I can’t say that I feel particularly tempted to lecture in Argentine
Carl Jung Depth Psychology Facebook Group
SS Cap Arcona,
Atlantic Ocean
June 12, 1934
Dear Dr Jung:
Since my friend Ortega y Gasset published The Psychology of the Unconscious and since I read the English translation of Psychological Types I have been wanting to meet you, to know you.
Your books have been a great help to me.
I admire them and I am grateful to them, to you, for all I have found in them.
I feel I owe you half of my actual serenity … perhaps more than half! And I shall always be indebted to you for it.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, this serenity is not complete, nor continuous!
But I suppose few human beings know such uninterrupted and unimpaired bliss … Few or none?
We will talk about that when we meet. Because I hope we will meet, soon. I am South American (Argentine).
We have common friends, I believe, and maybe you heard my name, maybe not.
I am quite certain you never saw my review, SUR. South America is so terribly far from
you, Europeans … though we, Americans, are so terribly near and suffer so much of the Atlantic Ocean.
The Atlantic Ocean is like a mental disease in some of us. DISTANCE. Exile!
We are always exiled. Exiled in America! Exiled in Europe!
We can’t do without Europe, but neither can we do without America.
We stifle in America, and we stifle – for other reasons – in Europe. Perhaps, sometime, something will be born of it.
In the meantime our anguish is intense.
SUR has been publishing some English books translated in Spanish (Huxley’s Pointcounterpoint, Lawrence’s Kangaroo, etc.
Unfortunately the crisis is making everything rather difficult.
Nevertheless I hope the Spanish translation and publication of Psychological Types will be an affaire conclue when I get to Paris.
I wrote to my agent in Madrid about it. I am reading now Modern Man in Search of a Soul.
I should very much like to have that book translated too.
Before I started reading it, I wrote an article for LA NACION (Buenos Aires) on Huxley’s last book, Beyond the Bay of Mexique4 [sic].
I should like you to read that article (if you have some spare time) because it will help you to understand how deeply moved I must have been by Modern Man in Search of a Soul and how I must treasure those pages.
You don’t read Spanish, I suppose. Can I send you my article in French?
Can I write to you in French? I don’t feel quite at home in English but I do in French.
Are you staying in Zurich for a while? Where shall I go to see you?
Where will it be more convenient to you and when?
If some lectures could be arranged for you in Argentina, next year, would you feel tempted?
Please let me have an answer as quickly as possible, because all my other plans will wait till this most important business of having a talk with you is fixed. Can you, will you arrange it?
Anyhow I thank you for all you have already given to me.
Victoria Ocampo
27 avenue Malakaff
Paris
I shall be in Paris the 21 of June. ~Carl Jung, The Correspondence of Victoria Ocampo, Count Keyserling and C G Jung Page 100-101
June 26, 19345
Mme Victoria Ocampo,
27 Avenue Malakoff,
Paris
Dear Madam,
Unfortunately I don’t read Spanish, but you can write to me in French, just as well if you don’t like the English.
If you want to meet me it ought to be in Zurich, because next week I shall begin my vacations which I usually spend not altogether too far from Zurich.
Not knowing your program I don’t know when an interview would suit you.
I could see you in July but I should prefer it to be between the first and the 18th of August.
As far as the 13th of July I’m coming down every Friday to my place at the above address, which is a sort of suburb of Zurich. Thus I could see you on any of those Fridays
if you let me know in time, i.e., about a week ahead.
I can’t say that I feel particularly tempted to lecture in Argentine [sic], because as a whole I don’t like lecturing.
There is too much [sic] talk in the world anyhow.
I have been surprised by your remark that Ortega y Gasset has published the Psychology of the Unconscious.
I had no idea that he had a hand in it.
It is nice to know that what one has written has meant something to somebody.
Sincerely yours,
- G. Jung ~Carl Jung, The Correspondence of Victoria Ocampo, Count Keyserling and C G Jung, Page 101
The Correspondence of Victoria Ocampo, Count Keyserling and C G Jung