This is one of those books that I discovered through sheer serendipity.  We were attending the Jewish Book Festival in London through another random connection—a cousin in Berkeley emailed that a dear friend of hers was reading there and she connected us to the man’s wife via email. While waiting for the reading, we picked up a free copy of the current Times Literary Supplement (TLS for those in the know!), and among the reviews was one about this book.  I had never heard of Grosz and psychoanalysis is far from my areas of knowledge or even interest, but when I saw the book on the “new book” shelf at the Boston Atheneum, I checked it out.

Having finished it, I’m still not sure that I’m any more knowledgeable about analysis though it did increase my interest. Grosz shares ten ‘case studies’ of his patients with the reader, describing the problem that brought the patient to his practice and how their mutual efforts finally cast light on the issue that the patient was struggling with.  The case studies are, of necessity, short on details (e.g. how often the sessions occurred over how long a period), but they offer insights into how an analyst might help an individual dig down deeply into the past to better understand and deal with the present.

I must admit to a certain frustration with Grosz that is perhaps more about my skepticism about ‘analysis’ than about his writing, but it appears that this frustration was not shared by the reviewer from TLS who wrote: “Love’s Labour (note the British spelling which is not reproduced on the cover of the book I read published by Random House in New York) consists of clusters of vivid fragments mostly from the therapy room, which Grosz uses to uncover abiding truths. He does not offer a comprehensive theory or love hacks, but the vignettes offer poetic glimmers of wisdom.”  Maybe.

At one point, indicating his own frustration with analysis, Grosz lists 21 different answers to the question of “What is the aim of a psychoanalysis?” formulated by individuals from Freud to Janet Malcolm.  He concludes that “The medicine of psychoanalysis is not helping but understanding.”  Okay, but if one is going to spend thousands of dollars or pounds and endless hours each week for years, might it not be reasonable to aim to help?

I might have done better to have stopped after reading the two epigraphs with which Grosz introduces the book.  Rainer Maria Rilke wrote “For one person to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the work for which all other work is but preparation.”, and Iris Murdoch wrote in “The Bell”: “Remember that all our failures are ultimately failures in love.”

I look forward to discussing this book with my dear friend who has been a psychoanalyst for many years.