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Thank you (I think)
Dear David Ostwald,
Thanks (I think) for your letter. It moves back and forth (it seems to me)
between a genuine level of agreement with some of the points of view I have
taken about your father's book on GG and some (understandable) irritation
with having the work criticized. (Had I known the author's father might be
reading my words, I wonder if I would have written them? I will only say
that having read this book, I fully intend to read P. Ostwald's book on
Schumann for certain.)
I must confess to a very strong sympathy for Jungian approaches to
psychology. Certainly, they seem to me to help us as a culture understand
and profit from the legacy of other lives more than the Freudian approach
which insists on explaining matters reductively -- i.e. how they reflect or
can be explained by a pathology of some (sexual) kind. Jung is much more
about meaning-making and so am I. And, so I think, should biographers be.
But that seems not to be the fashion these days. Since I first wrote to the
list about your father's book, I have acknowledged to myself that I did end
up enjoying it much more than several other biographies I have read this
year. It may be that I vainly enjoyed in a way because it left me work to
do -- the "chair" being the best example.
At any rate, I thank you for your message and I hope you will forgive any
unkindness you felt in my criticism. No unkindness was met. I rather envy
your father for having known GG and having had the stuff to write the book.
Sincerely,
James Rhem
James Rhem
Executive Editor & Book Acquisitions Editor
THE NATIONAL TEACHING ACE/Oryx Series
& LEARNING FORUM on Higher Education
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