I can't imagine a lot of JF clones, Dr Freud. Would they be automats programmed to look after his grave?
However i think you have it wrong as to his popularity. His written work alone would merit him from obscurity. If you belittle him so much, why come here? Are you after more clients?
Georges
Death of a ladies' man
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George.Wright
- Posts: 1874
- Joined: Mon Jul 08, 2002 3:37 pm
- Location: Bangor, N.Ireland
The psychoanalytic approach was first meant to heal not to insult. But pretenders and amateurs started using it's terminology to demolish an enemy . So often did this occur that these Freudians putdowns became cliches. This weakened the psychoananalytic movement and helped to drive it out of business. YDF-- If you do use these tired words try to remain true to the original spirit. If not, you will be ignored.
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Young dr. Freud
- Posts: 667
- Joined: Fri Dec 06, 2002 2:41 am
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George.Wright
- Posts: 1874
- Joined: Mon Jul 08, 2002 3:37 pm
- Location: Bangor, N.Ireland
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Torgny Lindgren's BATHSHEBA
"Now King David was striken with frost in his body, to his very bones. It was the month of zif, when to everyone else the heat seemed unbearable. He could get no sleep; he became more and more like a solitary bird on a rooftop.
They covered him over with layer upon layer of sheepskins, skins that had been displayed before the face of the Lord, and yet still he shook and shivered incessantly from cold.
And wine, wine which had in Mephiboshet produced an over-abundance of warmth and sleep, he could not swallow – it merely trickled out from the corner of his mouth.
And Bathsheba said: ‘Woman is the warmest of all God’s creatures. Let us find him a woman who is in her warmest years.’
For she knew: both kings and gods had been awakened to renewed life, had even arisen from the dead in the shimmering heat exuded by youth.
It was Abishag from Shunem they found. Solomon found her. He called her the Shunammite after the city where he found her. It was said of her that withered trees she touched bor fruit within ten days, and that infertile asses became pregnant at ounce if she slapped their hind quarters. It was for these reasons that Solomon asked to see her. Babylonian merchants thought her real name was Ishtar. She had once been taken out into the desert and red-blossomed oleanders had grown up in her footprints.
When Solomon saw her, he realized at once that she was the one who could cure the King. If the frost in his body could withstand Abishag the Shunammite, then it was incurable. The sun had burned her dark brown: she had once been the guardian of a vineyard. Her teeth resembled a flock of newly-washed ewes, her hair was long and gleaming black, and her breasts were firm and pointed.
And Abishag from Shunem went to the King’s bed. She crept in beneath the pile of sheepskins, and those who stood nearest said they heard her whisper Tamar’s name. When her fingers brushed against a fig cake that had been laid on one of the festering sores on the King’s neck, there sprang forth from the cake a fig branch with magnificent leaves.
She remained there for twenty-eigth days, the length of time she was clean.
But not once did he have carnal knowledge of her. No , when he felt her with his withered hands he could not even distinguish the parts of her body one from another. He no longer knew for sure what was breast and stomach and pudenda, and he no longer remembered how the various parts of the body were to be used – the frost had turned his fingers blinds.
And when Abishag the Shunammite rose from the bed on the twenty-eighth day, King David had still not ceased shaking with cold. But the skin on the side of Abishag’s body that had lain against the King had become wrinkeld and dried up.
Then Bathsheba commanded them all to leave the King’s room. And she took off her cloak and slipped into his bed.
Quite soon his trembling abated, the terrible iciness retreated from his body. She lay at his left side, and he pressed himself against her like a new-born lamb against a ewe: he nestled into her warmth as if he were a little babe.
As if this warmth were the one truly godly experience of his entire life.
She could feel how shrivelled he was: his knees and pelvic bones and elbows cut into her flesh as if they were deer antlers. She lifted his head carefullly on to her arm, and she felt his breath on the lobe of her ear.
And for the first time in a very long while she heard his voice.
‘Bathsheba,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she replied, very gently and carefully in order not to frighten him.
‘Holiness no longer helps me,’ he said, panting for breath.
‘Has it ever helped you?’ she asked.
‘I do not know,’ he said. And then, after a pause, ‘What is holy?’
‘The incomprehensible and the uncertain are all that is holy,’ she said.
Then he asked – and he asked as if he had perhaps been mistaken all his life – ‘How is uncertainty holy?’
‘By the very fact that we know it exists,’ she replied, ‘and that we recognize that it is incomprehensible and uncertain.’
‘I have always sought holiness in the Lord,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And sometimes you have found it.’
Then he lay silent for a long time. He let himself be permeated by the imcomprehensible warmth which she radiated.
But finally he asked – and his voice had become such a low whisper that she could catch his words only with difficulty – he asked, as if groping for words and almost fearful that she would not have any answer: ‘What is the nature of the Lord?’
And she answered at once from within her warmth and certainty, ‘He is like me. He is exactly like me.’
She felt him relax in her arms: his legs and joints seemed to soften and his breathing became clam as if he were about to fall asleep.
But then she heard him quietly, almost inaudibly, repeating her words to himself, as if he were trying to interpret their mystery and to understand fully their unfathomable significance.
‘He is like you,’ he said. ‘Yes, He is just like you.’
And there was a distinct note of bliss in his almost soundless whisper.
