New-York tribune., 1922-10-29

IA " oBoDY will be surprised, !
A take 1t, to hear that some
one has written psychic
analytical novel," nor even to
be told it is that strange genius Elsa
barker who has achieved the new and
long awaited art form. But has she,
lhdeedY ] think it will do no harm to
submit this news, whether true or
false, to bath of gkepticism.
For, consider, what is a psycho-analy-
tieal novel? Miss Barker's novel. If
such it be at all, is primarily one in
which psycho-analysis is itself the sub
ject matter, at once the character, the
action and the setting. Practically
everything that happens takes place in
the office OF an analyst during the
"psyching" of one Fielding Sargent,
who is under treatment for fear
neurosis. The rest is almost silence.
Now, does the description OF u de-
Jailed professional analysis by the
Freudian technique constitute Il psy-
cho-analytical novel? LIS the familiar
psychological novel; so named be-
cause it limits itself to laboratory ex-
periments in conscious or academic
psychology? If this were SO, every such
story dealing, as does this one, with
fear would consist entirely of vivid
demonstration of the James-Lange
theory, which our teachers were won't
to reduce to "see run--be
afraid" Every psychological novel
would be circus, which we all know
is far from the facts.
If critical terminology is to be deter
mined thus the impending "behaviorist
novel; of fear will invariably show US
professors soaring white rats and pink
babies into Ats and noting down poly
syllabically just what the subjects do
when in this condition. In the "dy-
! mamie mechanistic novel" subscribing
to the views Of Or. Kemp the scene d
faire will be that in which somebody
removes part of the cubic contents
from the inferior vena cava of dis
tracted pussy cat to show that the cats
emotion has caused an increase Of
adrenin and sugar in the blood.
Miss Barker has used method ex-
actly analogous. Since psyche analysis
is technique for curing neuroses by
very special kind of bloodless opera
tion her novel consists of one of these
| operations. We see the unconscious of
Fielding Sargent barred, shivering and
4 ashamed, to our privileged gaze. We
are witnesses to his "psyching," a
| spectacle compared to which the mere
butchering of kittens and guinea pigs
is an insignificant and silly amuse-
ment. There are no close-ups of the
zee. Psyche analysts are those psychol-
ogists who do not try to find out what
the human mind is like by studying
the lower animals.
~ tpI- hot 11,t,c
novel would have to be more thar
clinical case. What should such {
novel be like? 1t could be on any sub
ject, of course. The main point il
that it would have to be written by
some whose wisdom and understanding
of the human scene had been so deep
ened by experience of life, which now
adays distinctly includes Sigmuno
Freud, that he could create new beauty
"a beauty, moreover, utilizing the
special rhythms and idiom (this dis
creetly) and the point of view of the
new psychology.
Well, it seems TO me that Elsa
Barker is this very person. I conclude
therefore, somewhat to my surprise
that "Fielding Sargent" is indeed {
psyche novel, the first have
encountered. And small thanks l may
get in any quarter for this learned de-
cison, since I notice, upon turning tc
the book itself, that 1 am the only
one who has thought to call it by this
hideous name. 1t is not so labeled by
the author nor by the publisher.
1t may be that success Of another
nature awaits this work. If I owned
''Fielding Sargent" l should boom il
with my last cent as the first intro
duction to psyche analysis in fictional
form. cannot see why it should not
have an immense success in just that
way. There is not vague word in the
book, not an idea other than lucid. 1t
is the best introduction to psyche
analysis of which / have any knowl-
edge, certainly much more satisfactory
for the general reader than the pom
derous tones of the professors. All
the difference would be made in the
readers approach to the book.
Even the characters of the story
seem rather fashioned to repay atten-
tive study than to arouse the delighted
contemplation of the novel reader.
Fielding Sargent, multi-millionaire of
forty-fve, is afraid he's going crazy.
He has "queer ideas" He's afraid his
dead wife, Alice, wants to return tc
him He hears scratchings. Is it