When Nietzsche Wept by Irvin D. Yalom - 4 stars

[Marina]

Irvin D. Yalom is a famous American psychiatrist and psychotherapist, who writes with this book a novel about the history of psychotherapy. So he must know what he's writing about. It is important to keep in mind that this is a novel and not a non-fiction book. At the end of the book the author adds a note where he explains which parts are fiction and which are factual. This is very useful in order to better understand what he's writing about.

We are in 1882. Joseph Breuer is a famous physician working in Vienna, who is at present on holiday with his wife in Venice. He receives a note from a certain Lou Salomé, who wants to meet him because the future of philosophy is at stake. Her friend Friedrich Nietzsche is severely depressed, with suicidal ideation. Lou wants for Breuer to take him on as his patient, and that is because he had a patient, Bertha Pappenheim, known to his students as Anna O., whom he treated with talk therapy, a new kind of therapy invented by him, which consisted in hypnotizing the patient and letting her talk. Breuer, fascinated by Lou Salomé, decides to take on the patient, who is going to be a very difficult one, since he doesn't want to be cured.

Joseph Breuer was an actual Austrian doctor, famous in real life for treating Bertha Pappenheim with talk therapy. Bertha, who suffers from hysteria, will become Anna O. in Sigmund Freud's book Studies in Hysteria, written together with Breuer. Freud is also a character in the book, portrayed as a young medicine student and a friend of the Breuers' family. Lou Salomé was a writer and psychoanalyst of Russian origin, known for a series of friendships and relationships with various famous characters, most notably Rainer Maria Rilke (who is not in Yalom's story). Friedrich Nietzsche doesn't need an introduction, but let me just say that in this novel he is a 38-year-old unknow philosopher who has written two books that almost nobody has read, namely Human, All Too Human and The Gay Science. He never actually got to meet Joseph Breuer in real life, but he really was in love with Lou Salomé and proposed to her, who refused him.

The story is well-written and might appeal not only to psychotherapists or those interested in the history of psychotherapy, but also to all those who like a good, solid story which is engaging and well-written. It does have some minor flaws (for instance (BIG spoiler ahead), when (view spoiler)[Breuer "comes back" from his hypnotic experience with Freud and finds out he really is in love with his wife – she never for a moment thinks his renewed love for her to be weird and out of character, since he had not loved her one bit so far, at least for the last several months (hide spoiler)]), but all in all I consider it to be a good novel, which I wouldn't hesistate to recommend to my friends who love good literature.

[Amy]

Oh this one is so up your alley! I'd like to someday read it too! Great review!

[Marina]

Thanks, Amy! I think you might like it :)