Scopes Monkey Trial

聖誕節讀了兩部書，一部寫Freud揚名美國，一部寫Social Darwinism/Eugenics（Dennis Sewell: The Political Gene - How Darwin's Ideas Changed Politics）

兩部均提及我從前未聞的Scopes Monkey Trial。覺得要好好學習一下，於是在臉書誠徵網上找得到的好文章。

- Wikipedia: Scopes Trial

- Wikipedia: Inherit the Wind (1960 film)

- PBS American Experience: Monkey Trial


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Dennis Sewell在書中對上世紀Eugenics，Social Darwinism和課堂上創造/進化之爭（包括Scopes Monkey Trial）都有詳盡講述，但他的宗教和輕視進化論背景令他的立論很偏頗（書中後半部分尤其明顯），我覺得不能盲信他的一家之言。

順帶一提，Freud, Murder, and Fame之所以也提到Scopes Monkey Trial，主要因為前一年的世紀兇殺案Leopold & Loeb Trial（首次引入精神分析為被告辯護），也是由明星辯護律師Clarence Darrow「出戰」。

- Wikipedia: Clarence Darrow

佛洛伊德揚名美國

剛讀了一部研究佛洛伊德（Sigmund Freud）何時與因何在美國成為家傳戶曉名字的電子書。

文筆和結構雖都不太理想，但內容紮實，讀後獲益不少。其中尤有啟發的是Anna O.治療個案來龍去脈的新近研究發現，和上世紀20年代轟動全美的Leopold & Loeb trial首次引入精神分析為被告辯護，令這門學說從小圈子進入大社會。

- Todd C. Riniolo: Freud, Murder, and Fame - Lessons in Psychology's Fascinating History

- Wikipedia: Anna O.
- Wikipedia: Leopold and Loeb

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這些年來讀過一定數量關於Psychoanalysis的書和長文。我對Freud這個人尤感興趣：
- 曾堯角落 Label Search：Freud

另，讀以Freud為主要角色的小說很過癮：
- 曾堯角落：Novels in which Freud appears as a major character
- 曾堯角落：Flat and convoluted: The Interpretation of Murder （這兇殺小說以佛洛伊德1909年唯一一次過大海到美國講學為背景）

跟Freud有關的電影我倒是一部都沒看過。或許會看A Dangerous Method（太座讀了原著）：

吳佳璇 張愛玲的精神分析

（第一篇） 張愛玲滿是跳蚤的晚年華服

（第二篇） 張愛玲的身心症與文學夢

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另，今早也讀了另外一則關於（佛洛伊德式）精神分析的訪問。草間彌生（Yayoi Kusama）一生受精神病困擾。她談到，60年代末，正籌劃一場音樂劇時，舊病復發，於是去看心理醫師：

I was planning a Broadway musical ... but then, in late 1969, I became sick again. So I saw a doctor, who said that it was nothing. The psychiatrists I saw were in my opinion a mess, wth their heads muddied and brainwashed by Freud. For me, there were useless clinically. I frequented them, but my illness remained as debilitating as ever. It was a waste of time. They were antiquated Freudians. All I needed from them was a piece of information about how to cure myself, which they never gave me. As they asked, I recounted to them, 'My mother did this to me, did that to me.' The more I talked, the more haunting the original impression became.

My memory became clearer and clearer, larger and larger, and I felt worse and worse.

(from Yayoi Kusama, Phaidon Press)

End of the World News II

Anybody still remember this novel, The End of the World News, by Anthony Burgess? I read it years ago. Now I have totally forgotten the story line or whether it was a good read. But I still remember why I bought and read it.

Because I am a sucker for novels with Sigmund Freud as a character！

- JTBlog: Novels in which Freud appears as a major character
- JTBlog: Flat and convoluted: The Interpretation of Murder

The dying Freud hustled out of Vienna into exile. A Broadway musical on the subject of Trotsky in New York. The last throes of the planet Earth in AD 2000. These are all items on The End of the World News.

