Choice Review

The first two paragraphs of translator Mehlman's preface set the tone for this book of writings by French philosopher-communist Althusser: pompous, trivial, and highly arcane. The second paragraph certainly should get the New Yorker magazine's "Block That Metaphor" award of the decade. To say that Althusser was a devout believer in psychoanalysis would be an understatement. Yet there are few (if any) useful insights into psychoanalysis in this collection of writings. Althusser appears to have an intense interest in French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, but their mutual correspondence falls short of revealing anything bordering on the profound. These are not useful, highly insightful, nor even interesting "writings on psychoanalysis" as the title of this book might promise. F. L. Coolidge; University of Colorado at Colorado Springs