Frederick C. Crews (1933–2024)

#591 in our old book database. Not rated. 11/25/1990.

Thirty-three years on -- to the day, by chance -- I have finished a second reading of The Pooh Perplex, this time sharing it aloud to my 23-year-old daughter, so we could both appreciate the satirical take-down of academia and the biased and flawed individuals who inhabit it.

And just because it is all meant for mockery doesn't mean there aren't some interesting angles and insights into the Pooh books on offer. I'll never think of the Heffalump trap or honey pots as anything other than the vaginal cavities they truly are ever again.

FOR REFERENCE:

Contents:
• Preface
• Paradoxical Persona: The Hierarchy of Heroism in Winnie-the-Pooh by Harvey C. Window
• A Bourgeois Writer’s Proletarian Fables by Martin Tempralis
• The Theory and Practice of Bardic Verse: Notations of the Hums of Pooh by P.R. Honeycomb
• Poisoned Paradise: The Underside of Pooh by Myron Masterson
• O Felix Culpa! The Sacramental Meaning of Winnie-the-Pooh by C. J. L. Culpepper, D. Litt., Oxon.
• Winnie and the Cultural Stream by Murphy A. Sweat
• A la recherche du Pooh perdu by Woodbine Meadowlark
• A Complete Analysis of Winnie-the-Pooh by Duns C. Penwiper
• Another Book to Cross Off Your List by Simon Lacerous
• The Style of Pooh: Sources, Analogues, and Influences by Benjamin Thumb
• A.A. Milne’s Honey-Balloon-Pit-Gun-Tail-Bathtubcomplex by Karl Anschauung, M.D.
• Prolegomena to Any Future Study of Winnie-the-Pooh by Smedley Force… (more)

Like the object of his study, Professor Crews has the fortune or misfortune of being extremely well documented. A prolific essayist who has returned to and revised his ideas a number of times since the 1950s, Crews has written the culmination of his lifelong engagement with Freud and Freudianism. It is this "ism" that motivates his turn from literary criticism to deep biographical research. The goal of his study is to demonstrate the social and cultural factors that enabled the "cult of Freud," including what he calls the "commercial spirit" that motivated Freud's cultivation of his own career. This is an overwhelming book, with a nearly unmanageable depth of detail. Crews' singular focus on showing Freud to be a self-aware huckster draws the threads together. One wonders, though, if this book would have been more necessary a generation ago. Scholars and physicians alike tend to be trained more eclectically today and with less of a self-consciousness of membership in a school or system. It is not that the book's unearthing of historical detail is unwelcome, but perhaps Crews overstates the need for debunking the myth of Freud if, as he reports, psychoanalysis is all-but-passe in the various fields of mental health. Moreover, the implicit point seems to be that any of Freud's insights into psyche and culture are tainted by his methods and his behavior. Cannot it be true that Freud noticed some things worth noticing and express them fluently, and also that his attempts to ingratiate himself with the scientific community caused harm? Still, as a work that contextualizes a perhaps infamous intellectual life, it is a valuable corrective. A small reader's quibble: the advanced readers copy did not include an index; a work this extensive on a body of writing as varied and deep as Freud's would be served well by an index of references to particular Freudian texts (e.g., "Totem and Taboo," "The Interpretation of Dreams," etc.).… (more)