A review by cattytrona
Freud's Couch, Scott's Buttocks, Bronte's Grave by Simon Goldhill

2.0

What a snobby book. There is interesting information in here - although I knew a lot of it already, from having read around the subject (the lack of citations in this are astounding, although I guess that's a problem with the publishers/series, rather than this book specifically - but it's actually mildly painful to not see the volumes which lay the groundwork referenced properly). Still, Goldhill provides a fair summary, particularly of Shakespeare. But it's filtered through him, or at least the narrative voice he's chosen, which is neckdeep in attitudes which already feel so outdated. His response to and therefore judgements of sites is obviously based in what he likes (he favours Wordsworth and Freud and therefore favours their homes: also weird to me, although I won't penalise him for that), and his dismissal of emotional reactions therefore feels very motivated. It's noteworthy that he waves away the Brontë Parsonage, which yes, is a problem space, but also has been a site of great response from thousands of (dare I imply something) women. Booth's book Homes and Haunts, on an adjacent topic, I think relieves a trip to the Parsonage in a much more honest way; Goldhill feels like he's being cynical because he has the emotional distance to judge those who don't. There's also a general dismissal of tourist visiting (including some slightly weird stuff), which again, I think fails to engage with why people visit and what the average person has access to, in terms of travel. Also, and this is a little mean, but the world he exists in, outside of his pilgrimage is also really boring and alienating to read about at such length: constantly filtered through university, in the most old fashioned possible version of the thing possible in 21st century, and his friends and family, all a sort of monotonous echo of the narrator in education, class and attitude. There's a glibness towards difference and a lack of interest in experiences outside the narrator's own, for all he insists on being accompanied. And I take the point that to be a pilgrim is inherently an individual, internal experience, but given the narrator isn't interest in engaging fully with the pilgrimage experience, in opening himself up to faith, trust, transcendance, even emotion, I'm not sure why I'm supposed to care about his journey more than anyone else's.