alain Badiou on discovering Beckett
• Alain Badiou on Krapp's Last Tape
• Slavoj Žižek on Ridley Scott's Alien
• Slavoj Žižek on life, happiness and Hegel
• Slavoj Žižek on Samuel Beckett