Rating: 
Summary: Extremely disappointing
Review: This book is so disappointing because it had the potential to be quite good. It started out well, with a wonderful location and time period, unusual characters, engrossing atmosphere, and a shocking crime.Unfortunately, it all came apart very quickly. The Inspector and his wife evolved from unusual to overwrought, needy, secretive and selfish. The engrossing atmosphere went sour as the author padded the book with several contrived and irrelevant scenes. And the crime itself was solved in a ridiculous way that completely ignored the main clues of fig, excrement, and severed thumb. And finally, if there was any link between this story and Freud's Dora, I completely failed to see it.
Rating: 
Summary: A Twist Of Freud's History Encased In Mystery
Review: The premise of Jody Shields' hypnotic first novel, "The Fig Eater," is based on a questioning premise. What if Freud's groundbreaking case study "Dora" did not crack the case of female hysteria being caused solely by sexual repression? What if not psychoanalysis but another of our modern secular religions, criminology, was brought to bear on the mystery of Dora? Interesting fodder and Shield's pulls off the switch with impressive élan. While "The Fig Eater" is satisfying as a nuts-and-bolts story of detective work in early 20th century Vienna, the novel also leaves us with the haunting sense that we can approach the truth only by opening our minds to more than one way of knowing. As the novel opens, Dora has been murdered. In sinuous, disciplined prose, Shields relates the painstaking efforts of one Inspector (whose name we never learn) to piece together the circumstances of the girl's death. He follows the exacting principles outlined in the 1901 "Enzyclopädie der Kriminalistik," the first psychological approach to crime. The novel includes many excerpts from this remarkable work, which is as much a philosophical tract -- a guide to living a fully conscious life -- as it is a handbook on criminology. The Inspector's Hungarian wife, Erszébet, finds herself moved, for reasons she doesn't fully understand, by the pathos of Dora's murder. She decides to investigate on her own, with the help of a game young English nanny she has befriended. Erszébet has her own methodology, derived from the Gypsy folklore she grew up with: She focuses on dreams, spells, the weather, animals -- in short, everything her husband's rationalist training overlooks. The novel abounds with sensual pleasures -- especially the exquisite descriptions of rich Viennese food -- made all the more appealing by the precise, unhurried way Shields illustrates them; she is a visual artist, too, and her eye for the painterly is evident. While the author takes liberties with the historical record, having the girl murdered at 20 feels true to the disturbed-family scenario that led the father of the real-life Dora -- a woman named Ida Bauer, who actually lived to be 63 -- to send her to the great psychoanalyst for treatment. Shields makes the murder seem historically plausible. And that's just the first of the means by which, in "The Fig Eater," she expands our ways of seeing. A substantial literary view of murder, mayhem, and mind-expansion.
Rating: 
Summary: Absorbing reading
Review: I found this book in Vienna, and spent the day reading it in one park and cafe after another, becoming completely absorbed by the location and the text. I found it shockingly good- with language twists and images that felt more like reading poetry than prose. (Poetry of the more modern kind, the trivia of life turned over and its underside revealed).
Rating:
Summary: I do give a fig
Review: I did enjoy this book. I will admit that it took me two tries to get into it, but then it became a real page turner. I was transported to a City and time unfamiliar and very appealing. I liked the focus on the main characters, the Inspector, his wife and Wally. But I did want to know more about the husband and wife's relationship, and was left with unsatisfied curiosity about Wally, and even Rosza. Other than the Inspector, the men were not a very interesting bunch. I continue to be puzzled about the importance of the fig. The ending was a rather too convenient way out, but perhaps it was the only way!
Rating:
Summary: Not Even 1 Star
Review: This book is probably the worst book I have ever read in my adult life. Freakishly bad story. Wrong use of the first person and present tense. Paper mache characters. She makes "The Alienist" look like a Dicken's Classic. You know what the problem is? We've become a society where marketing and hype and race and sex and tribalism have taken the place of talent. Of storytelling ability. Anyone can be a wordsmith. But who can craft story? To be honest, I haven't read that many novels that move me like a good movie, like a 'Jerry Maguire'. Instead they come off sounding like 'The English Patient' which was the worst movie of the century, in my opinion. Guys, I don't follow the pack. And I dislike people who do. You're smarter than that. Trust your own ability and your own intelligence to think for yourself. Don't give into the brainwashing the media culture is imposing on you. They're evil. THINK FOR YOURSELF AND KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW IN THIS WORLD. YOU'RE OWN MIND IS AT RISK HERE.