Then they lay in silence together. She heard his breathing becoming weaker and slower. He sucked on a lock of her hair which she raised to his mouth with her right hand; from time to time his lips made a feeble supping sound like a sleepy babe at the breast.
But then, long after she thought him to be sleeping, when in fact she was already sure that he had fallen asleep for ever, he spoke, loud and clear, and she could feel the vibration of his throat against the skin of her shoulder, that tremor which she had so often seen and heard but never before felt: ‘You are perfection, Bathsheba. Your perfection is your greatest flaw.’
That was King David’s final utterance.”
From swedish writer Torgny Lindgren’s novel, Bathsheba.
Translated by Tom Geddes
Collins Harvill, London, 1989
They covered him over with layer upon layer of sheepskins, skins that had been displayed before the face of the Lord, and yet still he shook and shivered incessantly from cold.
And wine, wine which had in Mephiboshet produced an over-abundance of warmth and sleep, he could not swallow – it merely trickled out from the corner of his mouth.
And Bathsheba said: ‘Woman is the warmest of all God’s creatures. Let us find him a woman who is in her warmest years.’
For she knew: both kings and gods had been awakened to renewed life, had even arisen from the dead in the shimmering heat exuded by youth.
It was Abishag from Shunem they found. Solomon found her. He called her the Shunammite after the city where he found her. It was said of her that withered trees she touched bor fruit within ten days, and that infertile asses became pregnant at ounce if she slapped their hind quarters. It was for these reasons that Solomon asked to see her. Babylonian merchants thought her real name was Ishtar. She had once been taken out into the desert and red-blossomed oleanders had grown up in her footprints.
When Solomon saw her, he realized at once that she was the one who could cure the King. If the frost in his body could withstand Abishag the Shunammite, then it was incurable. The sun had burned her dark brown: she had once been the guardian of a vineyard. Her teeth resembled a flock of newly-washed ewes, her hair was long and gleaming black, and her breasts were firm and pointed.
And Abishag from Shunem went to the King’s bed. She crept in beneath the pile of sheepskins, and those who stood nearest said they heard her whisper Tamar’s name. When her fingers brushed against a fig cake that had been laid on one of the festering sores on the King’s neck, there sprang forth from the cake a fig branch with magnificent leaves.
She remained there for twenty-eigth days, the length of time she was clean.
But not once did he have carnal knowledge of her. No , when he felt her with his withered hands he could not even distinguish the parts of her body one from another. He no longer knew for sure what was breast and stomach and pudenda, and he no longer remembered how the various parts of the body were to be used – the frost had turned his fingers blinds.
And when Abishag the Shunammite rose from the bed on the twenty-eighth day, King David had still not ceased shaking with cold. But the skin on the side of Abishag’s body that had lain against the King had become wrinkeld and dried up.
Then Bathsheba commanded them all to leave the King’s room. And she took off her cloak and slipped into his bed.
Quite soon his trembling abated, the terrible iciness retreated from his body. She lay at his left side, and he pressed himself against her like a new-born lamb against a ewe: he nestled into her warmth as if he were a little babe.
As if this warmth were the one truly godly experience of his entire life.
She could feel how shrivelled he was: his knees and pelvic bones and elbows cut into her flesh as if they were deer antlers. She lifted his head carefullly on to her arm, and she felt his breath on the lobe of her ear.
And for the first time in a very long while she heard his voice.
‘Bathsheba,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she replied, very gently and carefully in order not to frighten him.
‘Holiness no longer helps me,’ he said, panting for breath.
‘Has it ever helped you?’ she asked.
‘I do not know,’ he said. And then, after a pause, ‘What is holy?’
‘The incomprehensible and the uncertain are all that is holy,’ she said.
Then he asked – and he asked as if he had perhaps been mistaken all his life – ‘How is uncertainty holy?’
‘By the very fact that we know it exists,’ she replied, ‘and that we recognize that it is incomprehensible and uncertain.’
‘I have always sought holiness in the Lord,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And sometimes you have found it.’
Then he lay silent for a long time. He let himself be permeated by the imcomprehensible warmth which she radiated.
But finally he asked – and his voice had become such a low whisper that she could catch his words only with difficulty – he asked, as if groping for words and almost fearful that she would not have any answer: ‘What is the nature of the Lord?’
And she answered at once from within her warmth and certainty, ‘He is like me. He is exactly like me.’
She felt him relax in her arms: his legs and joints seemed to soften and his breathing became clam as if he were about to fall asleep.
But then she heard him quietly, almost inaudibly, repeating her words to himself, as if he were trying to interpret their mystery and to understand fully their unfathomable significance.
‘He is like you,’ he said. ‘Yes, He is just like you.’
And there was a distinct note of bliss in his almost soundless whisper.
Then they lay in silence together. She heard his breathing becoming weaker and slower. He sucked on a lock of her hair which she raised to his mouth with her right hand; from time to time his lips made a feeble supping sound like a sleepy babe at the breast.
But then, long after she thought him to be sleeping, when in fact she was already sure that he had fallen asleep for ever, he spoke, loud and clear, and she could feel the vibration of his throat against the skin of her shoulder, that tremor which she had so often seen and heard but never before felt: ‘You are perfection, Bathsheba. Your perfection is your greatest flaw.’
That was King David’s final utterance.”
From swedish writer Torgny Lindgren’s novel, Bathsheba.
Translated by Tom Geddes
Collins Harvill, London, 1989