When Nietzsche Wept: A Novel of Obsession

Breuer and Nietzsche never met, but Dr. Yalom considers the intriguing possibilities in this novel of psychological and philosophical ideas. Dr. Yalom is a professor of phsychiatry at Stanford and a proponent of "existential psychotherapy," so he is able to create drama derived almost entirely from the emotional portraits of the characters rather than the actions and struggles of the characters in the external world. Yalom's achievement is to make the reader care about Breuer and Nietzsche as they struggle to confront (or avoid) their greatest fears and weaknesses. The reader is drawn into intimate conversation with the brilliant but unloveable Nietzsche and the gifted but ungrateful Breuer. The necessary whining is balanced by just enough action and intellectual history to propel the narrative forward. Along the way the genesis of psychotherapy and existentialism is consisely explained using dialogue from Breuer, Freud and Nietzsche as well as quotations from their actual works. But this book not about theory. The sorrow of these great men is transformed into inspiration for the reader as they struggle to embrace the wisdom of amor fati, to love one's fate. We are reminded of our own need to accept complete responsibility for our choices and to boldly face life's challenges. One need not embrace an existentialist worldview to find inspiration in such advice. Neither does the Professor preach philosophy in his drama. Rather, the reader is invited to achieve a synthesis of his own after observing the strivings of the characters. Vienna was an intellectual microcosm of Europe in the late 19th Century, so the city bcomes a character in the story, with various characters, some historical, some fictional, acting as the sounding board for Breuer's and Nietzsche's nascent philosophies. This is not a book for readers put off by lengthy dialogues, and it is short on dramatic action and romance. But for those who might enjoy urgent and intimate conversation with great minds on the verge of their greatest achievements, When Nietzsche Wept may be as therapeutic as an afternoon with close friends over cafe melange at the Cafe Landtmann.

"One must have chaos and frenzy within oneself to give birth to a dancing star."
Nietzsche, in WHEN NIETZSCHE WEPT
Like the writings of Nietzsche himself, commenting a great deal in this review on the book from a personal standpoint could serve to actually take away the luster of its brilliance, and its powerful effect. The words carry more weight and bounce to the ounce than any retort on them could hope to muster. The book begins rather slowly for me; you are so aware of the fact that the pieces of this profound chess game to be played are being put on the board in the first couple of chapters that it seems as if the writer, Dr. Yalom of Stanford University, is complimenting himself pedantically on his research. But that is the only thing that could keep this magnificent book from getting five stars from me; once he gets going and Nietzsche and Breuer begin their talks, my world began to open and my heart began to both break and be reinvigorated with fire as my mind was blown and reblown simultaneously. At the beginning you wonder when it's getting started, by the time you reach near the middle... be sure you don't have to be somewhere important, need a good night's sleep or get in a car to start driving- you won't be able to put it down! Nor will you escape from having it deeply, deeply touch you.
"I try to teach him that lovers of truth do not fear stormy or dirty water. What we fear is SHALLOW water!"
"If you kill God, you must also leave the shelter of the temple..."
"A wise Jewish teacher advised his followers to break with their mother and father and to seek perfection. THAT might be a step worthy of a lad of infinite promise. that might have been the right dance to the right tune..."
"... you take pride in your meekness. You make a virtue of necessity; you bury your feelings deep, and then, because you experience no resentment, you assume that you are saintlike..."
"...he presents himself as good- he does no harm- other than to himself and to nature! I must stop him from being one of those who call themselves good because they have no claws..."
"Duty? Can duty take precedence over your love for yourself and your own quest for unconditional freedom? If you have not attained yourself, then 'duty' is merely a euphemism for using others for your own enlargement."
"I dream of a love in which two people share a passion to search together for some higher truth. Perhaps I should not call it love. Perhaps it's real name is friendship."
"Bertha is a cornucopia of mystery, protection, and salvation! Josef Breuer calls this love. But its real name is prayer."
This is a wonderful book.

