Freud for Beginners
By Leroy Douresseau
November 30, 2003 - 09:33
Pantheon Books
Writer(s): Richard Appignanesi
Penciller(s): Oscar Zarate
Cover Artist(s): Oscar Zarate
ISBN: 0-375-71460-X
$11.00
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Unlike the DARWIN FOR BEGINNERS book, in which the authors used the times in which Charles Darwin lived to put his work in context, Freud for Beginners focuses almost exclusively on Freud's ideas. With exacting detail, author Richard Appignanesi tells us what Freud thought, said, and wrote. He doesn't skimp on the historical context; he simply looks more at the man's ideas.
It's hard reading, but it's the simplest way the explain Freud's complex work. Appignanesi presents Freud in such a way that a reader can apply those ideas to his own psyche. Appignanesi has taken the hard thing and made it malleable and easier to absorb.
Some comic book readers may recognize FFB's artist, Oscar Zarate, as the man who collaborated with Alan Moore on the little graphic novel, A SMALL KILLING. Like the illustrator of Darwin, Zarate mixes his drawing skills with found art and collage. With surprising nimbleness, he often turns Freud's theories and stories of his encounters with patients into comic strips. It's the art of making graphic narrative amplify ideas, bringing words and pictures into symbiosis - true comic storytelling. Freud is also a nice entry in a unique series of graphic novels.
Rating: A-/10
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Freud for Beginners