Rating:
Summary: This book is a mess
Review: I felt cheated after reading so much about figs and severed thumbs and tarot cards only to find out at the end it all meant nothing. Every time there was a climax, it was immediately forgotten only to be referred to in an absent-minded way 50 pages later. The ending was ludicrous. I think Ms. Shields had a germ of an idea and didn't know what to do with it after the first couple of chapters. I have lived in Vienna for the past eight years and every time I came to a German word, I winced because Ms. Shields used the singular instead of the plural and put umlauts in the wrong place. A key plot point in the book (the search for Rosza, the governess) could have been resolved at once instead of dragging on for over 200 pages. In Austria it is required by law to file a Meldezettel, a police form listing your place of residence. Even a baby needs its own Meldezettel within three days of birth. Every time someone moves, they must file a new Meldezettel within three days. The law has been in effect since well before 1910, when the book takes place. Doesn't Little Brown & Co. have editors or fact-checkers?
Rating: 
Summary: Rich in culture and history, but poor story line
Review: I picked up the book because I was intrigued by the description on the back of the book. What a disappointment! The author does a good job describing the life in Vienna in the early 1900's and Gypsy folklore, but the story line is unintersting and at times confusing. It's hard to get into the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Mystery and History Combined
Review: My Mother lent me this book to read, commenting as she did it that the book was "definitely unusual." I'm inclined to agree. While it's basically a mystery novel, most of the time it reads as historical fiction; thoroughly researched and exquisite in detail. Set in early 20th century Vienna, Shields has fictionalized the story of Dora, a case study by Freud, and turned it into a mystery novel that has two crime solvers--with very different approaches-- trying to solve the mystery. The book centers around Erszebet, a Hungarian woman married to the Viennese Inspector in charge of solving Dora's murder. She is consumed with the idea that a fig found in the dead girl's stomach holds the key to solving the crime. Erszebet's investigative techniques run a thin line between superstition and witchcraft, while her Inspector husband tirelessly tries to bring the Vienna police force into the 20th century. Early on, Erszebet enlists the help of a young English governess, Wally, who is definitely under her spell, as is Erszebet's nameless husband. I too found myself spellbound, and although it ran a little slow in the second half, I read it through to the last page--I confess I had to read the ending twice because I found it confusing. Overall it was a good read, and I'm not likely to forget Erszebet anytime soon.
Rating:
Summary: Truly engagin mystery nvoel, authentically detailed.
Review: The Fig Eater is an exquisitely written murder mystery set in the Vienna of 1910. The murder of Dora, troubled daughter of a respectable bourgeois family is being investigated by The Inspector, newly schooled in rationalist criminology just coming into vogue. The Inspector's wife, Erszebet, is a Hungarian steeped in intuition and mystical Gypsy lore, and becomes obsessed with the murder and launches her own parallel, secret investigation. The Fig Eater is a truly engaging mystery novel with a surprise ending that is greatly enhanced along the way for the readers total enjoyment with authentic details of food, botany, fashion, medical practices of the day. Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: A taste of the obscure
Review: This novel was one of those peculiar adventures that comes along to remind the reader of the infinite ways of looking at a murder. The dutiful inspector plods along, doing his forensic research and hoping for insight. He is followed closely by his wife, knowledgable in the ways of women and myth. She is fascinated by this case and wraps herself in the endless permuations of this simple mystery. A bit of a hothouse flower herself, she seems to come more alive and fascinating to her husband through the nights they share with eachother. He is somewhat blinded to all else, and she continues on, as women do, closing the door on the mystery and going home to bed. The botanical descriptions are a vivid contrast to the blinding snow, and the sometimes twisted natures of the suspects. A period piece, I will offer it to friends who will enjoy the unusual and sensuous nature of this tasteful story.
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