Thursday, July 16. 2009
London
Featuring prominently on my List of Things To-Do in London was the Freud Museum and I am amazed that I have waited so long to see it. Five years ago, this would probably have been my first stop in London as I was steeped in Freudian theories as I was researching my second book on The Politics of Mourning: Grief-Management in Cross-Cultural Fiction. With my third book under way, I have turned to other topics and they took predominance over all thing Freudian. Still, having become so familiar with old Sigmund’s writing, particularly those associated with Mourning and Melancholia, I simply couldn’t leave London without exploring his English hidey-hole.
Freud’s home is open from Wednesday to Sunday from 12 noon till 5 pm only. Hence, one has to carefully plan a visit to this place because it is not in the heart of London but in Finchley which I reached by Tube so as to arrive there exactly at 12 noon. I had spent the morning continuing to work on my Oxford lecture and my packing and the discarding of a huge bunch of accumulated papers I do not need to carry to the States. Minda had arrived to clean the loft but I had little time to chat with her today as I had a lengthy agenda of things to be accomplished.
A word about the neighborhood in which Freud made his home in 1938 when he arrived in London fleeing the Nazi invasion of his native Austria where he had spent a lifetime in a house at 19 Bergstrasse in Vienna: It is in an area called Maresfield Garden, a truly lovely street filled with grand Victorian single family (detached) homes wrapped in red brick and defined by a wealth of snow white architectural details. I passed front garden after front garden completely taken by the wealth of the neighborhood until, a short walk later, I arrived at Number 20 where the Freuds made their home. A large plum tree greets visitors at the front gate past a small and perfectly well-kept garden ablaze with giant roses.
It costs 6 pounds (3 pounds student concession) to tour the house which is spacious by English standards. In fact, Freud himself was quite taken by the proportions of it and wrote enthusiastically of its size in the letters he exchanged with his siblings who remained behind in Vienna (they were all eventually killed in the concentration camps). The tour is made superbly interesting by the audio guides that cost an additional pound (but it is well worth the extra expense). You walk through the lovely hall and into the study and long consulting room where Freud met with his patients. He was a sick and old man by the time he arrived in England (suffering from cancer of the jaw which required frequent painful dressing) and took on only four patients whose voices can be heard on the audio guide describing their sessions with him.
For me, the biggest surprise was discovering that Freud was an enthusiastic collector of antiquities and amassed a vast number of Greek, Roman, Turkish and Asian artifacts that are seen all over the house as single pieces as well as in groups neatly displayed in glass vitrines. I suppose I ought not to be surprised, come to think of it, for an obsession with history and antiques is to be expected from someone whose fondest psychological theories focus on people’s past as offering a key to their present and future.
The study also contains Freud’s couch, perhaps the most famous piece of furniture in the world–and, again surprisingly, it is covered with velvet cushions and handsome Turkish carpets which are also strewn liberally all over the wooden floors of the house. Also surprising is that the rooms do not look a bit like the consulting rooms of a doctor’s office–far from it. In fact, with the use of curtains, floor rugs, masses of objects d’art and skillful lighting, Freud managed to make the rooms look cozy and very comfortable indeed and conducive to the opening of his patients’ minds. We see the cushioned bucket seat on which he sat behind his patients and, therefore, out of their sight in order not to inhibit them from speaking by giving away his own thoughts through his expressions. The entire method which Freud devised and upon which his approach rests–psychoanalysis–required the very careful creation of an ambiance that would encourage the free association of thought and ideas which would then allow the psychoanalyst to make sense of them. It was a fascinating and very exciting space to be in and to know that it was from these premises that Freud was able to allow his revolutionary techniques to be made known to the world.
Indeed, though he had been practising psychoanalysis for decades from his clinic in Vienna long before he arrived in London, he took pains to see that every single one of his books and antiques was shipped to London (including the famous couch which was a gift from one of his female patients) so as to recreate the rooms as they had existed in Vienna. Hence, though Freud only lived in Maresfield Gardens for one year (he died a little over a year after taking up residence there), his London home is a far more authentic space than the house at Bergstrasse in Vienna which has also been turned into a Freud Museum but which contains none of his own possessions but merely a replica of the manner in which the space might have looked while he as there. And as we all know (from Freud himself) how insightful an analysis of our personalities and our beings can be gauged from the possessions that we amass, his ‘things’ are not mere ‘objects’ but keys to his own mind and his own personality–just as ours are. Interestingly, before the apartment was dismantled and its contents shipped to London, Freud had a professional photographer come in and take a series of pictures of his Viennese rooms–many of which now adorn the walls of his London dining-room– to give him a template upon which his London rooms could be recreated.
