Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%
Fiction

Double-Wolf by Brian Castro

by John McLaren
July 1991, no. 132

Double-Wolf by Brian Castro

Allen & Unwin, 183 pp, $19.95 pb

ABR receives a commission on items purchased through this link. All ABR reviews are fully independent.

Outside there is a row of walnut trees. On one of them seven white wolves are sitting. They are staring at him. From a high and supple branch, looking like a wolf, his sister Anna is swinging. Behind them, the city is on fire.

Wolves and goats. The goats represent the ego. They control time, represent culture, continuity, the status quo. They live in the grandfather clock that is at once history and the records of the psychoanalyst. The wolves are the id, the unconscious, desire. They are also reason, and they triumph over time. The Wolf-Man led Freud to his understanding of the war of the id on the ego. Freud identified as neurotics those who, unable to live with the war, regress to the instinctive, the primitive, the animal.

 


Continue reading for only $10 per month.
Subscribe and gain full access to Australian Book Review.

Already a subscriber? .
If you need assistance, feel free to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..



Double-Wolf by Brian Castro

Allen & Unwin, 183 pp, $19.95 pb

ABR receives a commission on items purchased through this link. All ABR reviews are fully independent.


From the New Issue

What Is Wrong with Men by Jessa Crispin & The Male Complaint by Simon James Copland

by Tom Ryan

On Display: A story worth telling by Laura Couttie

by Julie Ewington

Ripeness: A novel about social maturation by Sarah Moss

by Amy Walters

You May Also Like

The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

by J.R. Burgmann

A Gap in the Records by Jan McKemmish

by Edmund Campion

Comments

Jack Thomson
Wednesday, 11 March 2020 19:50
To be honest, this was an entertaining read - the review that is.
However, it's more of an essay than a review. It reveals a lot about the reviewer's perspective, sadly overwhelming the point of reviewing the book's content. It fails to really coach a reader into whether their time is well spent in buying/consuming it.
I feel this review/essay needs a review

Leave a comment

If you are an ABR subscriber, you will need to sign in to post a comment.

If you have forgotten your sign in details, or if you receive an error message when trying to submit your comment, please email your comment (and the name of the article to which it relates) to ABR Comments. We will review your comment and, subject to approval, we will post it under your name.

Please note that all comments must be approved by ABR and comply with our Terms & Conditions.

Submit comment