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4.15 AVERAGE
4.15 AVERAGE
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Meh. I'm not a fan of fictional history. I'm not a fan of "friendship is the answer." I'm not a fan of virtue signaling.
It was fine.
It was fine.
Irvin D. Yalom's "teaching novel" is an imaginative story about how two brilliant contemporaries--Friedrich Nietzsche and Josef Breuer--might have helped one another professionally and personally had their paths ever crossed (which, in a serendipitous twist of fate explained in the Author’s Note, they nearly did!). My sister majored in philosophy, and I have always been envious that she finds philosophy so easy to read; for me, no matter how enthusiastically I begin, reading any of the great philosophers is a slow-marching drudge. I wish all major philosophers could be portrayed in a narrative form like this one! Though the drama takes places in 1882, when Nietzsche had written only three of his eventual fifteen books, it encapsulates incredible philosophical threads that show up in his later works.
I previously read Yalom’s nonfiction book [b:Love's Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy|21027|Love's Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy|Irvin D. Yalom|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1440082255l/21027._SY75_.jpg|162246], and I greatly appreciated reading this book after that one. If I were to have read this one first, I might have been irked by the writing style; however, it did not bother me in the slightest having already grown accustomed to Yalom’s analytic style of storytelling.
What I found most compelling in this book’s powerful, distilled philosophy was its delineation of isolation vs. community, particularly as it is to be found in meaningful friendships:
"We were both just fill-in performers in each other’s obsessive drama."
"What importance is tension or pressure in your chest? Who ever promised you comfort? So you sleep poorly! Who ever promised you good sleep? No, the problem is not discomfort. The problem is that you have discomfort about the wrong thing."
"If we cannot embrace our own aloneness, we will simply use the other as a shield against isolation."
"I learned that it is easier to cope with a bad reputation than with a bad conscience."
"It’s like attempting to rebuild a ship at sea."
"Maybe, Josef, living safely is dangerous. Dangerous and deadly."
"Too many men have been broken on the wheel of lesser passion."
As I stated above, I wish I could read more books like this one. It was incredibly thought-provoking, and at times I felt as if I were sitting with a therapist just by reading the dialogue. It was a huge undertaking to create a novel based on such a smart premise, but Yalom executed it fantastically. No doubt I will return to it time and time again in the future.
I previously read Yalom’s nonfiction book [b:Love's Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy|21027|Love's Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy|Irvin D. Yalom|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1440082255l/21027._SY75_.jpg|162246], and I greatly appreciated reading this book after that one. If I were to have read this one first, I might have been irked by the writing style; however, it did not bother me in the slightest having already grown accustomed to Yalom’s analytic style of storytelling.
What I found most compelling in this book’s powerful, distilled philosophy was its delineation of isolation vs. community, particularly as it is to be found in meaningful friendships:
"We were both just fill-in performers in each other’s obsessive drama."
"What importance is tension or pressure in your chest? Who ever promised you comfort? So you sleep poorly! Who ever promised you good sleep? No, the problem is not discomfort. The problem is that you have discomfort about the wrong thing."
"If we cannot embrace our own aloneness, we will simply use the other as a shield against isolation."
"I learned that it is easier to cope with a bad reputation than with a bad conscience."
"It’s like attempting to rebuild a ship at sea."
"Maybe, Josef, living safely is dangerous. Dangerous and deadly."
"Too many men have been broken on the wheel of lesser passion."
As I stated above, I wish I could read more books like this one. It was incredibly thought-provoking, and at times I felt as if I were sitting with a therapist just by reading the dialogue. It was a huge undertaking to create a novel based on such a smart premise, but Yalom executed it fantastically. No doubt I will return to it time and time again in the future.
This took me a while to get through. The heavy language makes it very obvious that Yalom is a psychiatrist. It was an interesting piece of historical fiction but I'm not exactly sure how I feel about it. It feels like somewhat of a waste of time. It felt like less of a development of characters and more like medical records, which I understand is probably the intent of the work. I didn't like its structure. There were some brilliant words of wisdom and some incredibly interesting intersections of characters that I thoroughly enjoyed. It would've been brilliant if they were expanded upon. It was a philosophical experience that I suffered through but feel somewhat indifferent about enduring. but I feel like a piece of fiction about some of the most brilliant minds of the last few centuries should have been more interesting and stimulating. It was also rather sexist, despite its shallow attempt at evading late 1800s sexism. It's a shame, this had so much potential.
Time cannot be broken; that is our greatest burden. And our greatest challenge is to live in spite of that burden.
- - -
The spirit of a man is constructed out of his choices.
- - -
Live when you live! Death loses its terror if one dies when one has consummated one's life! If one does not live in the right time, then one can never die at the right time.
- - -
Every person must choose how much truth he can stand.
- - -
I dream of a love that is more than two people craving to possess one another.
- - -
If we climb high enough, we will reach a height from which tragedy ceases to look tragic.
- - -
No one ever dies of fatal truths nowadays, there are too many antidotes.
Time cannot be broken; that is our greatest burden. And our greatest challenge is to live in spite of that burden.
- - -
The spirit of a man is constructed out of his choices.
- - -
Live when you live! Death loses its terror if one dies when one has consummated one's life! If one does not live in the right time, then one can never die at the right time.
- - -
Every person must choose how much truth he can stand.
- - -
I dream of a love that is more than two people craving to possess one another.
- - -
If we climb high enough, we will reach a height from which tragedy ceases to look tragic.
- - -
No one ever dies of fatal truths nowadays, there are too many antidotes.
Recommended by one of my professors. A philosophical, or perhaps, psychological read but a good one. Made me think about some things. "Become who you are". "Amor fati...choose your fate, love your fate." I think that latter one is a good one to ponder over as you reflect upon your life.
I'm not so sure how much of Yalom's Nietzche resembles the actual Nietzche, however, if I think of this book as a novel, as fiction, it definitely wins a place on my-favorites-books shelf. It is a very easy read, yet very informative, and as Yalom said: "fiction is history that might have happened". 100% recommend.
"Perhaps we’re all fellow sufferers unable to see each other’s truth."
"Perhaps we’re all fellow sufferers unable to see each other’s truth."
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
he trigat molt a llegir-lo però és fort per introduir-se a nietzsche
What sparked my interest in this novel was that I believed the title to reference his late-life episode in which he protected a beaten horse, but the timeline of this work long precedes that, and is altogether different in nature. Neither compelling nor active, this reads like the records of an experimental psycho-analysis session, which is in essence what it is chronicling. Yalom's attempts to authenticate the nineteenth century Vienna setting are often awkward and contrived, stopping the flow of the story even more than his needless repetition of events that already occurred. While satisfyingly philosophical, as a novel it is only remotely interesting for the person who might find it fascinating to look in on the psychological analysis of someone they had never met.