觀讀聽 09-9-20

D. M. Thomas Bleak Hotel

D. M. Thomas的The White Hotel（Wikipedia | NYT書評）於1981年推出後不久，出版商已在書的封底注明小說即將拍成電影（即已售出電影版權）。可惜，這“即將”至今已28年，而且極可能永不實現。期間究竟出現了甚麼波折？Bleak Hotel自有詳盡披露。

兜兜轉轉四分一世紀，到了2006年，Susan Potter接手穿針引線，The White Hotel電影開拍似乎勢在必行，而我也為此寫了一篇網文（參閱曾堯角落：The White Hotel Movie），但最終還是以融資失敗告吹。

從書的副題可知，作者要告訴讀者的，是The Hollywood Saga of The White Hotel。影圈中的deal makers，買下電影版權後，一方面要找參與人員（主要是男女主角和導演），另一方面要尋找融資，來來往往，缺一不可（沒有矚目的演員導演難以找到融資，沒有資金在手難以吸引矚目演員導演參與），因此帶出無數光怪陸離的事。這書雖是作者的一面之辭，不可盡信，但當作故事閱讀，倒也非常過癮。

不過，我可以告訴你，這Hollywood saga只佔書的一半，穿插其間的另一半乃作者的自傳。這一半我略過不讀，因我素來對任何傳記或自傳比較抗拒。


Jonathan Demme Rachel Getting Married

長年在吸毒與戒毒間游走的Kym從戒毒中心請假幾天出席姐姐Rachel的婚禮...。這是一部親情糾葛電影-姐妹，父女，母女，還有一段大家都想忘掉的不幸過去...。導演過The Silence of the Lamb的Jonathan Demme，近年主力拍音樂紀錄片。作為劇情片，Rachel Getting Married其實很有紀錄片感覺（也有不少音樂-Rachel嫁的是音樂人），鋪排上故意鬆散不一定有頭有尾沒有明顯的故事高潮，所以也可說有點indie甚至home movie味道。

我非常喜歡這電影，推薦。不太適合喜歡法度嚴謹起承轉合有序戲劇元素齊全電影的觀眾。當然，也不太適合講求feel good的觀眾。

電影官網


相比之下，Joel Hopkins的Last Chance Harvey實在太平庸太樣板了。

Flat and convoluted: The Interpretation of Murder

I expected Jed Rubenfeld's The Interpretation of Murder to be a thinking person's who's-the-killer novel, largely because he incorporated Sigmund Freud's 1909 trip to America as part and parcel of the story.

In the end, however, I was disappointed. May be my expectation was unreasonably high. But what I thought was wrong was that Rubenfeld really had a lot to improve as a novel writer.

The ingredients for success were all there: Freud and all the mistrust and in-fighting within the cult, the reinterpretation of the Oedipal complex, Nora the female protagonist which was loosely based on Freud's famous case Dora, and impeccable research on what high society life was like in America at the turn of the 20th Century.

But Rubenfeld didn't do a good job weaving all these elements together. Freud, psychoanalysis and Hamlet did not blend well with what was essentially a mainstream, best-seller-wannabe thriller with too many twists and turns. And he was no good in developing characters either. The male protagonist Dr Younger started as a young Freudian but ended as a solving-a-crime-while-involving-in-a-romance hero. Carl Jung was portraited in a caricature way. Rubenfeld's attempt to mislead readers into thinking that Jung was somehow involved in the murder/assault cases was not smartly done; quite laughable indeed I think.

Having said all that, it was still an enjoyable reading experience for me (the first two-thirds especially), since any novel with Freud as a major character is bound to be interesting.

I won't be surprised if a few years down the track, Rubenfeld decides to use more or less the same material to write a similar novel. I am sure the next attempt would be much more satisfactory.

