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In writing this review, I do not consider myself to be an authority on Jung's life and work and even less an expert on the highly specialized nature of the work which constitutes a biography. My point of view is simply that of a reasonably informed Jungian analyst who has therefore been all the more eager at last to have at his disposal a thoroughly researched and comprehensive reference book, which avoids both the excesses of a hagiography and the pitfalls of the kind of polemic which we have frequently been burdened with up until now.
Carried along by this expectation and eagerness I did not therefore read this book systematically from beginning to end. I opened it and explored it at random, according to my needs and the questions which arose from one moment to the next, leaving on one side until later some of the chapters of this huge book, which I promised myself I would explore more thoroughly when I had the time.
The first of these chapters which drew my attention back in this way were those in which Deirdre Bair has concentrated on the publication of Jung's complete works in German and in English and on his ‘autobiography’ (chapters 36, 37 & 38). And what an unexpected surprise, especially in relation to the ‘autobiography’! Thanks to earlier biographies and above all the work of Sonu Shamdasani, I was certainly familiar with the history of Jung's reticence and ambivalence in relation to the demands made on him, and also with the diverse sources drawn on by Aniela Jaffé in the composition of this book, as well as with the endless comings and goings and the revisions which took place between her and Jung, and some of her alterations which led to some regrettable ‘omissions’ in the definitive edition.
However, I was far from understanding the very early history of this book, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, of the many endeavours to bring this project to fruition (pp. 585-94), as well as the history of the incredibly complex and labyrinthine negotiati