<DIV>"Psychoanalysis is dead!" Again and again this obituary is pronounced, with ever-increasing conviction in newspapers and scholarly journals alike. But the ghost of Freud and his thought continues to haunt those who would seal the grave. <I>The Legend of Freud</I> shows why psychoanalysis has remained <I>uncanny,</I> not just for its enemies but for its advocates and practitioners as well—and why it continues to fascinate us. For psychoanalysis is not just a theory of psychic conflict: it is a thought in conflict with itself. Often violent, the conflicts of psychoanalysis are most productive where they remain unresolved, thus producing a text that must be <I>read:</I> deciphered, interpreted, rewritten. Psychoanalysis: <I>legenda est.</I><BR><BR><I>Review</I><BR><BR>"<I>The Legend of Freud</I> is a fine example of what can be done with Freud's texts when philosophical and literary approaches converge, and you leave the couch in the other room. . . . Like Lacan and Derrida, Weber doesn't so much explain or interpret Freud as engage him, performing what Freud would have called an <I>Auseinandersetzung,</I> a discussion or argument that's also a taking apart, a deconstruction. . . . Deconstruction has picked up a bad name, especially in the minds of those who don't understand it; but this wouldn't be the case if there were more books like Weber's. <I>The Legend of Freud</I> is the best deconstructive work I've seen lately, and the best response to Freud; it merits close attention from anyone who wants a challenge, not merely a guide to what's right and wrong. . . . Weber is brilliantly imaginative, respectful of his subject and his readers, and productive of new ideas."<BR><BR>—<I>Village Voice Literary Supplement</I><BR><BR></DIV>