The Lost Prince by Selden Edwards

“The Little Book” was the best novel that I read in 2012, and it was Selden Edwards first novel. Now he has a second, “The Lost Prince.” I wrote gushing praise about his first novel and there was no way his second could live up to that, and it didn’t quite get to that same lofty level. “The Lost Prince” provides the backstory to “The Little Book,” it’s a parallel story, and it’s a fore story, as well. You’ll have to read his first book to understand that characterization. As a great fan of the first novel, I’m glad I read this second one. With many other authors, you can start in the middle of a sequence of books which stand alone, but this new novel does not stand by itself. Do yourself a favor and read “The Little Book,” and then dive into this one.

Eleanor Burden is the protagonist, and the story dates back to the late 1890s when her husband performed in the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. Eleanor led a secret life in which she kept secrets from her husband, with regard to her own investments that were spectacular, her intellectual pursuits, and especially with regard to her relationship with Arnauld Esterhazy. It their relationship which propelled this drama. And, there were remarkable other secrets. Her godfather was William James, and in this story, she had contact both with Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Edwards explained some of the differences that led to the split in Freud-Jung relationship. The author created a conversation between Burden and Jung in which Jung said of Freud, “In time our differences became impossible to conceal. I could no longer pretend to accept, for one, that human motivation is exclusively sexual, and I could not accept, for another, that the unconscious mind is entirely personal and peculiar to the individual.” Jung said, “To me, the very notion of psychic energy, libido as Freud calls it, cannot be wholly sexual. To me, libido is a more generalized ‘life force,’ of which sexuality is but one part.” Another important character, Will Honeycutt, said to Jung, “The human mind cannot stand randomness, don’t you see? Randomness makes one distraught. It means that anything can happen…. Randomness is insanity.” Edwards then took the reader into a brief explanation of Jung’s concept of “the collective unconscious.”

Much of the action in this book took place at the end of World War I, when the Austro-Hungarian empire came tumbling down. The descriptions of the physical and emotional wounds from the war were impressive, and I learned more about WWI history than I had known before. After Jung failed in the task, it was the character of Will Honeycutt, a Harvard physicist turned financier who took on the task of curing Esterhazy from his “shell shock,” the old term for PTSD. The quality of Edward’s writing and especially his character development are impressive. My advice: read Selden Edwards.

The Little Book

Timing. That’s a triple, quadruple, quintuple entendre, at least, but one you will only understand after reading this most wonderful story. At this moment, this book strikes me as being my favorite novel of the year. There are so many intersections for in this book for me: history (my college major), Greek literature (one of my college minors), anti-Semitism and the Holocaust (I married a Jew and then became one), Freud the father of psychoanalysis (I am a psychoanalyst), and the recurring loop of family events/connections/passions (my daughter suggested this book for me knowing that I was traveling to Vienna). In what other book do you run across an author who is equal parts adventure writer, travel writer, scholar, theoretical physicist (I say what with tongue in cheek), and historian. So cleverly, the author ties together Freud’s ideas about the Oedipus Complex with his characters and interactions with each other, exploring what was right and wrong about the great doctor’s ideas.

Edwards’ story makes use of time travel, and I’ve been fascinated with the fantasy of time travel since I was a boy. “Boys’ Life” the monthly magazine for Boy Scouts carried a great series about time travel during my latency years. There was the “WABAC” or Wayback Machine by Mr. Peabody and Sherman in “The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show,” cartoons that first aired from 1959 to 1964 in my early adolescence. And of course, there was H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, written in 1895, and made into the first of two movies in 1960 (much better than the 2002 version).

Edwards’ story mostly takes place in 1897 Vienna, but it jumps back and forth to 1988 in California and Boston, as well as to important events between, including WWII and the plans for the invasion of France by the Allies. The protagonist is Frank Standish Burden III, also known as Wheeler, but his father and grandfather, mother and grandmother are juxtaposed throughout the story at different ages as Edwards takes us back and forth through time. The time travel idea works beautifully.

This book was a lifetime effort by Selden Edwards, and I’m delighted to have had the chance to read it. Whatever book I choose next will be the victim of the “John Wooden effect.” After a legendary event or person, no matter how good the next coach, the next event, the next book, it will never measure up to the preceding one. I’m traveling in Croatia, a few days from flying to Vienna for the first time, and I’m more prepared to see the city and more knowledgeable about it’s history than I was before.