Books, books

"Sigmund Freud for everybody" by Rachel Baker,

translated and revised in Japanese by Otoya Miyagi

When I first started reading this book about Freud a few years ago, I didn't complete and forgot about it. But this time, it was so interesting that it didn't take me more than a few days to finish it. This book is a very easy-to-read summery of his theory and his life, including some historical backgrounds. Especially the topic on "id", "ego", and "super-ego" soaked right into my head. Maybe I learned about it at college but didn't remember at all or I didn't understand back then and phased away easily. We consider we live in a "civilized" society that just keeps growing and growing but Freud points out that the whole society often gets tired of civilization and goes back to the barbaric, suddenly destroying all the good things that were built in the past decades. Anyhow, the book talks about other interesting theories that could answer all the questions we have in our everyday life.

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数年前、このフロイトの本を読み始めたとき、完読しないまま、忘れ去っていました。でも今回はとても面白く感じ、あっという間に読み終わってしまいました。彼の理論と生涯（時代背景も）について、とても分かりやすくまとめられています。特に、『イド』、『自我』、『超自我』の話が頭に気持ちよくすっと入ってきました。大学で学んだ気もするのですが、全然覚えておらず、もしかしたら当時は理解できなくて記憶に残らなかったのかも。私たちは、進化し続ける文明社会に暮らしていると思っているけれど、フロイトは、文明社会全体が文明に疲れてしまい、野蛮に逆戻し、長年かかって築き上げたものをあっという間に破壊してしまうことがある、と指摘しています。そのほかにも、日々の暮らしの中で疑問に思える色んなことに答えてくれるような興味深い内容でした。

BOOK-OFF is a Japanese used book store that I go to when I seek for new (old) books. Although I wanted to read more about Freud, I found some other things in my favorite:) $1 section. Voila! I will start with "Sophie's world".

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読む本がなくなったらまた新しい（古い）本を求めてブックオフに。フロイトの本をもっと読みたかったけれど、1ドルコーナーにて他の本達を発見。まずは『ソフィーの世界』からいってみます。