Overview

The French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan (1901–1981) is a uniquely complex writer and the originator of an especially unsettling view of the human subject. But the singularity of Lacan’s achievement has been understated by many of his critics. Often he is seen merely as a figure famous for being famous—an essential reference point in structuralist and poststructuralist debate—rather than as a theorist whose writings demand and reward detailed scrutiny. Malcolm Bowie traces the development of Lacan’s ideas over the fifty-year span of his writing and teaching career. The primary focus is on the fascinating mutations in Lacan’s interpretation of Freud. Bowie reinserts the celebrated slogans—“The unconscious is the discourse of the Other,” “The unconscious is structured like a language,” and so forth—into the history of Lacan’s thinking, and pinpoints the paradoxes and anomalies that mark his account of human sexuality. This book provides a firm basis for the critical evaluation of Lacan’s ideas and the rhetoric in which they are embedded; it is based on a close reading of Lacan’s original texts but presupposes no knowledge of French in the reader. Although Bowie is sharply critical of Lacan on several major analytic questions, he argues that Lacan is the only psychoanalyst after Freud whose intellectual achievement is seriously comparable to Freud’s own. Lacan provides the ideal starting point for any exploration of the work of this formidable thinker.

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This is an astonishing feat of exposition, clear, judicious and economical in argument, and written with an elegance one would not have believed possible on so intractable a subject. Having read Bowie, one can revisit Lacan buoyed up by the conviction that he is a psychoanalytical thinker absolutely worth tangling with, a genuine enlarger of the mind and not a fly-by-night showman. Lacan is here thoroughly elucidated without being made simple, the elucidator having invested his intellectual all in being equally fair to the tortuosities of his subject and the needs of his readers. -- John Sturrock London Review of Books While there have been a number of good studies introducing readers to Lacan's vatic discourse, Bowie's book strikes me as quite the best general presentation and evaluation of Lacan's thought. Witty, concise, irreverent, admirably well-written, Bowie's study represents a remarkable feat of organization and exposition. -- Peter Brooks Times Literary Supplement Well-written, well-argued, cogent, enjoyable to read--these are hardly the words that spring to mind when one thinks of a book about one of the most obscure and self-absorbed thinkers influencing literary and cultural analysis today; yet they describe this remarkably accessible and intelligent new study of the French psychoanalyst...Bowie cuts to the essential issues of Lacan's thought and intellectual development. For those put off by Lacan's pomposities and those engaged by his brilliance, Bowie's introduction is an indispensable new resource. Virginia Quarterly Review An introduction which simplifies nothing, an initiation which demystifies, and an invitation to the widest possible English-speaking readership to have a look, or another look, at Lacan. -- Katharine Swarbrick Times Higher Education Supplement

This is an astonishing feat of exposition, clear, judicious and economical in argument, and written with an elegance one would not have believed possible on so intractable a subject. Having read Bowie, one can revisit Lacan buoyed up by the conviction that he is a psychoanalytical thinker absolutely worth tangling with, a genuine enlarger of the mind and not a fly-by-night showman. Lacan is here thoroughly elucidated without being made simple, the elucidator having invested his intellectual all in being equally fair to the tortuosities of his subject and the needs of his readers. -- John Sturrock London Review of Books

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