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In this pioneering monograph Edelson hews away at the evertantalizing and elusive relationship between linguistics and psychoanalysis. Generally, he notes, language is transparent. We do not focus on it but see through it to the ideas, feelings, and images that it evokes. Like the peasant who was taught to read by Maxim Gorki, we should all feel wonder, as we scan the letters on a page, that we see not little black signs or marks, but a whole procession of images. To this transparency Edelson contrasts the opacity of language when we focus on it as an instrumentality, and on this opposition he brings to bear not only wonderment (like Gorki's peasant) but an array of sophisticated conceptualizations drawn from psychoanalysis, musicology, literary criticism, and more or less contemporary linguistic theory. I say more or less contemporary because new concepts have been developed so rapidly in linguistics that one can hardly apply them before they are well on the way to becoming at least partly obsolete. Some sort of treaty of limitations is needed to govern the conditions of rapidly proliferating interdisciplinary research.
Over the past twenty years Noam Chomsky's prolific writings have afforded a running commentary on his own shifting formulations. To a large extent, Edelson's application of these concepts reflects Chomsky's earlier versions. I mention this lest psychoanalytic readers turn to Edelson's book for an introduction to Chomskyan linguistics. For such a purpose they would do better to go to the source, and I would especially recommend the linguistic section of Language and Responsibility1 for a summary of the evolution of Chomsky's linguistic ideas from 1956 to the present. With this caveat in mind, Edelson's main points remain valid. He argues essentially that when analysts listen, they make use of their own linguistic competence