The Interpretation of Murder - official site

觀影讀書流水賬 7/10/07

讀書：

- 傅月庵 《生涯一蠹魚》 （JTBlog 曾堯角落：讀得書少）

閱讀大量關於四國旅遊的資料 （JTBlog 曾堯角落：我愛旅遊，也愛籌劃旅遊，寫遊記反倒視為苦差）

現正閱讀Jed Rubenfeld的《The Interpretation of Murder》，另一本以佛洛依德為主要角色的小說。 （JTBlog 曾堯角落：The Interpretation of Murder及Novels in which Freud appears as a major character）

The Interpretation of Murder

I am a sucker for novels with Sigmund Freud as a character. Some months ago, I wrote about a few of such novels which I had read, and listed a few more which I hadn't, one of which being Jed Rubenfeld's "The Interpretation of Murder".

Now, Cathy has read it and liked it. "The Interpretation of Murder" is now on my "must-read" list.

The White Hotel movie

Some weeks ago, I wrote about novels in which Freud appears as a major character. The most well-known one, and one which I like very much, is D. M. Thomas's The White Hotel.

According to the Variety, it will finally be adapted into a movie and production is expected to start later this year, 25 years after the novel was published (see White Hotel Makes Progress (CanMag) and White Hotel Gets a Start Date (Cinematical), both dated 18/8/06).

The copy of The White Hotel I have is a King Penguin paperback dated 1981 (the year the novel was first published). On its back cover, "soon to be a major film" was printed in all-capital and bold type.

As it turned out "soon" means 2007 at the earliest, assuming no further hiccups along the way.

So what happened? Jason Buchanan's All Movie Guide summarised the past quarter of a century in a paragraph:

After a number of false starts beginning with screen icon Barbra Streisand's efforts to star in a film adaptation in the early '80s, "The White Hotel" was shopped around to such high-profile filmmakers as Bernardo Bertolucci, David Lynch, Terrence Malick, and David Cronenberg and at various points was set to star such screen heavyweights as Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, Isabella Rossellini, and Anthony Hopkins.

Let D.M Thomas himself tells you his celluloid dreams (The Guardian, 28/8/04):

One thing is certain: the imagined film is wonderful. It's fully worthy of the combined, unified, unegotistical genius of its directors Bernardo Bertolucci, David Lynch, Hector Babenco, Emir Kusturica, Pedro Almodovar and David Cronenberg; employing the world's greatest cameramen and designers; the writing talent of Charles Mee, Dennis Potter, Joan Juliet Buck, Dusan Kovacevic, and even myself; the acting skills of Meryl Streep, Isabella Rossellini, Juliette Binoche, Nicole Kidman, Lena Olin, Emily Watson, Anthony Hopkins, Dustin Hoffman, Ralph Fiennes and many other brilliant actors; making us thrill at astonishing virtual reality effects, Showscan landscapes and glass fibre optics - but never cheaply or meretriciously, rather always serving the truth of my novel. I am hugely grateful for it. I never tire of seeing Lisa in the train, a blue lake outside, and hearing the first crashing chords of Don Giovanni... Or perhaps clowns tumbling in a circus ring, with Nazi officers gazing up at Lisa, swinging through the air.

According to Susan Stewart Potter, the producer and a co-screenwriter for the soon-to-commence project:

The real story behind this long-awaited, often stalled or shut down project is actually quite simple. There were two scurrilous producers, John Roberdeau and Robert Geisler, who lost the rights early on, but who continued -- under a straw company -- to attach directors and stars to the project. Bertolucci was ready to roll camera when the rightful owner of the motion picture rights got wind of the production and shut it down -- with a court order. Kusterica, Cronenberg, and others all fell under this ax.

I came along at the right time... just as the rights were becoming legally clear and free... and did a deal with the atty, who held the rights.

Trivia - so many Potters: Susan Stewart Potter, who is instrumental in turning The White Hotel movie into reality, is known for her role as the librettist for the 1993 musical drama Joan of Arc. She, however, is not related to David Potter, composer for Joan of Arc. As far as I know, she is also not related to Dennis Potter, who was tasked to write the screenplay of The White Hotel for David Lynch in the early 1990s. D.M. Thomas says that "when I was sent Potter's screenplay, I was dismayed to find Freud and Vienna deleted, and my operatic heroine now a high-wire act in a Berlin circus. Don Giovanni and Eugene Onegin had given way to jaunty Potteresque tunes from the 30s." ("Potteresque" of course refers to yet another Potter - Cole Potter). Dennis Potter died in 1994.