I should start off with why this historical novel only gets three stars even though it had a deep impact on me personally at the time I read it. Yalom is at best a semi-compelling novelist. He is a gifted psychologist (both academically and as a therapist), but his style of writing can be a bit dry (or maybe its the subject matter) so I had to deduct one star for his limited skills as a writer of fiction.
As with many meaningful books, this book has a small but loyal audience rather than having mass appeal. Given that Yalom is far from a giant in the literary world, I imagine the majority of the people who consider reading this book will have either a powerful interest in psychology (especially psychoanalysis) or a powerful interest in modern philosophy (especially the existential variety). Ideally, they will have at least, a healthy curiosity about both topics. I deducted the other star because I don't think this book will appeal to the "philosophy lovers" (redundant, n'est ce, pas?), particularly those oriented toward the work of Nietzsche, if they don't have that healthy curiosity about psychology. Although Yalom gives a very interesting interpretation of what Nietzsche's emotional make-up and what the nuances of his writing indicate about him personally, this is not a biography, nor a new take on Nietzsche. Anyone familiar with Nietzsche's biography will not be surprise by this novel, and at best will be amused at the dramatic license that Yalom takes in putting Nietzsche in a situation that never occurred. But if you consider yourself more inclined towards the psychological than the philosophical or biographical, then I would rate this book a four star read for you.
As stated before, When Nietzsche Wept is an historical novel. The main characters are of course Frederich Nietzsche and Dr. Josef Breuer, who stumbled across the psychoanalytic talking cure most closely associated with Sigmund Freud, who was Breuer's informal understudy, contemporary, and friend. Sigmund Freud plays a supporting role in the novel as well as Lou Salome (the lover who spurned Nietzsche's love and probably acted as the catalyst for his most prolific writing period) and Anna O. (appearing in the novel as Bertha, Breuer's patient whom he treated for hysteria). Of course all of these people are key players in the intellectual movement taking place in the late nineteenth century in Europe. But the meeting of Breuer and Nietzsche, while plausible, is a fabrication of Yalom, a springboard that allows him to explore one of his favorite subjects: existential philosophy.
It is obvious from Yalom's body of more academic work that he is a champion of the traditional psychoanalytic process. The key word is process, because Yalom uses this novel as a kind of `textbook example' of the psychoanalytic process. Note that Yalom is not interested in diagnosing mental illnesses from the DSM-IV and the like. He is of the thinking that just about all of us are suffering from some burning question: philosophical questions, morbid questions, existential questions. Yalom paints Breuer as the classic type A successful middle-aged man who finds himself having a midlife crisis. Its obvious that where Yalom portrays a large chunk of himself with Breuer: especially the bumbling and neurotic nature of that Breuer exemplifies in the novel. Yalom paints Nietzsche as a long-suffering intellectual attempting to completely detach himself from himself emotionally. In the course of the book, both men haphazardly stumble across emotional awakenings and enlightenments through the psychoanalytic process that they don't even realize they are involved in. Breuer's character muses throughout his and Nietzsche's treatment about the future implications of what he is discovering. The novel doesn't have a surprise ending or a gut-wrenching plotline. Just like Greek tragedies, you know how this one will turn out early on in the novel, but the enjoyment comes from watching the way things unfold.
It has been said about psychoanalysis that in order for the process one must have time to waste, even though each moment is an important step in the journey that has no definite ending or conclusion. Some will argue that this book unrealistically turns into a Fantasy Island episode in that it quickly ties up neatly at the end with everyone changed from their lessons and optimistic about the future given their new experiences. In truth, the psychoanalytic process is much slower and sporadic (kind of like a drunk staggering to his home...the steps are unsteady and sometimes in the wrong direction but he gets there eventually). To keep things interesting and palatable, Yalom has to speed things up to a dizzying pace that does take on an almost hackneyed resolution. These two men develop the kind of trust that usually takes years to develop in a matter of weeks. And they make the kinds of changes that are usually hard fought struggles for life in almost an instant. But at its core, this novel paints the picture of two people healing themselves and healing each other in a loving relationship, which is what the subtle art of psychoanalysis is all about. It is not a science so the poetic license is okay. In closing, I say that if you find yourself open to experiencing the creative journey that psychologists from Freud to Yalom himself have mapped out, especially with such historically significant and engaging characters, this be the novel for you.

This novel opens with a bizarre request. After an intense affair with Friedrich Nietzsche, Lou Salome meets Dr Josef Bruer, an early associate of Sigmund Freud, in a Venetian cafe bathed in the autumnal sunshine of 1882. Believing the future of European philosophy to be teetering on the edge of an abyss, she begs the eminent physician to treat Nietzsche's worsening despair; Nietzsche, it transpires, is caught up in the brooding mood that overtakes all unhappy lovers. Naturally, both physician and philosopher express some initial disquiet. Eventually, however, a series of meetings take place and soon Bruer discovers that the only way he can "heal" Nietzsche is if he confronts his own feelings for Bertha, a beautiful, but profoundly unstable, former patient. Healer becomes sufferer. Sufferer becomes healer. Bruer and Nietzsche talk for hours and, quite unexpectedly, the psycho-analytic revolution is given birth through the strangest of encounters.
Needless to say, Yalom has imagined this encounter between Bruer and Nietzsche. It never actually took place, although Bruer was an eminent 19th century physician and assisted Freud's breakthrough in psychiatry. Furthermore, students of the history of ideas have known for a long time how devastated Nietzsche was after Salome spurned his affection for her. Yalom pointedly portrays both Bruer and Nietzsche as worringly fragile and devastatingly powerful, but it is the angst-ridden world of Nietzsche that he captures so well.
Yalom imaginatively weaves the insights of one of the most trenchant critics of traditional Christianity into a novel that is at once mature and complicated, as well as being fun and readable.

