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It is a frightfully difficult task to write the biography of a great man whom so many of us knew as a living person, and who himself knew so many who are still living and who have a kind of vested emotional interest in the Imago, Freud.
Jones relates that Freud was shocked at the very idea that Arnold Zweig was planning to write Freud's biography. 'Freud's views on biographical writing', Jones tells us, 'were certainly extreme'. Jones then quotes Freud: 'Whoever undertakes to write a biography binds himself to lying, to concealment, to hypocrisy, to flummery and even to hiding his own lack of understanding, since biographical material is not to be had and if it were it could not be used. Truth is not accessible; mankind does not deserve it, and wasn't Prince Hamlet right when he asked who could escape a whipping if he had his deserts?' 'And yet', Jones adds, 'I continue with my task in the face of these terrible dicta: I feel sure that Freud would have been surprised to find that one could get nearer to the truth about himself than he imagined possible'. There is no need to contest this certainty which Jones expresses with the boldness and simplicity of a man who was so close to Freud, who took such an active and decisive part in saving Freud's life, thus enabling him to die in England instead of perhaps being gassed or cremated by the Nazis, and who was so close to the end of his own life at the time he was writing this third volume.
Whatever opinions one may have about many aspects of this monumental biography, the world will be grateful to Jones for generations to come. For he has given us not only a coherent story of Freud's life, but also a number of the facts and fancies of men in the midst of an ideological struggle—facts and fancies to ponder, to be puzzled over, to be saddened or amused by. He has given us a source book of many things which touch the 'truth [that] is not accessible and [which] mankind does not deserve'.
There is no denying that Jones