I started out not really liking this novel. A friend recommended it because it concerns Freud and some of the early history of psychoanalysis. My Ph.D. is in psychology. Although I have never practiced on people for money, I did lead a few mens consciousness-raising groups in the early 70sand I have at least some familiarity with the work of Freud and the development of psychotherapies of all different kinds that followed. On that count I ought to be a reasonable audience for the book. My problem, however, was not with historical or academic issues.
What put me off was the stilted quality of the prose in the first few chaptersa quality that often afflicts novels in which real world characters are given fictional treatments, especially when the author uses third person narrative from that characters standpoint. You know the kind:
Albert Einstein ran his hand through his unruly hair as he confronted the pile of patent applications before him. I wonder, he thought, if everything in physics is relative. If what Ive been looking for these last few weeks is a theory of relativity. [Blessedly, this is not an excerpt from the book. Its my own invention.]
Exposition is a bit forced as the Webster maneuvers to introduce her historical character and strives then to provide enough context for us to understand Just Who This Is. The problem is, the first character we meet in this way in Vienna Triangle is Dr. Helene Deutsch (née Rosenbach) an early follower of Freud who became a psychoanalyst and eventually director of Freuds Vienna Psychoanalytic Clinic. I couldnt have told you that, but at least I recognized her name. The 80-something Deutsch as Webster imagines her conforms to the stereotype of the psychoanalyst who views everyone through Freud-colored glasses. Its a bit heavy-handeddehumanizing both Deutsch and the people she meets.
In Chapter One we meet Helene and two fictional characters: Kate, a Ph.D. student in psychology, and Emily, Kates mother, who shows some discomfort on learning Helene is a psychoanalyst. In Chapter Two, narration switches to Kates perspective. The novel is set in the late sixties, feminism is on the rise, but Kates faculty advisor is ambivalent about Kates thesis project to research the early history of women in the psychoanalytic movement. Her mothers feelings about psychoanalysis become clear:
Every profession has its scoundrels…. I have a feeling that psychoanalysis has more than its share. Operating the way they do, behind closed doors with no one controlling what they do. God knows what might be going on. [Id like to be able to give a page reference here, but for reasons not known to me, e-books on the Amazon Kindle are not calibrated in page numbers, but in things called Locations. This passage is in Locations 183-188.]
In Chapter Three, the author is still awkwardly writing historical background on Helene Deutsch as if it were a recounting of Deutschs present thoughts. Attempts to give Deutsch a real character fall flat. Kate begins interviewing Helene and explains that she wanted to interview someone who was in on the earliest development of psychoanalytic theories about women.
And I have the advantage of being one of the few still alive and not senile, Helene said cheerfully, knocking three times on the wooden arm of her rocker.
Kate frowned. Her mother was an almost compulsive knocker on wood. [A what!?] I wouldnt have thought youd be superstitious. [Locations 387-393]
This is the little human foibles school of character revelation. Yuck! Nonetheless, the interview takes an interesting turn. Kate wants to know whether the Helenes presence in Freuds discussion group had any influence on the direction psychoanalysis took. Unfortunately, the question never gets answered. The author has other things in mind for Kate to get into.
Ill give another egregious example of overwriting and then drop the subject. Kate is thinking about the fact that Helene must have been quite a beauty in her day.
Helene seemed to read her thoughts. I had pretty plumage once, she said, quoting Yeats. At one time she had read widely in the English poets. [Locations 404-409]
The intrusive didacticism of the final sentence begs for deletion. I dont know if the author knows for a fact that Deutsch was widely read in the English poets, but in a novelistic context it simply doesnt matter. Helene quotes Yeats. Thats all we needed to know.
What Kate (and the author, of course) is really interested in turns out to be the juicy details of the sexual liaisons of Helene, Freud, and a few other members of the Vienna psychoanalytic community. Hey, sex sells, so I cant be too critical here. Eventually, this resolves itself into a fascination with a triangle involving Freud, a remarkable woman named Lou Andreas-Salomé (five years his junior), and Viktor Tausk (twenty-three years younger than Freud, eighteen years younger than Salomé). Over some years, this
Helene Deutsch was twenty-eight years younger than Freud. Freud personally undertook Deutschs psychoanlysis, but refused to accept Tausk, choosing rather to assign Deutsch (who was a friend of Tausks) to that tasksomething of a slap in the face to Tausk, especially as Tausk was already an experienced analyst; whereas he was Deutschs first analytic patient. Several months later, Deutsch abruptly terminated Tausks analysis (at Freuds insistence the author has Helene declareI am not sufficiently familiar with current scholarship to know if Deutsch actually confirmed this). Shortly thereafter, Tausk committed suicide.
The payoff of all of the foregoing is the authors conclusion that Freud was not a Nice Guythat Freud the idol had feet of clay. In the first three or four decades after Freud died in 1939, any suggestion that Freud was anything but a paragon of individual and intellectual virtue was anathema to the analytical community that grew up around him. Apparently, the reasoning was that if the founder were flawed, the founders work might be flawed and thus open to challenge. Im sure there are still people around who care. Most dont. An analyst friend of mine whom I told a little about the book said, well, thats all old news, you know.
Websters exploration of the
I havent even mentioned the subplot involving Kate discovering that she is pregnant by her boyfriend and feeling ambivalent. Its all rather predictable and laced with occasional psychoanalytic jargon in keeping with the overall decorating scheme. Is that too catty?
Bottom line: Dont read this to be bowled over by its literary meritits not quite writing by the numbers, but it does have a definite mechanical feel. Read it to get a melodramatic view of the untidy goings on in the world of Freud during the early days of the development of psychoanalysis. Or maybe better, take a look at Paul Roazens (1969) Brother Animal: The Story of Freud and Tausk, which my analyst friend recommended as the definitive tell-all on this subject.