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At first glance, Translating Freud is apt to seem like counting angels dancing on the head of a pin. The authors are primarily concerned with correcting a variety of defects in the work that James Strachey oversaw in putting together the Standard Edition of Freud's psychological writings. Not surprisingly, Strachey's translation was also an act of interpretation, and it has not been hard to find spots where he went astray. Strachey did not start out alone as a translator, since Ernest Jones had made certain key decisions before him; and Freud was delighted with the work Strachey succeeded in doing, which is bound to make it more than a bit awkward for contemporaries to poke holes in Strachey's achievement. So far the German editions of Freud's writings have relied on Strachey's editorial apparatus, which should be a testimony to what he accomplished.
What is troubling is the kind of alternative the authors here seem to have in mind. They mention how Freud had learned to read with the Philippson Bible, laid out in such a way that the transcript of the original faces a far longer commentary. And the authors also admiringly cite the way Luther's Bible is “set in large type with wide margins that are used for paraphrasing and alternative wording, as well as for cross-indexing and references to historical accounts” (p. 109). The authors seem to mind the way Strachey has become “scripture,” only because they feel that Freud himself deserves that designation. We are told without embarrassment how “the King James, or ‘authorized,’ Bible is said to have been put together by a committee” (p. 202).
Does it not occur to these conscientious scholars that Freud might ever have been wrong? And that his critics, both former students as well as outsiders, may have had valid points to make? We are instead merely told that “Freud was a scientist” (p. 111), although it should be obvious that Freud's Leonardo essay, discussing the conflict between art and science, was largely autobiograph