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It must be because Carl Jung is such an endlessly fascinating figure that the people around him are also of interest to biographers. Now two books have appeared about Emma Jung-Rauschenbach, Carl's wife. Long relegated to a minor role, she is brought here on to centre stage, and we get two different accounts of how her life may have played out among the many shadows cast by her famous husband. These works offer contrasting treatments of the same story: one in the style of docudrama by professional writer Catrine Clay, flashy and fast-moving; the other a personal and introspective response to the author's own dreams and to an inner imperative to tell Emma's story, by Jungian analyst Imelda Gaudissart. Both women want to bring Emma out of the shadows into the light of day. They do not totally succeed, but it's a beginning.
Both authors consider closely two of Emma's dilemmas: how to find a space for herself and to thrive while living so close in to such a massively dominating figure as Carl was from the very beginning of their marriage, and how to hold on to the man she loved when he seemed utterly possessed by his creative daimon and so prone to wander outside the boundaries of marriage. It was not an easy life for her by any stretch of the imagination, but it was also not a dull and (Swiss) standardized one. And she seems to have succeeded quite well in dealing with these problems.
Catrine Clay, a prize-winning documentary writer and biographer, opens her story with a scene showing Emma and Carl in Vienna for their first meeting with Freud in 1907. Married by now for four years, this beautifully dressed couple, the parents of two daughters left at home with grandparents, are staying at the best hotel in Vienna. Behind this picture perfect persona all is not as it seems, not by a long shot. Dark shadows lurk. Like an expert playwright, Clay quickly draws us into the story. The book reads like a drama, a real page-turner.
We learn that Emma has recently put her foot down