Newsletter 2009

The World is Made of Glass

Morris West

New York: William Morrow and Company, 1983, 322 pp.

If C. G. Jung had done nothing else, he could be remembered for providing plentiful material for fiction writers. Robertson Davies, Timothy Findley and others have found Jung and his theories fruitful material for their work. This book by the masterful storyteller Morris West is not recent, but it makes compelling reading. West is probably best known for his novel The Shoes of the Fisherman (1963), the eerily prescient story of a Russian Pope that bears some resemblance to the actual reign of John Paul II.

This book is a fictional account of a real case Jung referred to in his book Memories, Dreams, Reflections, a case he admitted was one of his failures. A gripping tale of sadism, incest and murder, it is set just before the outbreak of World War I (though that is not necessarily when it actually occurred.)

Magda is a beautiful, middle-aged Austrian physician and horse breeder who travels in aristocratic circles. She has fallen on hard times because of her uncontrollable rages and lusts. In one visit to a Berlin bordello, she fears she has killed a man in a fury. Similar outbursts and attacks on animals have made her unwelcome even on her own estate.

News of her murderous attack in the bordello reaches the ears of Sir Basil Zaharoff, a British agent and arms dealer. He threatens to expose her if she will not become his mistress and madam of all the brothels he controls in Europe.

“Tonight, with all the casual cruelty of a caliph, Basil Zaharoff violated me. He debased me, stripped off every shred of self-respect and then offered to buy me like a brood mare at auction,” Magda says early in the novel.

He did more. He barbarized something that was beautiful to me. He marched through my private Eden, trampling down the illusions of my childhood, the cherished images of Papa and Lily. He heaped mockery on us all … So, from now on he can blackmail me with what he knows about my origins, suspects about my marriage, its prelude and its aftermath — and what every madam in the business will be happy to report to him on my sexual needs and aberrations.

Faced with this situation and tormented by a very disturbing dream of being encased naked in a glass ball, Magda decides to consult C. G. Jung on the advice of another doctor who is a long-time friend. Jung is having problems of his own at this time, starting to slip into the psychotic episodes that troubled him for many years and that form the content of his recently published Red Book. He is also engaged in an adulterous affair with Toni Wolff and is having trouble at home. In addition, he is coming close to a complete break with his mentor Sigmund Freud.

The format of the book is interspersed first person accounts by Magda and by Jung. In his, Jung details his own personal struggles — with the contents of his unconscious, and with his wife and mistress, as well as with his theories and his very difficult patient.

When Magda speaks with Jung, she unleashes her tale of incest, debauchery and murder, and her struggle to find a way to keep on living. She is clearly seeking absolution and redemption, although she claims not to believe in God or an afterlife. Unfortunately, Jung is unable to help her since she arouses his own ever-lurking psychic devils. With regret he sends her away, but in the novel at least she seems to find a type of redemption before her untimely death. What became of her in reality is unknown.

This is a dark, disturbing story and perhaps for that reason I enjoyed it. It is set at my favourite time in history and has all the readability of a thriller. The character of Basil Zaharoff, played by the late Leo McKern who like Morris West was Australian, featured in one of the great television shows of the late 20^th century, “Reilley, Ace of Spies.” (Given that this book appeared not long after the TV show, I suspect some influence from McKern, better known for his later role as “Rumpole of the Bailey.”) Other notable historical persons, including Oscar Wilde and Sir Richard Burton, make cameo appearances in the book.

West’s treatment of Jung and Jungian analysis is respectful and the historical details seem to be accurate. This novel provides another perspective on a pivotal epoch in Jung’s life, the time when he was starting to undergo the encounter with the unconscious that formed the basis for some of his greatest work.

It is a pleasant respite from the heaviness of more academically or clinically-oriented Jungian literature. For those who have little familiarity with Jung, this book could provide a relatively easy introduction to the study of his life and work. And for those of us who are old Jungian hands, it is a good read with some redemptive overtones.

—Margaret Piton

Margaret Piton has written a play about Jung and Lenin.