I've read others reviews of this book that expressed great disappointment with the ending. However I found this work to be meaningful and profound. Yalom shows the reader through direct example what the key to existential therapy is: to truly confront our fear of our own death which we must ultimately confront alone. In this book he shows us the things that our unconscious contrives to replace and disguise this fear. As a graduate student in clinical psychology I found Yalom's choice of structure fascinating. He used several varied methods such as therapy sessions, thoughts, letters, and the therapy notes of both men to show the inner thought processes that were occurring in both men as they simultaneously sought to help each other. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the inner life of others. However I also recommend any of Yalom's more clinically oriented books. Having just finished a six week group therapy class that used Yalom's group therapy book as a guide, I feel that I can confidently reassure anyone that this is a man who is acutely aware of what we need as humans to exist more authentically.

Yalom, a professor of psychiatry at Stanford, has written a decent tale of the encounters between Friedrich Nietzsche (on the brink of authoring _Also Sprach Zarathustra_) and Joseph Breuer, a physician and mentor of Freud, in late 1882. Freud and Lou Andreas-Salome have walk-on roles.
Nietzsche has been going from one physician to another for his migraine headaches and other physical ailments. Lou Salome maneuvers him unknowingly toward Breuer, who effects a proto-psychoanalytic cure through the ruse of having Nietzsche treat HIM ... although the treatment of the doctor by the patient becomes something real in the course of the story.
The dialogue is not entirely convincing. Yalom obviously knows his Nietzsche as well as his psychology and medicine, and one can sense him slipping his own clinical insights into Breuer's ruminations and projections of the future of "mind healing" (must they always be right on the money?). Nietzsche and Breuer come across more convincingly in their letters and notes -- perhaps because we readers are more used to encountering 19th century luminaries through their written words.
The denouement is a little too pat. A stimulating crisis and possible catastrophe seem to develop, and then are jerked from our hands. Perhaps Yalom should not have tried so assiduously to keep his plot within the bounds of historical possibility and instead played more freely with his characters. Still, it is nice to see someone attempt this sort of thing with such substantial and intimidating historic figures.

Dr Yalom's novel is set in Vienna at the end of the 19th century, on the eve of the birth of psychoanalysis. The main characters are the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, Dr Joseph Bauer, one of the founders of psychoanalysis, and a then young (the year is 1882) medical intern called Sigmund Freud. As these protagonists discuss their ideas, preoccupations and frustrations, they create an original plot of a fictional relationship between an exceptional analysand and a talented analyst. As the fictional dialogue between Breuer and Nietzsche unfolds, the reader becomes aware of the fact that at this epoch it must have been the first time that a doctor realised that what mattered is not what a patient said but that he said it. These were truly the first steps towards psychotherapy. Breuer's task was not made easy by Nietzsche's character. His social fears and his misanthropy made him select an impersonal and distant style. His tone was often harsh and brittle, particularly when he talked about his deceptive lover, Lou Salomé, a woman Nietzsche actually met in the spring of 1882. The unpleasant experience he had with this one and only love affair made him resentful towards women. He felt that they corrupted and spoiled him, he avoided them because he thought that he was ill suited for them. This partly explains Nietzsche's total isolation, his feeling of belonging nowhere, having no lover, no circle of friends, no home, no family hearth, his life sounding like a hollow echo.

A wonderful achievement showing sad and troubled characters in an intriguing cross-discussion of philosophy and emerging psychotherapy, yet as gripping to read as a detective story.

The fact that Yalom is a psychologist and not a novelist has become the most common criticism of this book. However, I found it very interesting. Few times are fact and fiction so carefully intertwined to produce a book that makes you think about your existence and how you dealt / deal / will deal with it after reading the book.

My friend recommended this book and when I started to read it I couldn't put it down. I thought it was an entertaining book that really makes you think about issues of life that tend to arise when you reach the mid-30's and 40's ("establish maturity wether you like it or not!:)"). I am a Nietzsche fan and it was fun to read this ficticious novel about him. The players here are interesting and famous but the issues are common to everyone! Did we make the right choices? Should we change directions now? What could have been if...?
Most people will always wonder...

This is a work that is not just a fiction but a work that engages your mind - you are in therapy in one respect , but you engauge a guy like the philosopher at his knees who refuses to be helped and the therapist who struggles to help him. It is dramatic, therapeutic reading. The dynamics of therapy is enlivened here - the critical activity of what therapy should be about - as well as the ethical - moral persuit of the therapist taking care of a patient. Great reading and guidance for both sides .... It is easyly readable - not much jargon and you don't have to love or hate Nietzsche - just enjoy... P.S. A different title to this work would have given it greater popularity - the name of the philosopher frightens so many people - but he has written to be read in the year 2000 ...