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Summary: ¤ The Sickness unto Decadence ¤
Review: Currently, the most popular view of the light-footed philosopher is that of a tragic figure, beseiged by health problems and misogyny. I find this sad and misguided. Mr. Yalom's book, though not without its generic merits as a novel, falls into this category. It seemed to me that the author did not have a very extensive knowledge of Nietzsche's work (and that mostly within the modern-liberal Kaufmann apologetic fountainhead), nor did he have a very good sense of the Kant-Hegel-etc German tradition whence Nietzsche came. For example, at one point in the book, Breuer claims he has "never seen" a book like Nietzsche's, divided into many little numbered sections. This stands out as a glaring error, as it is impossible to believe that Breuer is ignorant of this popular German technique, and that he has never read, for example, Hegel. These factual errors would not be important, however, if the author hadn't fallen into the All-Too-Easy trap of offering yet another "humanization" of one of the most personable and endearing philosophers in the Western cannon. What Yalom presents is a misinformed, repugnant, sick picture of two aging swimmers clutching one another as they drown.
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Summary: A complete insight of what is going on - now...
Review: This is a work that is not just a fiction but a work that engages your mind - you are in therapy in one respect , but you engauge a guy like the philosopher at his knees who refuses to be helped and the therapist who struggles to help him. It is dramatic, therapeutic reading. The dynamics of therapy is enlivened here - the critical activity of what therapy should be about - as well as the ethical - moral persuit of the therapist taking care of a patient. Great reading and guidance for both sides .... It is easyly readable - not much jargon and you don't have to love or hate Nietzsche - just enjoy... P.S. A different title to this work would have given it greater popularity - the name of the philosopher frightens so many people - but he has written to be read in the year 2000 ...
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Summary: A masterpice of historic-ficcion whit excelent characters.
Review: An advice to future readers: Read something about Fritz Nietzche before reading this amazing novel if you want to enjoy as good as possible! (I recommended "Zaratrustra" and "The Antichrist") This novel is the most human biography of the gratest german philosofer.
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Summary: Magnificent book !!!
Review: The thought of Nietzsche and Freud in the form an excellent novel.Together with Hesse's DEMIAN, one of the best books I have read. Makes you think about your own life.....
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Summary: SO MANY TURKS ENJOYED YALOM!
Review: Is there anyone who knows the answer of this question? There are so many Turkish readers who enjoy this novel. One of them is me. THANK YOU DR. YALOM YOU HELPED ME TO REALIZE MYSELF BETTER.
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Summary: Extraordinary !!!
Review: Irving Yalom has become one of the existencialism phylosophy classics with this EXTRAORDINARY novel. He shows genious creativity in the line of the argument and deep humanistic reasoning. If you are ready to question your self and the life you have been living, If you are ready to think seriously about the purpose of your life and the responsibility freedom means, you must read this novel. A great gift for the ones you love.
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Summary: A great fiction setting for non-fiction characters
Review: The author builds a great setting for the characters to show what they are and what their thoughts are. If you search information on the characters, you'll see that Irvin D.Yalom has written this book as he interviewed them.The exect thoughts they fight for and the exect arguments they would be in if they were alive. As he says in the author's note at the end of the book, he has been to many confrences about Nietsche and Freud. These people has even never met but by the great setting, with an excellent topic he brings to a successful conclusion.
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Summary: Perfect
Review: You should read this book for two reasons: To learn to ask questions to yourself and to imagince the two great personalities of 20th century.
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Summary: Breath-taking
Review: Finally a book that does not insult my intelligence. I have started suggesting this book to my friends. I am looking forward to reading "Lying on the Couch" next.