(originally posted on 19/8/06, updated on 17/9/06)

觀影讀書流水賬 27/8

觀影：
Oliver Hirschbiegel 《Downfall/Der Untergang》 （我的短評）
Lorraine Levy 《The First Time I Was 20/La Premiere fois que j'ai eu 20 ans》
Francois Dupeyron 《Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran》

讀書：
Leonardo Padura Fuentes 《Adios Hemingway》
Peter Carey 《Wrong About Japan: A Father's Journey with His Son》（我的短評）

咦，原來本週是鬼話洋文週！

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我在之前的網誌中曾提過以佛洛依德為主要角色的小說。有的我讀過，更多的只是網上資料。好些所謂小說，實質只是加入戲劇效果、繪形繪聲的傳記。

剛讀完的《Adios Hemingway》，是一本以海明威為主要角色的推理小說。作者Leonardo Padura Fuentes是古巴人，曾經崇拜過海明威（書中查案主角Conde亦如是），又曾寫過幾本偵探小說。今次Fuentes將兩種元素合二為一寫成本書。

警方在海明威幾十年前居住的古巴大屋發現屍骨。死者是誰？為何被殺？是誰殺他？是海明威？案發年代久遠，如果追查？從海明威的生平和著作，可否找到蛛絲馬跡？

海明威我只知其大名和粗略生平，他的作品倒是一本也沒看過。但這本《Adios Hemingway》真是一本可讀性甚高的小說，我看得津津有味。喜歡或熟悉海明威的讀者，也許會比我更喜讀它。

Novels in which Freud appears as a major character

Just read Cathy's review of a 1962 film on Freud. I have no idea that such a film exists!

I have always had some interest in psychology, and psychoanalysis in particular. Some years ago, I thought of compiling a list of novels in which Freud appears as a major character. But I quickly gave up the idea since I realised I was not up to the task. But I did mention about this in a September 2004 blog entry - Janet Malcolm's "In the Freud Archives":

I have also read a number of novels which featured Freud as a major character - e.g. D.M Thomas's "The White Hotel", Anthony Burgess' "The End of the World News" and Keith Oatley's "The Case of Emily V".

D.M Thomas "The White Hotel"

It is a dream of electrifying eroticism and inexplicable violence, recounted by a young woman to her analyst, Sigmund Freud.

Fugue and threnody, it interlaces history and the craving of brutality, in the case-history of Lisa Erdman, a patient of Freud's. And travelling through the intricate patterns of her being, the reader is sent on an odyssey that seeks refuge beyond the nightmare of the twentieth century.

Anthony Burgess "The End of the World News"

The dying Freud hustled out of Vienna into exile. A Broadway musical on the subject of Trotsky in New York. The last throes of the planet Earth in AD 2000. These are all items on The End of the World News.

Keith Oatley "The Case of Emily V"

In the case of Emily V., two newly discovered manuscripts are published for the first time: one is an early case of psychoanalysis related by Sigmund Freud, the other is an account of an investigation by Sherlock Holmes. The two men met and the manuscripts were found together because - unknown to each other - they were both investigating a young Englishwoman, Emily Vincent.

I am sure there must be many others. Your input please.

The fading of Freud?

Talking cures have their place, but psychoanalytic theory has faded into brain science. Adam Phillips's attempt to define sanity is beside the point (Brenda Maddox reviewing "Going Sane" by Adam Phillips, Prospect, 4/05).

Some may argue that psychoanalytic theory has in fact been strengthened by a stronger foundation in brain science.

