Fwd: AtDtDA23: Tatzelwurm

[Mark Kohut]

A close friend of mine is Peter Gay's editor. Peter Gay has done a
number of books about Freud, including a full biography.
 
I had my friend ask Mr. Gay about the quote. He said that the
quote seems to have been attributed to Freud by someone unknown.

He referred me to his books and in one of them, A Godless Jew: Freud, Atheism and
the Making of Psychoanalysis I found this: "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, that sensible,
liberating caution against overinterpretation so often attributed to Freud, seems to have been wished
on him by some anonymous phrasemaker." He goes on to write that Freud could have said it, i.e. he
did believe in the truth of the witticism.


----- Original Message ----
From: Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
To: Pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Friday, November 30, 2007 10:36:07 AM
Subject: Fwd: AtDtDA23: Tatzelwurm

By Tore's leave ...

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Tore Rye Andersen <torerye at hotmail.com>
Date: Nov 29, 2007 3:11 AM
Subject: RE: AtDtDA23: Tatzelwurm
To: Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>


Hi Dave,

The quote's in Swedish, not Danish, but I've attempted a translation:


Freud's cigar

"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar"

It's possible to agree on one thing: Freud ought to have said it. But
noone has actually succeeded in proving that he did. There is nothing
definitive in writing.

> Q: Where did Freud say, "Sometimes a cigar is only a cigar"?
> A: If you know the answer to this one, please let us know because we
> have no idea...
>
> Freud Museum, London

The oldest instances I've found are from 1960 (New York Times 24
January, Times, 11 April). Without having searched all that much I'm
pretty sure that the quote is used much more often after 1960 than
before. Sigmund himself died in 1939, by the way. (I don't know
whether it has anything to do with the matter, but in 1962 the movie
"Freud" by John Huston was released. The quote isn't in that movie,
but perhaps more was written on Freud after the movie).

Tips for searchers: Several variants exist (which btw can lead one to
suspect the lack of an original quote in print). In English it can be
with 'just' or 'merely', and the ending can be 'cigar' or 'smoke'. In
German one sees both 'Manchmal ist eine Zigarre [[eben] einfach] nur
eine Zigarre' and '...eine gute Zigarre ein Rauch gerecht,' and even
the spelling Cigarre can be found. Usw.

Even if the quote is correct, Freud can't have said it very often
(which is sometimes the impression one gets), at the most a few times.
The context varies: Sometimes he's addressing students, at other times
he's snubbing a colleague.

As far as Freud and cigars are concerned, there is definitely a
connection. According to Ernest Jones (who knew Freud very well and
wrote a few books about him), on average he smoked twenty cigars a day
- not too [bamsiga]?? [delicious??], one presumes. That Freud wasn't
keen on analyzing his vice is another reason why the quote fits so
well that it ought to be genuine, if it isn't in fact so.

And a woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a Smoke

Rudyard Kipling, The Betrothed (1885)

Kipling's verifiably genuine line is perhaps the source. It's hard to
prove, however.>
http://www.faktoider.nu/freud.html

Rudyard Kipling, "The Betrothed" (1885)

http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/verse/vol1/betrothed.html

Help! Hjælpe (?) ! Tore? Help!


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