When Nietzsche Wept - Irvin D. Yalom

There is so much to say about this book. I think I will call it the book of desire. Why so? Well, the student that lent me this book told me that the writer let the reader know what happens with a man when he is in love.
- Why only with the man? And why not with the woman, student? I asked.
- Because it’s a lot different.  A woman in love is something; a man in love – well, that’s a whole other story.

Whether that is true or not is something I still didn’t figure out. What I did discover though is that every human being has something very powerful in themselves called desire.  And there are many different names for desire. Some people call it love or passion; others call it ambition or a fighting spirit – and the list goes on. But the core remains: and that is the desire that we have instilled in us. Desire is not a problem; the problem is our incapacity of controlling our desire to the point that we let it control us instead.

In the book is one of Nietzsche’s very famous quote which reads: “Whatever we resist, persists!" and that is one of the truest facts ever and it counts for desire as well. In resume if we want to get over desiring something - be it a lover, relationship, obsession or whatever it may be - we first need to allow ourselves to desire that which is necessary and afterwards love what is desired. Because once we do so we will be choosing desire and it will no longer be something that has a grip upon us, something that we are held and bound by. 

This book is certainly a heavy book. It hurts to read it because you need to force yourself into the tough thought patterns, the conscious self-criticism, the gruesome task of analyzing yourself bit by bit and wondering what you will do with yourself. 

It's not a book worth reading, it's a book worth studying and making it's words your own. 

Totally approved!!!

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

Freud's mentor, Josef Breuer, attempts to cure Friedrich Nietzsche of suicidal despair in the clinics, cemeteries, and coffeehouses of 19th-century Vienna--in this first novel by the author of the bestselling Love's Executioner: an entertaining and highly original tale of an uncompromising friendship between two brilliant men. Distinguished physician, renowned scientist, beloved husband and father, Josef Breuer finds himself at 40 simultaneously at the crest of his professional life and near the bottom of a pit of incomprehensible despair. Cursed with nightmares, insomnia, and obsessive sexual fantasies of his former patient, Anna O. (whom he cured, miraculously if temporarily, through a new technique called ``talk therapy''), Breuer welcomes the distraction when the imperious future psychoanalyst Lou Salom‚ demands that he use talk therapy to cure the suicidal depression of her friend, Friedrich Nietzsche. Because the poverty-ridden, unknown philosopher is too proud to accept spiritual help from anyone, Breuer must somehow cure the younger man without his knowledge--but the physician welcomes the challenge, and soon solves it by posing as the patient himself and begging Nietzsche's help in relieving his own existential pain. Unable to refuse, dour Nietzsche agrees to embark on a month of daily ``talks'' with the physician. The ensuing dialogue between a man of the world and an unworldly man becomes increasingly compelling as first Breuer, then Nietzsche, uncovers his forgotten past and delves deep into his own and the other's unconscious desires and fears. Throughout, Yalom's evocation of Breuer imprisoned in a classic midlife crisis, Nietzsche stymied by his own pride, loneliness, and terror, Lou Salom‚ cracking her feminist whip, and young Sigmund Freud eagerly following each conversation's twists and turns make for a stimulating dip into the pools of 19th-century philosophy, psychology, and culture. A delectable fantasy--in which the sole disappointment is that it didn't actually occur. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

“Strong and authentic. The element of surprise is a magical, jolting moment.” (Washington Post Book World )

“When Nietzsche Wept is the best dramatization of a great thinker’s thought since Sartre’s The Freud Scenario.” (Chicago Tribune )

“An intelligent, carefully researched, richly imagined novel.” (Boston Globe ) -