ISO books with explicitly Jungian characters or plots

April 23, 2024 4:11 PM

I'm looking for books, fiction or non-fiction, which feature Jungian analysts or analysands as central characters, and/or explicitly rely on Jung's theories for all or part of the plot.

To be clear, I'm not really after books where Jungian tropes are part of the underlying universe but not acknowledged by the characters, although if you know of any good ones, please feel free to flag them here. Any genre is fine. Thanks!

posted by rpfields to Media & Arts (15 answers total)

The Manticore by Robertson Davies.
posted by Frowner at 4:16 PM on April 23

The Princess Diaries series by Meg Cabot.I'm not joking.

Project Princess: Mia writes letters to Carl Jung asking for help. She wants to achieve self-actualization by her 16th birthday, which is in a few months
posted by damayanti at 4:46 PM on April 23

not acknowledged by the characters

popular fiction, but you might try some tom robbins for narrative elements (collective unconscious, synchronicity). jitterbug perfume is my fave.
posted by j_curiouser at 4:50 PM on April 23

I was also thinking pf pretty much anything by Robertson Davies or Timothy Findley.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 4:54 PM on April 23

Herman Hesse's Demian and possibly to a lesser extent Steppenwolf.
posted by juv3nal at 5:10 PM on April 23

To expand a bit on Frowner’s answer, most of Roberson Davies’ novels have Jungisn elements, including the Depford Trilogy (of which The Manticore is a part) and the Cornish Trilogy. He hasn’t dated exceptionally well, but his novels are still worth a read.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:25 PM on April 23

I can't say I've ever read another novel besides The Manticore that was mainly about a guy undergoing Jungian analysis, but even if I had I'm confident it would be the best novel mainly about a guy undergoing Jungian analysis that I'd ever read.
posted by babelfish at 6:45 PM on April 23

The other books in the Depford Trilogy are better though, if I'm remembering right. Better to read all three books start to finish in my opinion.
posted by slidell at 7:23 PM on April 23

Anaïs Nin went through decades of Jungian analysis and it’s all laid out at length and considerable detail in her diaries.

But if you really want see Archetypes in action, I don’t think you can do better than The Freud-Jung Letters published by Bollingen.

If that book had been published as fiction instead of being a collection of their actual letters, I think it would be regarded as the greatest epistolary novel of all time in any language.

There is so much dramatic tension in so many places that I had to put it aside again and again because I just could not bear to experience the emotions of the tragedies, disasters, and betrayals that were laid in train.

And it’s also a great, tragic, and acutely painful to witness love story because Freud really loved Jung and manifested that love in so many of the letters, but in my opinion, Jung remained obdurate, cold, and unmoved from beginning to end.
posted by jamjam at 8:01 PM on April 23

The Darkangel trilogy by Meredith Ann Pierce is based on a dream recounted to Jung.
posted by music for skeletons at 8:49 PM on April 23

The Magus by John Fowles
posted by mygothlaundry at 9:09 AM on April 24

For nonfiction, you might want to check out Helen M. Luke's books. Among other things, she did a Jungian analysis of Eowyn from The Lord of the Rings. (I think it's in either The Way of Woman or Kaleidoscope.)
posted by velvet_n_purrs at 3:06 PM on April 24

Nicholas Mosley's work, especially Hopeful Monsters (in which Jung himself has a cameo). Also D. M. Thomas's The White Hotel.
posted by dizziest at 6:09 AM on April 25

Thanks everybody, I really appreciate all these. I've marked a couple of best answers that flagged material I had not previously run across. I've also been inspired to revisit Robertson Davies!

If anybody has more ideas, they would be most welcome.
posted by rpfields at 10:22 AM on April 27

So Fritz Leiber was heavily influenced by Jung, especially the ideas of the Anima and Shadow, and he became a lot more overt about this later in his life. The Anima figures prominently in Our Lady of Darkness (1977, I think?), and, if I remember correctly, the characters discuss it openly.
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:06 AM on April 28