Re:GG & Jungian analysis

[<Peter.C.van.Wyck@email.rutgers.edu> <pvanwyck@unixg.ubc.ca>]

|  
|  The C.G. Jung Society of Vancouver Presents a Public Lecture
|  
|  Imagining Glenn Gould
|  by Dr. Lynne Walter

A bit of a report from the trenches... the deep trenches of the Vancouver
Jungians. (I apologize in advance if there are any Jungians in the path of
this message.) Anyway, I paid my seven dollars and sat down listening to
the return of the Goldberg Variations while the audience filled in. As the
final bits of the quodlibet bounced around the linoleum lined hall, Dr.
Walter took to the postage-stamp sized stage and began a most odd
presentation of her doctoral work that promised to be a glimp of the
pathological urtext of Glenn. Here I was in the camp of the Jungians,
concealing my Lacanian commitments, and expecting a journey into the
primordial depth. (As Jungians they tend to conceptualize humans much as
did Bergman... massive interiors trapped inside of hapless, body-sized
shells.) But what happened was like Carl Jung meets Mr. Rogers. The basic
plot line: Glenn had an unusual childhood; a strong connection with his
mother (the ghost of Oedipus hovered nearby); developed exotic habits which
spoke principally to his particular blend of narcissism, and fear of
intimacy; became a hopeless perfectionist; and embarked on a magnificent
(her word) career even as he was forever racked with unhappiness. His
eventual break with performance, was, on her account not planned, and not
even particularly consistent with his need for constant affirmation. You
get the idea. It was an anecdotal montage built up from quite run of the
mill accounts of Glenn's public life. No surprises at this level. And then
the promised Jungian interpretation began to appear. In keeping with the
strategy thus far employed, she began with an anecdote. It seems that the
McGregor (could be MacG-, not sure) clan was felt by the" Government" at
some point (she didn't say when) to be just too violent, warring, and
generally foul-tempered that the name of the clan itself was outlawed. As a
result, former McGregors were spread about under various new names. One
such renamed family relocated to Norway under the name Grieg (i.e.,
Edvard). Now, since Glenn's mother was also a Grieg, Dr. Walter surmised
that she was most certainly heir to the violent, warring, and generally
foul-tempered genetic heritage (made somewhat more gentile over time). And
accordingly, Glenn partook of this highland heritage and suffered the
feisty genetic insubordination of his forefathers and foremothers. This,
she suggested was perhaps the single most significant contributing factor
to Glenn qua person... yikes. Anyway, after this very brief appearance,
Jung disappeared in a puff of animus. And then, predictably, the talk
turned for its concluding moments to the question of "genius." Well, it
wasn't exactly a question as it was a series of contortions in which Glenn
ended up in a genius-shaped box with Einstein, Wittgenstein, Berkeley, and
Hume. It was a tight fit, but fortunately -- we were told -- they were all
significantly the same so it was rather easy to stack them.

And I won't even go into the question period.

The thing that really irks me is not the 'psychologization' of Glenn. It's
that when it's done, it's just done so poorly, and with such a stunning
lack of imagination. And it can never seem to get beyond the gravity of
these master tropes of "the genius/savant", "the recluse", whatever.
Anything which might engage the singularities of the individual is glossed
over in the interest of guessing-the-right-pathology. For example, the
question of his sexuality came up. Since everyone agreed that he had had no
"intimate" encounters (apart from the suggestion of a bit of a fling with
the a woman from California), if was assumed that therefore his life was
*without* intimacy. Even without the unasked questions around gender, there
was simply no suggestion that one could even think of intimacy outside of a
sexual/reproductive frame... any claims around his, say,
contrapunctosexuality would not have been viewed in a positive light.

I won't go on here... it's late and I just wanted to say, by way of
introdution, hello.

p.