Oscar & Lucy -
An Autobiographical Biography
Book Description
This short book is not an orthodox biography; neither is it really much of an autobiography; also, it is not about anybody called Lucy: it is something between all three of these things. The book came into being by accident. I was wrestling with my novel Lucy, finding myself, as ever, fighting a character. And for reasons that lie too deep for thought I found myself musing about my father’s days in wartime England. Which led me inexorably to Oscar, my old Professor in Melbourne years and years ago. Why was that? I was left amazed afresh at the subtlety of the process we call reminding; at its intricacy; at its ability to surprise the very mind that is working the magic. How close are recovered memories to fiction? Certainly, my Melbourne days were so long ago their story might well belong to another person. Was that terror-stricken young lecturer trying to come to terms with his first academic Big Fish really me? I look back at him and realise he is hardly to be distinguished from a fiction. So you can say it was psychological curiosity that brought me here. I know (or think I know) the forces that shaped my life; the forces that carried me here more or less in one piece. What were the forces that shaped Oscar? Is it possible to know?
Oscar was one of those people blessed (or is it cursed?) to live in interesting times; indeed, times interesting enough for a dozen normal lives. He was the architest of extraordinary - even heroic - deeds, yet they are completely forgotten now. He was to be counted along with people who shaped the history of the 20th century - someone who played a key role in the allied victory in WWII yet is barely mentioned in that context. He was a psychologist who worked with giants, someone who made crucial discoveries in psychology - and employed them to help win the peace in WWII, yet he came to distrust the discipline and finally disown it. The history of Oscar's move from brilliant physics graduate to disillusioned professor perfectly illustrates fault lines in our infant discipline of psychology: problems that have remained unsolved for a century. I sense you losing heart already. You think I am abount to dredge up the mildly diverting deeds of some long-forgotten fogey. I know what you mean - that would be a dispiriting affair. But you would be wrong. Do not doubt me on the subject of Oscar - he really was an extraordinay man. Read on ...
How to buy
Oscar & Lucy is available in the Kindle store. The paperback edition is available from the Lulu site at a discounted price. The paperback is also available at Amazon UK and Amazon US.