Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil

Rating:
Summary: Incredible, incredible, incredible - but not for everyone.
Review: I'm a voracious reader, as well as a literary snob with ridiculously high expectations, and I must say this is one of the best 5 works of fiction I've read in my life. Words like "vast," "sweeping," and "epic" come to mind. Also "brilliant," "amazing," and "genius." It's enormously entertaining and impossible to put down. It's 700 pages and I'm still dying for more when it's done. I'm left with that wistful feeling you sometimes get when a book is finished and you have to face the fact that the main character isn't a real person.

However, psychology is my field, and I've noticed that non-psych-types tend to find this book pretentious, pedantic, or silly. If you don't have an interest in or feel for psychology, you may not enjoy it. I frankly can't imagine how a reader would even understand the book without a good familiarity with psychology, given how full the book is of jargon and psych concepts. In this sense the book may be alienating to many readers. In my opinion, the author doesn't make much of an effort to make the content accesible to people who don't have a good understanding of concepts like projection, transference, sublimation, or the id.

However, if you're "in the know," or just want to be, this book is exquisitely pleasurable. The fact that it reads as a book written by a psychologist for psychologists makes it even more delicious. You don't have to trudge through tiring explanations; he assumes you understand everything, and doesn't hesitate to leap right into the complicated stuff. You may even find that, like me, your own beliefs and theories are challenged and expanded by Yglesias.

This book reminds me quite a bit of The Name of the Rose, another of my top 5 all-time greatest. Remember Eco's long passages in Latin and abundant references to medieval obscurities? Both Eco and Yglesias assume you're up to speed on the subject matter, and they don't bother trying to walk you through it. If you're an aspiring polymath, an intellectual binge eater, or just someone who loves a challenge, I think you'd adore both of these books. (If you didn't major in psych or medieval history, you'll feel like you deserve 16 credit hours in each just for reading them.)

(Another author who writes like this is Pynchon - not the same friendly style and engrossing plot, but the same kind of thick erudition you feel like you need an encyclopedia just to get through.)

Rating:
Summary: Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil
Review: I've read over 5,000 books in my life, and Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil is by far the best that I have EVER read. The only unfortunate thing about coming across Rafael Yglesias and his brilliant work is that all of his other works seem to be out of print, and I can't get more of him.

Rating:
Summary: A great well written romp--intrigue and depth.
Review: One of the best books I've read. Great character's with all you might need in a book--depth, page turning, can't put it down story. Insights on two different cultures and one way someone handles a painful child hood. Humor. I has a mystery, a tale of power and pain, of two American cultures, a tale of a childhood that helps create a brilliant psychiatrist. It's too complicated to describe-read it if you want a dense page turner with interesing characters.

Rating:
Summary: Incredible, incredible, incredible - but not for everyone.
Review: The first and second divisions of the book are incredibly well written. The dialogue, settings and explanations of the genuinely awful things that occur to the main character and his patient are enthralling. The reason I can't rate this novel higher is that the final third of the book, while interesting, does not capture me as being in sync with the rest of the novel. We are supposed to believe that Dr. Neruda, a man who spent most of his life up until that point helping children who suffered tortures, would behave in a basically evil way to 'cure' two socially unredeemable characters. I can't buy it and frankly, I don't think the author was very good at describing his concept of evil.

According to this author, the likes of Hitler and Stalin weren't evil, but the two businesspeople Neruda hunts after in a chilling manner are. Strange, but true. Granted, these characters are incredibly dislikeable, and Halley in particular is the least engaging character in the book. Perhaps Yglesias' failure to make these two characters intriguing is what emotionally distanced me from the finale of the novel. I was left thinking, is the author trying to show that evil is as evil does, that there is a certain banality and randomness to true evil? If so, aren't those obvious points already?

The characters that are built up and introduced in parts 1 and 2 of the novel were fantastic and quite real. What Yglesias does to some of them in part 3 is deeply boring.

Rating:
Summary: Thought provoking but ultimately shallow
Review: The first and second divisions of the book are incredibly well written. The dialogue, settings and explanations of the genuinely awful things that occur to the main character and his patient are enthralling. The reason I can't rate this novel higher is that the final third of the book, while interesting, does not capture me as being in sync with the rest of the novel. We are supposed to believe that Dr. Neruda, a man who spent most of his life up until that point helping children who suffered tortures, would behave in a basically evil way to 'cure' two socially unredeemable characters. I can't buy it and frankly, I don't think the author was very good at describing his concept of evil.

