Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Brophy, Brigid (Antonia) - Maurice Richardson

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MAURICE RICHARDSON

This huge rambling essay in applied psychoanalysis [Black Ship to Hell] takes the form—in so far as it takes any form at all—of a random meditation on man's destructive impulses. A lot of it is given over to recapitulating the Freudian hypotheses. Sometimes, as it dodges obliquely and rather crankily between past and present, it makes your head swim; but it is worth taking some trouble with. Miss Brophy has plenty of ideas of her own. She is well read. She can be witty. She is also a particularly energetic dynamiter of any religious trees Freud has left standing. Rationalists will find her explanation of the Communion service a powerful piece of anti-doctrine—to be used with tact. (p. 233)

Maurice Richardson, "S S Thanatos," in New Statesman (© 1962 The Statesman & Nation Publishing Co. Ltd.), Vol. LXIII, No. 1614, February 16, 1962, pp. 233-34.

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1. Introduction
2. The Times Literary Supplement
3. Gene Baro
4. Pearl Kazin
5. Dan Wickenden
6. Charles J. Rolo
7. Maurice Richardson
8. The Times Literary Supplement
9. Joseph L. Quinn
10. Martin Tucker
11. Eve Auchincloss
12. Naomi Bliven
13. The Times Literary Supplement
14. Anthony Burgess
15. Victor Strauss
16. Anthony Burgess
17. Alan Levensohn
18. Edward Weeks
19. Joyce Carol Oates
20. Time
21. Hermione Lee
22. Alan Hollinghurst
23. Marilyn Butler
24. Copyright