Jung and the Story of Our Time
By (Author) Sir Laurens Van Der Post
Vintage Publishing
Vintage Classics
1st August 2002
United Kingdom
General
Non Fiction
150.1954
Paperback
288
Width 129mm, Height 198mm, Spine 18mm
202g
That Laurens van der Post should have chosen to write about Jung will come as no surprise to the millions of people who saw the three television programmes that he devoted to the story of Jung's life and work. Indeed, part of the compulsion for putting the experience of his extraordinarily fruitful friendship with Jung into book form was precisely that the limitations of a single film sequence left him with the insistent feeling of a challenge only partially met. To present Jung as he knew him, not Jung the psychologist but rather Jung the man, the discoverer and explorer of a new dimension in the human spirit, was the task which Laurens van der Post set himself and which has taken his special gifts to accomplish.
For the first time the whole man is presented to the world. We are made aware not merely of his psychiatric achievement, but of the slow and painful self-development, the humour and warm humanity, the vital relevance to our troubled time, and the essential loneliness of this man of genius. An unforgettable portrait of a great man -- Alan McGlashan
Laurens van der Post was born in Africa in 1906. Most of his adult life was spent his time divided between Africa and England. His professions of writer and farmer were interrupted by ten years in the army, behind enemy lines in Abyssinia, the Western Desert and the Far East where he was taken prisoner by the Japanese while commanding a small guerrilla unit. He went straight from prison back to active service in Java. He was awarded the CBE for his services in the field. He died in 1996, aged 90.