Greatness and Limitations of Freud's Thought

By: Erich Fromm

Narrated by: William Neenan

Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's summary

Erich Fromm, renowned psychoanalyst and author of The Art of Loving, presents in this audiobook a highly stimulating and accessible critique of Sigmund Freud's contributions to modern thought. As the title suggests, Fromm's is a wholeheartedly balanced view, inspired by great admiration for Freud's achievements but with a clear understanding of the preconceptions which blinkered his vision - notably those stemming from the bourgeois materialism of his society, his certainty of the inferiority of women and his inability to conceive of psychical phenomena for which physiological roots could not be demonstrated.....

©1979 Erich Fromm, 1980 by the Estate of Erich Fromm (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Dreadful narrator

What made the experience of listening to Greatness and Limitations of Freud's Thought the most enjoyable?

There are some useful and interesting insights in here, and I've ordered the print book to study in more depth. Fromm's perspective on Freud is useful, but the narrator was not very engaging and frequently sounded like he was reciting his shopping list. To himself.

If you’ve listened to books by Erich Fromm before, how does this one compare?

I've only read research papers by Fromm, never an entire book. I'm not sure all of his observations about Freud are very strong, and few of Freud's detractors can ever come close to his breadth of genius meaning that even well-founded criticisms often seem paltry by comparison. Largely Fromm is positive about Freud, suggesting that much of his work should be considered working hypotheses rather than complete theories - a position I'd agree with. Overall, however, I'd say that as an audiobook this is a bit of a sleepy listen.

How could the performance have been better?

I'm not sure the narrator could have been more monotonous if he'd tried. I have no idea what Fromm sounded like in real life, but the narration made him sound like the most tiresome, bored and faintly irritable character imaginable. The delivery was sleepy at best, bored at worst. A little more variety of intonation would have been most welcome.