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Freud's Dora: A Psychoanalytic, Historical, and Textual Study was published in 1996 and is now reviewed in 2000. You will note a gap in time, and perhaps ask why? The fact is that there was a similar gap in the time between Freud's completion of his analysis of Dora on 31 December 1900, and his publication of the case in 1905, one amongst his Pentateuch, as Mahony calls the case histories, the canon within the canon. We may note also the significance of the millennial timing of the review and the use of the word, gap, which is at the centre of Mahony's textual analysis of Freud's redundant usage of the term, which refers to that which is missing, interpreted as the symbolic designation of the female genitalia.
Having thus far told you, the reader, about the parallels between this writing and the contents of the book, it becomes unnecessary that I inform you of the apparent ‘real’ reason for the delay or why the book editor himself writes the review. As analysts, Mahony argues, the reality that counts for us is psychic reality. However, even with that as an ostensible excuse, and the reviewer's mimicry of the author's style, you now will be informed of the extensive reality of the book in order to determine whether it captures the imagination and should be read.
Mahony believes in the case history as opposed to the vignette, and has two prior books to his credit, concerning Freud's other case histories, Cries of the Wolf Man (1984), and Freud and the Rat Man (1986). He also has himself written a ‘case history’ of Lucia (Mahony, 1989), utilising all the plays on that name, in translation or otherwise, that enhance understanding and provide a richer interpretation. Nevertheless, the Dora case has been the subject of oh so many essays and monographs by analysts, literary critics, and professors of literature, that we must wonder if there is more to say without shouting: Overkill!
Yet anyone who reads the endless criticism of and adumbrations of Freud (or for that matter al