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The following pages are transcripts from two tapes recorded by Bion sitting alone in his study, thinking of his forthcoming visit to Rome in July 1977, to give talks and hold seminars. (Those seminars were published in 1983 in Italian by Borla under the title, Seminari Italiani, and in 1977 by Karnac Books in London.)
He speaks in a relaxed, reflective, meditative way, though it is clear that he is not talking to himself but to an imaginary, attentive audience. He sees himself ‘idling away my time’, thinking in an ‘almost thoughtless’ way, and then looking to see what he has caught in ‘the net of my idleness’. But these verbal cogitations are far from the lazy meanderings of a day-dreamer; they are clear, sharp, and disciplined and tinged with his individual quirky sense of humour. Wild thoughts are domesticated, and stray thoughts are found a home.
The themes are all familiar ones to be found elsewhere in his writings, but he seldom repeated himself word for word; there are variations, expansions, additions, and some vivid metaphorical passages.
Only minor editorial changes and corrections have been made, mostly with ease of reading in mind. Both days' recordings ended in mid-sentence; the tape ran out, not the speaker.
Francesca Bion