"By engaging two psychological analytic traditions, those of Freud and Kohut, and showing how each generates different and equally valid readings of these four novels in the Bildungsroman genre, Ms Trainin makes a powerful case that significantly revises the conventional understanding of the genre. . . . Her research . . . leads to new readings of these novels, which articulate a new understanding of their place in the literary history of the Bildungsroman. . . . She demonstrates the power of these novels, and implicitly of fiction in general, to function as literary ideal types (in the Weberian sense) that are thus not exhausted by any one particular analytic strategy. Thereby she affirms the value of literature and of fiction as independent forms of knowledge. . . . It is a splendid work." Murray Baumgarten, Distinguished Professor of English %amp; Comparative Literature, UCSC