A review by letitiaharmon
When Nietzsche Wept by Irvin D. Yalom

2.0

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.