A Life of Jung

by Ronald Hayman

Overview

"[M]eticulously researched...judicious....intelligently illuminates the private life Jung deliberately veiled in shadow."—New York Times Book Review

Carl Jung was one of the world's most influential psychoanalysts. With the exception of Freud, who chose him as the first president of the International Psychoanalytic Association, no psychologist has achieved more. Previous biographers have either made Jung an idol or condemned him for his failings. Ronald Hayman neither ignores Jung's faults nor exaggerates them in investigating the most crucial paradoxes surrounding this enigmatic figure. Hailed by Anthony Storr as "the best biography of Jung," Hayman's work is "all the more effective for its detached tone that perfectly puts in proportion Jung's cruel, brilliant and crazy schemes" (The Times [London]). Impeccably researched and written with notable objectivity, A Life of Jung offers a rare insight into how Jung's revolutionary ideas grew out of his own extraordinary experiences. "Compelling....Hayman captures...the extraordinary charisma of his subject."—Newsday "Likely to become the standard biography of the revolutionary psychoanalyst."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393323221
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	06/17/2002
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	562
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Ronald Hayman has authored numerous internationally acclaimed biographies, including works on Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, Marcel Proust, Sylvia Plath, and Thomas Mann. He lives in London.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgements	ix
	Chronology	xi
1	Glimpses of God
1	Bursting Out	3
2	A Cannibal Jesus	6
3	Such a Wicked Thought	17
4	The Geology of the Person	30
5	Magnetic Passes	40
6	Lunatic Asylum	52
7	Wearing a Cardboard Collar	62
8	Moon People	72
2	Crown Prince
9	Lusty Stallion	81
10	Ardent Freudian	96
11	Lakeside House	110
12	Our Psychoanalytical Flag	118
13	Sleepless Nights	131
14	Enough Women	141
15	Giving His Throne Away	155
3	Alarums
16	Creative Illness	173
17	The Woman Inside Me	182
18	Preaching to the Dead	190
19	The Importance of Going Astray	203
4	Excursions
20	Cooking in the Rain	217
21	There Is Greatness in You	233
22	Tangible Silence	249
23	Dark-faced Men	256
24	Negotiating with Heaven	271
25	His Magic Wand	282
26	The Purity of Divine Dirt	298
27	Hitler Is a Medicine Man	308
28	This Jewish Gospel	317
29	The Thieves Were Redeemers	331
30	The Incompetent Mind of the Masses	339
5	The Grail and the Bomb
31	The German Psychosis	357
32	Trinity + Devil = Quaternity	366
33	What Happens After Death	379
34	Call Me C.G.	388
35	Jesus and Satan Are Brothers	402
36	She Was a Queen	419
37	Mythification and Auntification	434
38	When You Come to the Other Side	445
	Notes	451
	Bibliography	503
	Index	511

Editorial Reviews

Engrossing. . . . Hayman's masterful life of this awesome megalomaniac pivots on a chilling paradox.

Independent on Sunday

Compelling....Hayman captures...the extraordinary charisma of his subject.

Newsday

[M]eticulously researched...judicious....intelligently illuminates the private life Jung deliberately veiled in shadow.

New York Times Book Review

[This] judicious new biography paints a darker, more complicated picture of Jung.

Mail on Sunday

The best biography of Jung.

Anthony Storr

In this examination of the life of Carl Jung, biographer Hayman neither ignores his faults nor exaggerates them in investigating the most crucial questions surrounding him. Drawing upon a substantial amount of unpublished material not used by previous biographers, he explores the many facets of this enigmatic, charismatic figure who initiated groundbreaking ideas yet trusted only his impulses, who had a cultivated mind but was, in the words of Thomas Mann, always a half-Nazi. The book contains a detailed chronology and a section of b&w photographs. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

A polished, highly professional biography of Jung that covers all the personal and intellectual bases, as well as demystifying his more rarified theories, from Ronald Hayman . Although this is very much a linear biography, the author works the neat trick of bringing the older Jung to bear as self-analyst on his youthful self. Working from both Jung's bulky correspondence and his scholarly writings (particularly Memories, Dreams, and Reflections), Hayman works up through Jung's difficult childhood years, his important association with Freud, and onward to his independent work on myth and the collective unconscious. Jung's intellectual substance is ably conveyed and given new context, with his letters (many of them here published for the first time) used by the author to help reveal the genesis of Jung's ideas. Certainly, Jung's work on symbols and myth, the stories at the root of our consciousness, primordial images and archetypes, synchronicity, and the role of amplification in interpretation make fascinating reading, but what feels so vital here is the delineation of Jung's milieu at home and abroad. There he is in Munich, squabbling over psychoanalytic bragging rights with the Viennese School as the National Socialists rise to power; there are his lovers, who somehow never compromised the rock of his domestic life; and there is his voracious appetite for theological discussion. It is a very well-choreographed piece, as Hayman sets the stage, dives into the fray (where colossal personalities were vying over the human psyche), then surfaces again to remind readers that Jung was a fellow with his own set of foibles, missteps, and crazy notions (check outsome of Jung's sentiments onJudaism). Likely to become the standard biography of the revolutionary psychoanalyst. (16 pp. photos, not seen)

Kirkus Reviews