The Life and Ideas of James Hillman: Volume I: The Making of a Psychologist

Join Dick Russell as he tells the first half of the story of James Hillman, a man hell bent on restoring soul's rightful place in our lives, the world... oh, and the therapy rooms of post-Jungian psychology. Through a careful mix of historical sources, letters, books, and interviews with Hillman and his friends and family, the remarkable story of this remarkable writer slowly unfolds.As we might expect from the biography of the man who encouraged us to read our own lives backwards (in his 1996 book "The Soul's Code"), Hillman and his biographer interpret this story of a life in the terms of the soul-making world view that emerges from it. We see key moments in Hillman's life and how they influenced Hillman's thinking and awakened him to his daemon's hand. It's theory bought to life by the story of a life.The book covers the first half of Hillman's life from its ancestral beginnings in 1926 to his departure from Zurich in 1967 under a cloud but not in one. This gives its subject time to grow down [sic!] in the boardwalk empire of Atlantic city, serve in the army, stumble around the world, land in Zurich and train as a Jungian analyst, write some books and give some lectures that upset the old guard, get himself in trouble, and emerge with the foundations of an archetypal psychology, his calling, tantalisingly in place but not yet fully realised.Whether psychologist, Hillmaniac, myth maker, soul seeker, or just lover of a good story, there's something for you in this tale of a life well told. I expect you'll have trouble putting it down, as I did, and will join me in urging its author to hurry up with the sequel!---PS: Given the subject's love of the aesthetic, I find it ironic that the physical object of this book is so ugly: Commercially set for maximum page count and printed on nasty paper (with no acid-free assertion), compare it to the beautiful Hillman Uniform Edition... and weep.

Jim was the least autobiographical of writers speakers and even friends. I LOVED this book because it filled in all the blanks with such stunning images and stories, I almost wished JH was alive when this came out, though clearly that was not his aim.Maybe you had to be a real Hillmaniac to find every page so satisfying and edifying. I knew JH for many decades but there was so much here that we rarely discussed except in a round-about way and for that I am sad. Because?Because we had so much more in common than we ever uncovered and because he was even greater than I knew--working for the blind in the army, living in a sanitarium when he developed TB, reading "The Magic Mountain", living in Paris post-war, his long first marriage, the way he was so vilified by the CJ Jung analysts and on and on. How much did I love this book?I listened to it three times on audible.com; read it online via computer and finally bought a copy of the book by which time, I had more than not, memorized it.We spend many hours together and he did appreciate our friendship but we never discussed so much of his childhood which bizarrely was uncannily not unlike mine. I miss JH all the time but this book was just great and so a little more of him lives us for we who miss him so. W. Orange

Having loved James Hillman for his books and lectures, but knowing little of his personal life, I was intrigued by this biography.However, already in chapter two I've encountered an untruth under the heading: ancestral inheritances, which makes me wonder about other possible inaccuracies.'Krauskopf' is actually an affectionate and endearing term in German (not a hateful one, as the author suggests), reserved for a child with a head of curly hair ("Du kleiner Krauskopf", rather than "Du kleines Kraushaar"),- curly hair being coveted as something special, desirable and out of the ordinary ('Wirrkopf' more likely and 'Dummkopf' for certain would pertain to what's inside the head and be derogatory).Jewish surnames in general are very lovely visual images in German, such as 'Morgenstern' (morning star), 'Edelmann' (noble man), 'Rubinstein' (ruby), 'Suesskind' (sweet child), 'Goldberg' (mountain of/with gold), etc. Historically these names were given with love and pride for and to family/tribe members,- unfavorable names coming from outside the group would not have stuck, as can be verified by research.I would be surprised, if JH had not known the meaning of his mother's maiden name, 'though the subtleties of a language are often only accessible to the native speaker.Hopefully this mistake will have been corrected in the next edition, but meanwhile it is still a worthwhile biography and I'm anticipating the second volume.

I would tell the biographer that his work on his tale is nothing short of a re-visioning of biographical storying. What is a biography if not a literary gesture to reveal the soul of the character(s) in the story, and the person of this story laid out the ideas that allow for such revisioning.Make no bones about it: I love James Hillman. I'm more familiar with him as a writer than as a man, and I find that these stories continute to teach me so much about living through the messes that life appears to bring.Who should read this book? Anyone who can read, I say. There are so many little gems of experience that cannot help but instruct the reader in some capacity.The only problem with this book is that it stops before book two comes out. I beg Mr. Russell: finish Part II as fast as you can, and no faster, please. I'm curious as to how this project has shaped the art of the writer by having taken up the project.Anyone who has lived through some challenging times, and perhaps is even living through or facing soon such adversity, needs to read this book. I know that I'm talking to everyone I know and don't about reading this book.all the best,Andy

Loved it. A wonderful introspection into one of the great thinkers of our times... I have read everything by Hillman and was waiting for something about his biographical life...

This is an extremely well-researched and well-written account of Jim's early life. I look forward to the second volume. Good work, Dick!