ABSTRACT
Gunn’s text is that rare creature: practical criticism that is characterized by a rigorous consciousness of method. His subtitle is a true indication of what he has accomplished. The text is filled with metaphors of borders, journeys, frontiers, explorations, and adventures. The model for such a discursive space comes from Freud himself. Gunn seems to identify with Freud the Conquistador: an identification that is not without structural consequences for this text.1 The metaphor of borders helps Gunn to avoid all the obvious mistakes. Psychoanalysis is not appealed to as an authority: it functions instead as a theoretical partner. Gunn also shies away from teleological accounts of psychoanalysis which would insist that there is a straight line from Freud to Lacan. (This perhaps is the main difference between the two books reviewed here.) Gunn’s textual strategy is deliberate: he seeks to circumnavigate the lure of Lacan’s ‘absolute mastery’ without a direct confrontation with the Master himself. This makes possible appropriations that are not unduly respectful of the Lacanian Legacy. Gunn invokes instead Lacanians like Serge Leclaire and Maud Mannoni, whose work has just started to make an impact on literary criticism.
