madeleine_with_tea 's review for:

Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History by Cathy Caruth

3.0

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This was a difficult read. The book tries to connect the theories of trauma from various schools of thought. Heavily drawing from Freud, this book can be understood only if one has some knowledge on Freud, Lacan, and the Poststructuralists. No wonder, I found this a bit daunting. The writing was complex and circuitous. After days of reading this book, I felt that the essence of the entire book could've been presented in just a couple of paragraphs. Maybe it was a point that Caruth was trying to make of the repetitive nature of traumatic thinking. I think I would've appreciated this book more if I was a bit more sound in lit theory.