Yesterday I ordered a copy of The Red Book from Amazon for twenty something dollars, apparently at a large discount. Free overnight shipping. I thought that was a cheap price for any book with illustrations and… that’s because this book doesn’t have the illustrations. It’s “A Reader’s Edition” Well… at $20 I’m not going bother returning it. And maybe it will be necessary when I do manage to procure a copy of the actual Red Book, because it’s written in calligraphy, in German I believe. So to appreciate the artwork, I guess I need the German calligraphy. I don’t want some fake Jung calligraphy… So perhaps not wasted money in the long run.

But looking into it just a little further, first, it doesn’t look like it’s going to be cheap to find a copy. Amazon currently has it listed for $214, a 27% discount from $300. That’s not exactly a cheap book.

Second, I found myself on the Wikipedia page where I read:

Biographers and critics have disagreed whether these years in Jung’s life should be seen as “a creative illness”, a period of introspection, a psychotic break, or simply madness.

Yesterday I wrote that it sounds like Jung walked a razor’s edge between sanity and insanity. Still… I’m surprised that… I read his own descriptions of this time period and I didn’t understand the extent to which he was consumed by his thoughts and mission, his “confrontations with the unconscious”.

I’ve seen some footage of interviews he did towards the end of his life on YouTube. As an old man he seemed witty and full of life. And humor.

How does a man with so many insights into the human condition, who has helped so many people with his poignant observations, how does that same man truly descend into madness?

I think when I was reading the memoirs I took what he was saying more figuratively than as intended…

Back to the book: it wasn’t published until 2009 (at $195) It’s interesting that it was kept from the public for so long. To who’s benefit?

It’s currently at the Library of Congress, donated also in 2009. So I can save the $2-300 and just go check it out? How is it that the United States ended up with the original and not Switzerland? Maybe there is a story there worth digging into.