Lacan

On several occasions in the past, I attempted to read the work of one Jacques Lacan, a French psychoanalyst, big in France in the middle of the last century. I think I even pretended to read him in the original French.

So I was interested to read a review of reference 1 in this week's edition of the LRB, picked up on a whim from somewhere or other.

It turns out that Lacan was a rather unpleasant person in various ways. Rich, avaricious and mean. A womaniser. A bad father to the children of his first wife. Rather prone to capricious behaviour, both pleasant and unpleasant. One of these children was the author of reference 1, was unwell for much of her life and ended up committing suicide at the age of 72.

So I was quite pleased to find that, on inspection of my shrink shelf, that all trace of Lacan himself has vanished, perhaps retired to one of the compost heaps. All that remains is the short biography at reference 2, which I may now re-read.

Reference 1: Un Père: puzzle - Sibylle Lacan - 1994. Now published in translation by MIT.

Reference 2: Lacan - Malcolm Bowie - 1991.