Buch, Englisch, 78 Seiten, Format (B × H): 147 mm x 230 mm
Reihe: The Karnac Library
A Psychoanalytic Fairy Tale
Buch, Englisch, 78 Seiten, Format (B × H): 147 mm x 230 mm
Reihe: The Karnac Library
ISBN: 978-1-78220-188-5
Verlag: Karnac Books
Rensal the Redbit captures the depth and magic of child psychoanalysis through the exploits of a miniature animal who befriends a “tall one” and enters into a series of daily dialogues that expand his psychological horizons for ever …
'Eugene Mahon has written a dreamily whimsical, charming little book that is lovely to read and a delight to review. It is as poetic as it is philosophical, as undefinable in purpose as it is recognizable in the array of concerns expressed in it, as private as it is broad in its appeal.
In a fantasyland that also is recognizable as our very own world, lives a young redbit (very like a rabbit but infinitely more singular, with his colorful pelt and piercingly inquiring mind). He romps and plays, as the young will do when circumstance allows. Increasingly, however, he is interrupted in his carefree child’s pleasures by observations of the nature around him and the nature within him. These command his attention and force him to stop what he is doing, cock his head, and wonder what and why.
One day, he stumbles upon a marvelously Lincolnesque “tall one” who somehow has not forgotten what it was like to be awakened out of youthful innocence by increasingly coalescing glimpses of the wonderful and the terrible that constitute the animate and inanimate world that surrounds us and of which we are a living, breathing, feeling, acting part. Quizzically ambiguous, sadly sagacious, but ever patient and unintrusively kind and loving, he is ideally suited as an interested listener, a compassionate comforter, a wise facilitator, and a source of necessary bits of information that cannot be easily enough obtained elsewhere.
The redbit makes regular visits to the tall one, who becomes his welcome friend. As they refresh themselves with endless cups of tea and slices of toast, augmented on occasion by a handful of fresh-picked berries plucked from the bounty around them, they converse about life and its manifold mysteries. Birth, death, love, hate, the warmth of safety and security, the thrill of daring and adventure, the here and now, the worlds that can be visited only with the soaring imagination, the awe-inspiring universe, the universal awfulness of the redbit (i.e., human) world of which they are a part, all is grist for their mill. Is this a parable about child psychoanalysis? Is it an inspiring but sadly poetic depiction of the joys and sorrows of parenthood? Is it a bittersweet expression of the nostalgic yearning for a youth which adults can no longer have except vicariously? As you will. The reader has prerogatives as well as the author. As for me, I hope that the story of little Rensal finds in his readers kindred spirits who will be able to read it from the heart. This slim volume, comparable to the best poetic fables of Aesop, Orwell, and Thurber, is simply a joy to read.'
- Martin A. Silverman, from the The Psychoanalytic Quarterly Review
