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“In many cases,” Freud writes in his Leonardo da Vinci, “they [biographers] have chosen their hero as the subject of their studies because—for reasons of their personal emotional life—they have felt a special affection for him from the very first.” In many cases, but not in all. Of late there has beeen a proliferation of studies of Freud whose authors can lay little claim to special affection for their subject. Whether the study was undertaken with the alleged purpose of portraying the subject life-size with all his strengths and weaknesses, so that he be seen objectively, or whether for the sake of “historical truth,” the result is often lamentably the same: a form of character assassination. It is a relief, therefore, to read a study of Freud whose author has no psychological ax to grind. Peter Gay is not to be numbered among the purveyors of “correct” portraiture or “historical truth.” He has, refreshingly, tamed his unruly subterranean impulses. There is no doubt that Gay harbors a special affection for his subject, but his affection does not seem to blunt his judgment or blur his vision. He does not seem to hesitate to disagree, to point out what he judges to be weaknesses, whether in the theory under discussion or in the man. As both a cultural historian and one conversant with psychoanalysis (he is a graduate of the Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis), Gay is on familiar ground in both fields, and so brings to his task a rare union of expertise. An added dividend is his discursive style of writing, with its wit, informality, and easy flow, so that he who runs may read.
It is a commentray on the complexity of both the man and his work, as on the reach of his influence on so many laspectsl of our