Thursday, September 17, 2009

Jung’s Red Book

C. G Jung’s legendary Red Book or Liber Novus will finally be published, as this article in the Times explains. I love the idea of notebooks of this sort. The boundaries of such work, presumably, are fluid. Jung’s crisis as expressed in this work is art not as art. He is not trying to please in an aesthetic way. This is art therapy, and as such, it is intensely personal, more so, perhaps, than the usual letters and journals. Jung was wack, but that is the vitality of his work. I think there is great sense in his work, as I think likewise with Olson, but it is balanced with a craziness. That craziness is fascinating (when it isn’t loathsome, like his anti-Semitism). And that is why Red Book attracts attention. I certainly wanted to see what he was working on when I read about it.

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