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Summary: Discusses this book in the context of a course on Nietzsche
Review: This is an historical novel. All of the main characters are real historical figures, and Yalom has been reasonably faithful to both their lives and their characteristics. (See the Author's Note, pp. 303-6.) Josef Breuer was, indeed, a close associate of the young Sigmund Freud. Friedrich Nietzsche was, indeed, an intimate friend of the philosopher Paul Ree and had known the young Russian aristocrat, Lou Salome. The time and place of the novel are equally appropriate to these people. The period from late spring 1882 to the early winter of 1883 was a troubled period for Nietzsche, as his actual correspondence reflects, and his relationships with Lou, Paul, and his sister Elizabeth were major contributors to his depression and alienation. It was, however, a period of revolutionary re-direction in Nietzsche's thought, culminating in the completion of the first chapter of <I>Thus Spoke Zarathustra</I> in just one month's time. In order to bring Breuer and Nietzsche together, however, Yalom was forced to create a purely fictitious meeting of Lou Salome‚ and Breuer and to give Lou an uncharacteristic burden of care toward Nietzsche's health and feelings. While none of this ever happened, it is not forbidden by the facts; that is, Nietzsche undoubtedly did pass through Vienna, during this period, and we don't know when or for how long. Before leaving the subject of Lou Salome, we should observe that she was certainly the striking and charismatic figure that Yalom describes in this novel. Her brief relationship with Ree and Nietzsche was merely the beginning of a long series of relationships with intellectual giants of the period. A far more significant affair was with the great poet Rainer Maria Rilke. And furthermore, as an older woman, she became involved in Freud's school of psychoanalysis and knew Freud himself very well. Lou wrote several books, including her own <I>Remembrances</I>, which described Nietzsche and his philosophical thought. The novel offers its readers interesting insights into Nietzsche's personality, occupations, and health. Equally, it presents interesting views of Freud and the early development of psychoanalysis in Breuer's work. Freud and Breuer eventually collaborated on a book, <EM>Studies on Hysteria</EM>. But, by far the most interesting aspects of the novel, are the carefully worked relationships between early ideas in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, on one hand, and Nietzsche's philosophical thinking, as it had developed through his works up to <EM>The Gay Science</EM>. The action takes place at an especially fortuitous time in the lives of all these characters. While psychoanalytic therapy was developing in relation to the condition called hysteria, the novel explores its relationship with another condition, the existential despair of Nineteenth Century Western Civilization. This condition of despair had already been identified and discussed in the writings of Kierkegaard and Dostoyevsky and in the poems of Hoelderlin. Beginning with his book <EM>Human, All-to-Human</EM>, Nietzsche, too, was exploring existential despair. The novel's basic formula, then, brings together the future doctor of hysteria with the future doctor of despair. As it turns out, however, the doctor of hysteria is suffering from despair as well. The formula allows Yalom to ask a number of extremely interesting questions about the relevance of existential philosophy to psychoanalysis and the place of science in human life. These questions are posed and answers are suggested in a series of hospital interviews between Breuer and Nietzsche, in which Breuer has devised to trick Nietzsche into believing that he, Nietzsche, is treating Breuer's despair. Of course, Breuer discovers little-by-little that his despair is, indeed, something that needs treatment and that Nietzsche's thought is relevant. Doctor and patient become lost in a massive counter-transference phenomenon that, itself, has interesting historical links with the period. What are the questions? And are there answers? The chief symptom of Breuer's despair is his intruding possession with his former patient Bertha. Nietzsche, on the other hand, never accepts the symptom's importance and asks Breuer to look beyond it. At the level of plot, this causes a funny turn-of-events because Breuer intentionally chose this possession in order to create a path for his hidden agenda, to lead Nietzsche into revealing his own obsession with Lou Salome. Nietzsche, instead, focuses on the question of realities that lie behind symptoms. This is the natural home of philosophy and, of course, it is the future home of psychoanalysis. Breuer's cure must lie in discovering the true nature of despair --- his despair and collective human despair. As the discussions deepen, it becomes clear that moral choice is really at issue here. Despair lies, ultimately, in the recognition that one has made poor choices, perhaps never even chosen at all. Together, Nietzsche and Breuer surgically examine Breuer's life and the manifold ways in which it has been orchestrated by archetypal themes and other's needs. Bertha-as-symptom plays a role of suggesting choice. But life-with-Bertha is unimportant, perhaps even unreal; what is important is grasping the necessity of choice. And on what grounds does one really choose one's life? Nietzsche directs Breuer's scrutiny toward his inner self. What really drives him? It is a difficult question to answer. No sooner does Breuer offer up a program but Nietzsche cuts his way underneath to demonstrate the program's "bad faith," the ways that it mediates and orchestrates control by external and inauthentic factors. Nietzsche's dissection of values seems unending. Is there any way to turn such nihilism around in its tracks, to give meaning to "the sacred, Yes" that Nietzsche himself has posited toward life? Nietzsche reveals one of the leading messages of his forthcoming opus, <EM>Zarathustra</EM>. The concept of <EM>eternal recurrence</EM> presents us with a mortal challenge --- embrace life because you are stuck with it for eternity. Therefore, choose only what you can embrace fro eternity. Take choice seriously. Doesn't that just mean take life seriously? Perhaps in the sphere of psychoanalytic therapy this becomes the challenge that we should get beyond mere symptoms or otherwise suffer the fate of a reckless and incoherent life of symptoms alone, a life that wil surely destroy us within its extravagances. The end of this book seems somewhat counter-productive. Breuer has Freud hypnotize him and lead him on a task of discovery, attempting to embrace his interpretations of Nietzsche's thinking. The exercise mistakes Nietzsche's thought but, nevertheless, results in a miraculous cure of Breuer's despair. Unfortunately, Yalom doesn't take the time to work through this conflict; that is, what "task" would Nietzsche have actually wanted Breuer to work his way through. Instead, the novel's action moves swiftly to a close with a culminating chapter in which Breuer and Nietzsche confide their hidden agendas. Everyone comes out honest, in the end, and the two friends part with a general sense that the philosophy of despair and the psychoanalysis of hysteria move on common ground.
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