Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0021325, Thu, 10 Feb 2011 20:47:30 -0200

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Re: VN and Freud
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Anthony Stadlen: "Lacan used to say that Jung had told him in 1954 that Freud had said in 1909 when they glimpsed the Statue of Liberty on reaching the United States: "They don't realise we're bringing them the plague." This has been questioned by Elisabeth Roudinesco, but there seems no good reason to doubt it. It is consistent with other statements of Freud's."

JM: Lacan wrote about it in Écrits (Ed du Seuil,Paris,1966) on p.403: " C'est ainsi que le mot de Freud à Jung de la bouche de qui je le tiens, quand invités tous deux de la Clark University, ils arrivèrent en vue du port de New York et de la célèbre statue éclairant l'univers: " Ils ne savent pas que nous leur apportons la peste", lui est renvoué pour sanction d' une hybris dont l'antiphrase et sa noicereur n' éteignent pas le double éclat. La Némesis n'a eu, por prendre au piège son auteur, qu' à le prendre au mot de son mot. Nous pourrions craindre qu' elle n'y ait joint un billet de retour de primière classe..." ( " In this way, Freud's words to Jung, which I obtained from the mouth of the latter...")

Roudinesco quotes this sentence in her book on Jacques Lacan - and adds the information I was also looking for when she states: "Lacan believed that Freud was mistaken because he thought he was bringing something revolutionary to America. However, it was America who devoured his doctrine by subtracting from it its subversive spirit."

A little further, we also read: "In France no one would dare to raise any doubts that Freud had ever pronounced this sentence, and yet, Jung...in his Memoirs, describes his voyage to America without making reference to it. Freud and Ferenczi, also, haven't made any allusion to a "plague"...(E.Roudinesco, ch 5, the rough translation is mine).


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