According to this author, the likes of Hitler and Stalin weren't evil, but the two businesspeople Neruda hunts after in a chilling manner are. Strange, but true. Granted, these characters are incredibly dislikeable, and Halley in particular is the least engaging character in the book. Perhaps Yglesias' failure to make these two characters intriguing is what emotionally distanced me from the finale of the novel. I was left thinking, is the author trying to show that evil is as evil does, that there is a certain banality and randomness to true evil? If so, aren't those obvious points already?

The characters that are built up and introduced in parts 1 and 2 of the novel were fantastic and quite real. What Yglesias does to some of them in part 3 is deeply boring.

Rating:
Summary: A Modern Definition of Evil
Review: This book is divided into thirds. The first, which covers Dr. Neruda's childhood, is great writing in every way. Few works I have read have moved me and informed me at an equivalent level.It is literate, interesting, nearly flawless in it's exposition. There is a great feeling of safety, even though much of it is harrowing.

The next sections lead us into Dr. Neruda's adulthood, and show us the practical result of his childhood, an abused child who only works with abused children, and at his own expense, and then we are drawn past that into the world beyond child-psych by the case history of his adult patient. When the patient loses it, Dr. Neruda takes it personally, and slowly becomes a George Smiley with Freud on his shoulder. Even though some of this is unpleasant, it is this part of the book that kept me thinking--about the nature of evil, the irony of behaving in an evil way to "cure" evil, and the inherent evil nature of many "winners" if one takes his definition to be the correct one. A minor note: Dr. Neruda himself does not come up with the definition.

When this book does stumble, it does so because of a thread of preachiness that creeps into the narrative in the form of statistics about child abuse and Ritalin, and this has the effect of nudging one from the reality of the book, like a neighbor's dog barking while you're trying to read. But this is very slight, and may not even be noticed by some readers. One thing that cannot be overlooked is Yglesias' concern about social inequalities--in fact, many of the carriers of the "evil" described in this book are the usual kinds of pathological business stereotypes, although he does have many characters who are also in business and not malevolent. Some retentive professionals and some pathological business types will likely find the conclusions drawn by Dr. Neruda to be offensive.

All in all, a ripping good read, with a dry aftertaste of moral and social big questions. Reading this is almost like doing analysis, but without blaming your parents.

Rating:
Summary: amazing wonderful
Review: this is one of the best books i have ever read in my entire life. the book draws the reader in immediately and holds the reader's attention for all 600 plus pages. i finished it a couple days ago and cannot stop thinking about it.

Rating:
Summary: amazing wonderful
Review: this is one of the best books i have ever read in my entire life. the book draws the reader in immediately and holds the reader's attention for all 600 plus pages. i finished it a couple days ago and cannot stop thinking about it.

Rating:
Summary: Dr. Neruda's Cure for Crap?
Review: Yglesias' "Dr. N." ranks among the greatest mediocrities in recent literature, and Dr. N. among literature's most annoying protagonists. It is utterly mystifying to me that this book has garnered any praise at all, let alone such fulsome praise (check out the other reviews on this page). By way of partial corrective to the trend I offer a few impressions.

Future readers of Dr. N., beware! Not that you really need be... Within the first few chapters of the book, its many many flaws are pretty much laid bare: lousy writing, stilted dialogue, pretentious tone (of which I, myself, will doubtless be accused by Yglesias fans). As we watch him grow, a tiny overwrought pre-Dr. Neruda thinks things (and regrettably all too often utters them) that no young child -- even a preternaturally sensitive (and self-consciously ingenius) child -- would ever think or say.

I have no idea whether Yglesias has any background in psychology. Perhaps he took some Psych courses in college. Perhaps he's read widely in the field. Perhaps he was even a professional psychologist or psychiatrist before taking up the pen. Whatever the case, Yglesias' presumed deep insights into the human psyche are (to paraphrase a thought of his protagonist [I forget which page and in what context]), to put it generously, banal and not a little pompous.

The discerning reader will doubtless toss this novel after the first few chapters. Neither a compelling meditation on evil (let alone approaches to its cure) nor even a marginally entertaining story, this one is best reshelved and forgotten. The book was given to me as a gift, so I felt obliged to finish it.

Having slogged my way to "Dr. N."'s patently stupid conclusion, I don't know which I find more despairing: the fact that a piece of drivel like this was ever published (considering how many genuinely deserving writers out there can't get a break), or that so many reviewers on this page ate it up? Cry the American novel...