Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to Literature and Psychoanalysis
- The Cambridge Companion to Literature and Psychoanalysis
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Abbreviations
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology
- Introduction Reading to Recover
- Part I In History
- Part II In Society
- 6 Remembering Violence and Possibilities of Mourning
- 7 Latin American Violence Novels
- 8 A Man and His Things
- 9 The Uses of Literature and Psychoanalysis in Contemporary Reading Groups
- Part III In Sight
- Part IV In Theory
- Further Reading
- Index
8 - A Man and His Things
Bruce Chatwin’s Utz
from Part II - In Society
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 December 2021
- The Cambridge Companion to Literature and Psychoanalysis
- The Cambridge Companion to Literature and Psychoanalysis
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Abbreviations
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology
- Introduction Reading to Recover
- Part I In History
- Part II In Society
- 6 Remembering Violence and Possibilities of Mourning
- 7 Latin American Violence Novels
- 8 A Man and His Things
- 9 The Uses of Literature and Psychoanalysis in Contemporary Reading Groups
- Part III In Sight
- Part IV In Theory
- Further Reading
- Index
Summary
A close reading of Bruce Chatwin's novel, Utz, illuminates the tangled relationships between man and his material things in his physical environment, thereby illustrating the rich reciprocity of psychoanalytic approaches to literature. The eponymous protagonist of Utz is obsessed with his valuable collection of Meissen figurines, shutting himself off from the external world and retreating to a world populated by material things – objects he can buy, sell, and manipulate. Utz is interpreted as a fictional proxy for its author, a former director at Sotheby’s, who had an intense relationship to the antiquities and artifacts that he collected, yet would periodically leave his home, loved ones, and collections to travel abroad. Chatwin’s Utz affords a model for the conflicts inherent in man’s relationships to things, which variously operate as symbols and trophies; as dehumanized substitutes for human relationships; as markers of domination and control; and as agents of self-creation. (148)
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- The Cambridge Companion to Literature and Psychoanalysis , pp. 145 - 167Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021