Here is a book with a misleading title; readers expecting an entertaining account of private exchanges between lovers will be disappointed. The subject of promises (not actually what is promised) surfaces occasionally in the text, but "when it gets late" seems to have only the remotest relevance. And because of references which are not explained, this is a text for those well-read in psychoanalysis or psychology, among many of whom it will raise a ruff of hackles. Darian Leader is a psychoanalyst, a follower of Freud as interpreted by Jacques Lacan. This means that, although he clings to the Master's thesis that a person's psychological make-up is governed by the development of sexuality in childhood and the relationship with parents, he adopts Lacan's use of linguistics to analyse it - language as a window on the mind.
The hidden meanings of what people say and how they say it, even their facial expression, tell Leader a tale, but is that tale correct? Why, he asked, was Nick Leeson, the trader who brought down Barings Bank, always grinning after his arrest? It could have been relief from pressure, he suggests, but more likely Leeson "had found what he was searching for" - punishment for his crime. It may be cynical (and incorrect) to suggest several other possible reasons, such as a hidden cache, revenge, or satisfaction at the downfall of an institution.
But in this book, Leader practices his craft mainly on the fictional characters of classical legends, and of modern literature, films and their authors. In the film Four Weddings and a Funeral, we find some justification for the "when it gets late" of the title. The character Charles, played by Hugh Grant, avoids the vows (or promises) of marriage by various means throughout the film, although at his age (getting late), convention dictates that he should marry. Leader's analysis of the situation includes inability to speak, bonds between men, and casting Carrie, Charles's inamorata, in the role of the lethal, uninvited wedding guest of folklore. According to him, the success of the film resides in these unconscious themes.
The author draws from a spectrum of cultural icons, from Rebecca to The X Files, from Faust to Indecent Proposal, with some historical biography on the way. The psychoanalysis of fictional characters and hence their authors might be considered dodgy. Their value as analysands is limited because characters in a novel are works of imagination and may be borrowed from other people or be a composite of several. Then, to use a linguistic argument, they are filtered through the author first, and the reader, actor or analyst afterwards.
The book is a ragbag of psychoanalytic ideas. Conscious and unconscious lies, woman as whore and goddess, the Oedipus complex, the silence of accused women, men who cannot give or who cannot take, haunted houses, men's fantasies of rescuing women and women's fantasies of being rescued, are some of the themes explained by Leader, in ways that don't always ring true. Much of what he says, particularly where women are concerned, can be taken, in classical terminology, cum grano salis. For instance, he maintains that "whereas a woman may avoid entering into any kind of relationship with a man because she is afraid of loving him, it is almost unheard of for a man to avoid a woman for the same reason".
Still, he wrenches one's perception around to other ways of looking at things, such as an unusual comparison between science and paranoia. The scientist and the paranoiac both suppose the existence of hidden knowledge; but the scientist does not believe that something is manipulating the atoms he is studying, whereas the paranoiac thinks an evil genius is plotting with secret knowledge against him.
Perhaps his sharpest perception is that the seeds of the ending of a love affair are present at the beginning: "In love the things that were most cherished in the partner will ultimately be the things that are most despised."
Ethna Viney is a writer and critic