Freud and Music

I have finished reading a novel called The Cello Player by Michael Kruger. The problem is, I don't get it, so there is nothing more I can write about it. But since I have been writing about Freud in this blog in recent days, I just can't resist the temptation to quote two amusing paragraphs from this novel.

"Psychoanalysis and Music" - I attended the lecture often, along with all the pretty students. Why had the petite blonde chosen the harp she pressed so trustingly between her thighs? Why did the stocky, pimply fellow from Munster blow his sparse breath into a trombone? And why did Beethoven decide one day that he did not want to hear his own sounds anymore? Even the issue of whether Schubert had homosexual tendencies troubled my generation. "The Effect of Drive Renunciation on Artistic Archievement" was the seminar everybody wanted to attend. ... A parallel nightmare was the elaborate lecture on "Marxism and Music," another course everybody felt obliged to attend. The climax of those years came when a fusion of the two was offered: "The Influence of Psychoanalysis and Marxism on Musical Development: The Instinctual Life of Sounds as the Expression of the Bad Conscience of Industrial Late Capitalism, as seen in Stravinsky and Schonberg." All obsessive-compulsives, that was clear. How had all these beautiful theories withered aways?

If one were to offer such courses today, thirty years later, one would probably be declared insane. I don't know a single musician who has read more than a line of Freud or Marx. Back then, one had to; there was no excuse not to.

When we needed a screwdriver, Freud handed us a crystal ball

65 years after the death of Freud, John Timpane claims that we are all post-Freudians now. "We are leaving the 'hard' aspects of Freud behind: the doctrinaire, systematic judgments; the ego/superego/id apparatus; and the pretense to the status of science". Why? "Because when we needed a screwdriver, Freud handed us a crystal ball. His product didn't fit the market".

Judge for yourself - Hail and Farewell to Sigmund Freud (The Mercury News, 19/9/04)

Daphne Merkin, in reviewing "Secrets of the Soul: A Social and Cultural History of Psychoanalysis" by Eli Zaretsky (The New York Times, 5/9/04), says that "psychoanalysis, having incorporated some of his ideas and rejected others, has in fact moved far beyond him [Freud], while neuroscience - in the form of M.R.I. (or magnetic resonance imaging tests) evidence of unconscious mental processes - has been confirming basic tenets of analytic thought. The final verdict is not in, and as one plain-spoken, assuredly un-Freudian thinker once said, 'It ain't over till it's over.'".

Janet Malcolm's "In the Freud Archives"

I have just finished a quite wonderful book called "In the Freud Archives" by Janet Malcolm, which I borrowed from the local library under the impression that it was a fiction. In fact, it was based on real events which were in many ways more dramatic than fiction.

Basically it was about the young and flambouyant outsider Jeffrey Masson gaining the trust of Kurt Eissler to succeed him as the next keeper of the Sigmund Freud Archives. But Masson's damning article on Freud, which accused him of intellectual dishonesty on the "seduction theory", led to Masson being sacked from the post and the incredible friendship between Eissler and Masson degenerating into a law suit, which ended in a quick settlement. Masson also sued the author of this book which eventually ended in defeat.

I have always had some interest in psychology (I almost chose psychology instead of economics as my major at university) and am totally fascinated by Freud the man and his theories. I recently read from the Scientific American an article which said that recent scientific findings were supportive of Freud's grand theory of the mind, which has gone out of intellectual fashion these days.

I have also read a number of novels which featured Freud as a major character - e.g. D.M Thomas's "The White Hotel", Anthony Burgess' "The End of the World News" and Keith Oatley's "The Case of Emily V".

To find out what the major participants in this incident have been doing in recent years, I have done some quick web search. Here are the results:

Jeffrey Masson: These days he is known as a writer on animals, with books like "The Pig Who Sang to the Moon" and "When Elephants Weep". This is his official site, with a short page on his side of the story on the Freud controversy.

Kurt Eissler: Died in 1999. "Freud and the Seduction Theory: A Brief Love Affair" was published posthumously in 2000. This is a site dedicated to him.

Janet Malcolm: Still active in her "pursuit of the truth".