The Discreet Charm of the Big Bad Wolf by Alexander McCall Smith

Author:Alexander McCall Smith [McCall Smith, Alexander]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2023-08-29T00:00:00+00:00

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Later, when discussing his actions in this period with his therapist, Ulf raised the possibility that he was, for some inexplicable reason, doing the precise opposite of what he really wanted to do. For Dr. Svensson, this was no surprise.

“But that is exactly what we do,” Dr. Svensson said. “We do the opposite of what is in our best interests—time and time again.” He fixed Ulf with one of his melancholic stares. “I can’t tell you the number of people I’ve had sitting where you are sitting now and telling me about how they’ve done things they didn’t want to do. That’s what we do. We do these things and then ask ourselves how we could possibly have done them. Not me, they say. It really wasn’t me. And they’re right, as often as not—so much human action comes from a self that is other to what we think of as our normal self.”

“But why do we do it?” asked Ulf. “Why did I sell my Saab—my beautiful silver Saab that I got from my uncle? Why would I have done that? I didn’t really believe that Martin needed the operation, after all, and yet I caved.”

“Because we all cave,” said Dr. Svensson. “We cave because we find it hard to cope with the emotional demands made upon us. It’s nothing unusual. And in your case, the emotional demand came from Juni…” He hesitated, as if uncertain whether to vouchsafe some psychological truth that might be just too much for his patient to bear. “Because Juni, you see, is your mother.”

“No, she isn’t,” said Ulf, almost automatically. “She was my girlfriend. Mothers and girlfriends are not the same thing.”

“But they are,” insisted Dr. Svensson. “At least in one sense. There’s a large body of research that shows…”

Ulf closed his eyes briefly. He had his reservations about any observation that began with There’s a large body of research that shows, even if it was made by one whom he admired as much as Dr. Svensson.

“…that men,” continued the therapist, “marry people who look like their mothers and women marry men who look like their fathers.”

Ulf opened his eyes again. “Really?”

“Yes. You can read about it if you wish in the popular psychology magazines. People love that sort of thing because it’s information that tends to accord with what they themselves have noticed in their own lives. We all know people who have married along those lines. I had a friend who married a woman who was the image of his mother. That ended in divorce, and do you know what he did? He went out and found somebody who once again looked exactly like his late mother, and married her.”

Ulf thought about this, and realised that he too could think of a friend who’d done exactly that.

“Freud, of course,” Dr. Svensson continued, “would explain that in terms of the Oedipus complex. And you may have heard of the female equivalent—the Electra complex. But even if you don’t think of it in Freudian terms, it’s still there as an observable phenomenon.

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