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When reading this book I found myself thinking about how one can approach writing a biography. Murray’s book is not strictly speaking a biography but it doesn’t fall easily into any other category – it is a combination of philosophy, psychoanalytic thinking, biography and cultural theory/history but draws heavily on Lacan’s life events. It is an interesting and unusual read and after reading it I felt a little closer to appreciating Lacan the man and how some of his theoretical work had interesting parallels with his life.
This complex picture is mirrored in the book’s structure – the book falls into eight chapters all titled using binary oppositions; ‘Stopping and starting’, ‘Sweet and sour’, ‘Man and widow’, etc. This gives an initial clue to Murray’s ambitious structure to this work, in that it is not chronological but instead weaves in and out of complex contradictory themes which Murray uses as a structural and thematic allusion to Lacan’s complex and contradictory body of work.
This structure tests the reader and as early as page 3 Murray asks for forgiveness for its digressions and repetitions (of which there are many) and openly admits to wanting to view Lacan from various angles simultaneously including biographical, philosophical, cultural, historical, artistic, psychoanalytic, etc.
The book draws heavily on Elizabeth Roudinesco’s (1990) book on Lacan – she knew Lacan personally and her book contains many first-hand accounts of his personality. One is never sure whether Murray is supportive or not of Lacan’s work. He evidently finds Lacan’s complexities and contradictions fascinating and if the reader is of a similar disposition, then she/he is likely to find this book an interesting collection of thoughts and illustrations about Lacan. I found it interesting from the point of view of the discussion of the variety of cultural influences upon Lacan which are well documented by Murray.
Chapter 2 is taken up with an account of Lacan’s early biographical history c