The Words to Say It: An Autobiographical Novel

by Marie Cardinal

Book Overview

THE WORDS TO SAY IT by Marie Cardinal, translated by Pat Goodheart, Van Vactor & Goodheart Publisher, is in the words of Bruno Bettelheim "the best account of a psychoanalysis as seen and experienced... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0941324028
• ISBN13: 9780941324021
• Release Date: January 1983
• Publisher: Van Vactor & Goodheart
• Length: 308 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The fear of a child

In this forceful and disturbing novel, a woman discovers slowly the real (psychic) reason of her illness: an irresistible continuing loss of blood. During her psychoanalysis, she succeeds in demolishing the thick wall that separates her from the extremely painful truth and the origin of her disorder: the fear of a child. The story unveils masterly the reasons of this fear. Marie Cardinal evocates fiercely her violent psychic battle with her unconscious in order to force it to reveal its secrets, her fear to (re)discover forgotten painful, but crucial, incidents or the psychic violence needed to open the doors of the subconscious. Her book is also a profound meditation on the impact of a `colossal' religion on people's lives (interdiction of divorce) and on the female condition and female psychology. A formidable and shocking book. A must read.

A journey in self-discovery

This book is one of the best novels I've ever read. Cardinal's struggle to find herself in the mysterious depths of the unconscious is not just a story about psychoanalysis, it's a book about the ordinary processes that occur in our minds when we experience things we cannot handle growing up. It's about forgetting and remembering. It's about making discoveries and letting things go. Reading her story will make you think about how fragile our understandings of ourselves really are. I admire this book not just for its honest and captivating prose. I think it accurately portrays some of the most valuable ideas behind Freud's psychoanalytic theory.

"...a beautiful and terrifying story..."

"...a beautiful and terrifying story in honor of all people.... Van Vactor and Goodheart's decision to publish Cardinal in an elegant translation opens the door to a world rich in language and thought that we should be grateful to share." --The Philadelphia Inquirer. "...a profligate yet impeccably controlled work.... "...chilling set pieces are shrewdly paced to create primitive, almost horror-story suspense. "One apt work that kept occurring to me as I read was 'gorgeous.' ... Miss Cardinal bowls over her audience with dazzling verbal artistry and emotion-stirring tours de force." --The New York Times Book Review"Words can be guides too, escape routes marked on tattered old maps, and here the novel and the analysis come together since both are journeys towards a language that is sane and shared, visibly free of the worst of the darkness." Michael Wood, The Sunday Times (London)