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I literally have no words to describe my feelings about this book (which is an appalling misuse of the word "literally", but who cares?). Maybe it's too soon to say that this book changed my life? But it did. It really really did. Well, what else? I guess, as Mr. Bingley once said to Emma, "If I loved it less, I could talk about it more." Yeah, that's it. That sums the whole thing up. I'm weeping.
"Fiction is history that might have happened." - Irvin D. Yalom"When Neitzsche Wept" is a phenomenal novel that creatively marries fact and fiction. It fires the imagination even as it simultaneously engages both the heart and mind. Its author, Irvin Yalom, an American existential psychiatrist, intended it as a teaching novel. However, it did not read like one. How ingenious to create a pedagogical device "to introduce the student to the fundamentals of existential therapy"!At center stage were
Historical-fiction explores the possible origin of psychoanalysis along with some of Nietzsche's philosophy.
I raised my case .. 5/5 and straight to my favorite shelf :-)Excerpts:--------Page 82:"My whole life has become a journey, and I begin to feel that my only home, the only familiar place to which I always return, is my illness.”P103 : Is it my duty to impose a truth on others that they do not wish to know?" “Who can determine what one wishes not to know?” Nietzsche demanded.P109: Dying is hard. I’ve always felt the final reward of the dead is to die no more!”P141: You wonder about a conversation
A quiet and slow conversation piece on the surface but what unbelievable depth and literary language! I enjoyed it immensly.
Nietzsche was anything but one dimensional as this novel tries to make him. There is a reason why all 20th century philosophy went through Nietzsche in one way or another. This book and this author have no idea why and clearly they only understand Nietzsche as if he were a comic book character. He's not. Aphorisms are a dangerous thing to quote out of context. This author does that and tries to make a whole book out of muddled psychoanalytical babble with a weak story melding a shallow plot. I'm...
Mind blowing book! Mixing up Nietzsche' philosophy and psychology by Irvin Yalom is just brilliant. Also a pretty good fiction. Enjoyed every second of reading this book.
I couldn't stop reading it! Five stars with no doubt...An avenue through which not only a great historical biography is depicted, but an invaluable psychological method is illustrated in perceivable words.
Reading this and looking at some of the other titles Yalom has published the suspicion grew that he might like to write a series of adventures about an enigmatic doctor who travels through time and space solving complex mysteries. Of course ideally this doctor would need some kind of charming but hapless companion, in this case the young Freud whose suggestions nearly lead Dr. Breuer into disaster but who eventually turns good thanks to his handy use of a watch to hypnotise the good Doctor into
Beach reading for the brainy set. Keeping in mind that this is one of Yalom’s “teaching novels,” envisioned not to entertain, or even to achieve artistically, but to serve as a type of literary experiential learning tool for therapists and therapists-to-be, really helps with tolerating the expository nature of much of the book. Also, Yalom’s nerdy and passionate enthusiasm is infectious, and if one surrenders to it, it allows the reader to join in with the fun he clearly was having writing this
For a review in Italian, please visit: https://sonnenbarke.wordpress.com/201...Irvin D. Yalom is a famous American psychiatrist and psychotherapist, who writes with this book a novel about the history of psychotherapy. So he must know what he's writing about. It is important to keep in mind that this is a novel and not a non-fiction book. At the end of the book the author adds a note where he explains which parts are fiction and which are factual. This is very useful in order to better understan...
The Doctor of DespairThe fin de siecle Viennese satirist, Karl Kraus, took a dim view of the emerging field of psychiatry: “Psychoanalysis is that mental illness for which it regards itself as therapy.” And, somewhat surprisingly, this is the main theme of this novel by an eminent psychotherapist. Psychiatry is indeed a field of Byzantine relationships. Perhaps that is Yalom’s point.Friedrich Nietzsche and Josef Breuer never really met; but Yalom puts them in an intense relationship of mutual th...
Wow. Simply fantastic. If you spend half as much time in your own head as I do mine, this might be the book for you. If you analyze yourself and your actions, enjoy the process of self discovery, or simply love psychology then I suggest you hit your nearest used book shop ASAP. This book makes no effort to hide its loftier aspects. I was not in the least surprised to learn that its author is a professor of psychology at Stanford and has written several text books on the subject. Yalom, however,
I am not in the habit of trashing a book. However, since this novel had been published as a "Perennial Classic," there is no danger that I might destroy a writer's career. However, the choice of this book as a "classic" left me perplexed: why this book is held in such a high regard?The premise of Yalom's novel is interesting: Get two of the most innovative thinkers of modern times to meet. And then what? Friederich Nietzsche and Josef Breuer--the father of modern philosophy and the father of mod...
In reading this book I was hoping to better understand the German existentialist philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844 - 1900), both the man and his particular form of existentialism. The book takes place in the last months of 1882 when Nietzsche was 38 years old; at this date he was neither widely read nor publicly acclaimed as he posthumously came to be. Some of the events of the story did not happen, but they very easily could have happened, this being a definition of fiction put fort...
This book was great, not only it had a great storyline but also it was very informative. I found it very enjoyable and from philosophical perspective it was very easy to read and yet informative.
When Nietzsche wept, Irvin D. YalomWhen Nietzsche Wept is a 1992 novel by Irvin D. Yalom. The novel starts with Dr. Josef Breuer, sitting in a cafe in Venice, Italy waiting for Lou Salomé, who was involved with Friedrich Nietzsche. She has written a letter stating that the future of the philosophy of Germany is at stake and that the German philosopher needs help desperately. The plot develops into a therapy where Breuer needs to have his soul treated, i.e. to help him get over a patient who he t...
Similar to his novel on Schopenhauer, Yallom's novel on Nietzsche illustrates the cathartic value of the "talking cure" approach used in psychotherapy. Yallom sets the stage (early 1880s, Vienna) by using two historic figures, Dr. Joseph Breuer (who is associated with laying the foundation of psychoanalysis) and the philosopher Nietzsche, both of whom were afflicted with obsessive love interests with two beautiful women. In the background, the young Freud serves as a sounding board for Breuer.Ya...
In this amazing novel Yalom blends philosophy, psychoanalysis and history and imagines what would have happened had Nietzsche gone into therapy with Breuer. The plot thrives on the tensions that arise between Nietzsche's nihilistic philosophy and Freud's belief in the fundamental role of relationships on human life and development. This book is an emotional and intellectual tour de force and brings to life two of the most magnificent thinkers of the 20th century. Yalom at his best!
It had been ages since a book had me THIS deeply and strongly emotionally involved. It is not only Nietzsche and Breuer who entered into a strange contract: it was also me. Without noticing that I had started to answer Nietzsche’s questions and following his therapy, I encapsulated into me both the experience of him and Breuer’s as well. I guided myself as well as faced my Angst.When Nietzsche wept, I sobbed for him and for me. Our sessions were over, he left, and I found a friend.