Upstairs, there is a room that was occupied by his youngest child, Anna Freud, the only one to follow her father into his profession and who specialized in Child Psychology having being taught Psychoanalysis by her father who actually psychoanalysed her–in a most unconventional and unorthodox move–for a father would never psychoanalyse his own child in contemporary Psychology. At any rate, it is great to see the manner in which these rooms have been preserved. They give us a superb insight into the mind and thought of this 20th century genius whose theories have influenced every single one of us in ways that we might not even realize. Such common words that form our daily vocabulary as “unconscious”, “sublimated”, “regression”, “negated”, etc. are all derived from Freudian psychology.
Amusingly, a young man entered the house and at the ticket counter, while purchasing his ticket, asked the young clerk: “Am I dressed OK for a visit to this place or should I be wearing a Freudian slip?” Unfortunately, his clever pun was lost on the clerk for whom English was clearly a foreign language! Instead, his groupies, two young girls, giggled in unison and prevented his joke from falling flat on its face.
I took a walk around the dining room with its grand Austrian painted cupboards (a collection amassed by Anna Freud) and the garden where I was delighted to find lovely small ripe plums strewn all over the lawn. The tree in the back garden had yielded the sweetest fruit and the birds hadn’t yet gotten them. With a handful of plums to snack on, I left the house, very pleased that I had made it to this temple of Freudian thought and had acquired a very interesting insight into this remarkable man whose work has had a great influence on my own writing and whose theories form the cornerstone of the literary analysis that I had undertaken a few years ago.
Regent’s Park Open Air Theater:
Then, I caught the Tube back and got off at Baker Street to meet Chaichin who handed over to me two tickets to see the matinee show of The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theater. Now I had never been to this theater and thought it would be great fun to see a play there and we were blessed by the kind of day that seemed tailor-made for such outdoor activity. I had made plans to meet Jack, son of my friends Paul and Loulou, and our rendez-vous was the entrance to Madame Tussaud’s. It always amazes me how many hordes go through the doors of this London attraction each day. In fact, you can tell that tourist season has begun in the city when you start to see the line winding in serpentine fashion around this block of Baker Street. Having been to Madame Tussaud’s 22 years ago when I first arrived in London, I have never returned there and have never felt the inclination to visit it again.
Jack arrived bang on time and we made our way towards Regent’s Park where the theater was located. It was a short ten minute walk past the beautiful Queen Mary’s Rose Garden laid out in 1935, one of London’s best-kept secrets. Though the roses were not as stunning as the ones in the many gardens I have recently seen all over the place. I could not resist taking a few photographs, and with that done, we made our way to the lovely amphitheater where we found seats in the park surrounding it and sat down to chat for a few minutes before curtail call when we climbed the stands and took our seats.
The Importance of Being Earnest is such an entertaining Edwardian comedy that it is impossible to do a bad job of it. I had seen a very good version of it last March (2008) at the Vaudeville Theater with my friend Amy when she and I had spent a few days in London en route to Italy during my Spring Break. Lady Bracknell was then played by Penelope Keith (of To the Manor Born fame)and it was to see her that I had booked tickets then. Well, imagine my surprise when I discovered that Lady Bracknell in this production was played by Susan Woolridge–whose real name may mean less than her screen name (Daphne Manners) in The Jewel in the Crown! She made a very funny Lady Bracknell but both Jack and I thought that our favorite character was the girl who played Cecily (Lucy Briggs Owen) in such a saucy fashion as to be completely lovable.
The set design was rather ingenious though I have to say that I had my heart in my mouth every time the characters walked down that steep slope–I could see how gingerly they were doing it. One false move and they could have been flat on their faces. With a Pimms cocktail at the interval for me and a coffee for Jack, we stretched our legs a bit before making our way back to our seats for the second half that was equally delightful. Since it was Jack’s first time at the Regent Park Open Air Theater we were both very pleased that we had such fine weather and such a charming performance at which to make our debut appearances as audience members at this venue.
Meeting Relatives in Hounslow:
Then, I was saying goodbye to Jack and getting back on the Tube and heading towards Hounslow East where I was picked up at the station by Joel, who drive me over to see my Dad’s second cousin Sybil who hasn’t been very well for several months. Since I am leaving soon for the States, I did want to see her before I left and I was glad to find a free evening in which to fit in this visit–indeed I made the time to see her even if briefly. It was good to sit and chat with her and Joel over old times. We took a few photographs and then Joel was dropping me off to Richmond–a mere 15 minute drive away–where he said bye to me at my friend Stephanie’s place.
Stephanie was cooking us an Indian dinner when I arrived–chicken tikka with brown rice and papadams–and as we enjoyed it in her living room, she told me all about her recent cruise in Croatia which was a blast. I was so glad to hear all about it as well as catch up with other things.
It was about 11.00 pm when we went to bed. I was spending the night at Steph’s as she will be driving me tomorrow to Andover where she works. I intend to take a train on to Salisbury as I would like to see the Cathedral and the very historic town that developed around it, before I return to the States.