Vienna – MostlyFiction Book Reviews We Love to Read! Sat, 28 Oct 2017 19:51:27 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.4.24 VIENNA TWILIGHT by Frank Tallis /2011/vienna-twilight-by-frank-tallis/ Sun, 17 Apr 2011 14:10:48 +0000 /?p=17407 Book Quote:

” ‘Psychiatrists,’ said Rheinhardt, shaking his head, ‘At what point do you balk at the study of perversity and madness? Do you never think that some things are so dreadful, so appalling, that they should simply be left alone?’

‘It is always better to understand than not.’ ”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky  (APR 17, 2011)

Vienna Twilight, the fifth installment in Frank Tallis’s superb mystery series, focuses on a serial killer obsessed with death; a degenerate artist, Herr Ludo Rainmayr, who paints emaciated young girls in the nude; and an agitated mental patient named Norbert Erstweiler. Dr. Max Liebermann is a psychiatrist and disciple of Sigmund Freud. He also unofficially assists his close friend, Detective Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt. Max and Oskar attend concerts, chat over meals, make music (Max plays the piano and Oskar sings in a rich baritone), drink brandy, smoke cigars, and track down felons. Max’s knowledge of abnormal psychology helps him understand the subconscious forces that drive people to commit unspeakable acts.

Liebermann is currently treating Herr Erstweiler, a gentleman in his early thirties whose symptoms include insomnia, anxiety, loss of appetite, and a belief that he is being stalked by his doppelgänger. In addition, with the help of medical student and blood expert Amelia Lydgate, Oskar and Max try to find a serial killer who dispatches his victims in an unusual manner.

Tallis places us in turn-of-the-century Vienna, a city of high culture and architectural grandeur, with its many theaters, art galleries, concert halls, and opera houses. Furthermore, it was a place where provocative new ideas were challenging tradition in such areas as medicine, aesthetics, and gender roles. Some couturiers dispensed with restrictive corsets and designed “loose-fitting reform dresses” for ladies; this symbolized a movement to liberate women from the constraints that held them back. This great metropolis had a dark side, as well. Although the upper classes enjoyed lives of leisure, the less fortunate barely subsisted from day to day. In decadent Vienna (where syphilis was a “national disease”), moral boundaries were routinely pushed to their limits.

The characterizations, dialogue, and forensic details are all first rate and, along with his serious themes, Tallis includes welcome passages of wit and humor. Max, as usual, is cerebral, detached, and insightful; Oskar is efficient, principled, and overly fond of rich pastries; and Amelia talks her way into the autopsy suite, where she bonds with the eccentric pathologist, Professor Mathias. Tallis creates a troubling picture of a sick society whose members are “preoccupied with sex and death.” As Liebermann says, foreshadowing Austria’s bleak future, “What was wrong with the German soul? Why were love and death so intermingled in the German imagination?” Vienna Twilight has graphically erotic and violent scenes, and is one of Tallis’s most explicit novels to date. At the same time, it is a cleverly plotted, elegantly written, suspenseful, literate, and thoroughly absorbing.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 20 readers
PUBLISHER: Random House Trade Paperbacks (April 12, 2011)
REVIEWER: Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Frank Tallis
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

The Liebermann Papers:

Writing as F. R. Tallis

Nonfiction:

]]> A CURABLE ROMANTIC by Joseph Skibell /2010/a-curable-romantic-by-joseph-skibell/ Thu, 09 Sep 2010 21:50:29 +0000 /?p=12031 Book Quote:

“Indeed, I was quite the romantic. A man would have to be heartless not to be, and a fool not to outgrow it. Of course, every Jew wishes to summon the Messiah, to draw him down, through the force of his own goodness, from the throne upon which he sits chained in the Heavens. But one might profitably ask: Who has chained him there, if not the Lord Himself, the devil being a theological convenience we Jews…forbid ourselves?”

Book Review:

Review by Betsey Van Horn (SEP 8, 2010)

Science, religion, and language intersect in this edgy, Judeo-mystic satire about love, brotherhood, and neuroses in fin-de-siècle Vienna. In 1895, oculist Jakob Sammelsohn meets Sigmund Freud on the same night that he eyes and falls in love with Freud’s primary patient, Emma Eckstein. As Jakob is guided into Freud’s world of psychoanalysis, he reluctantly becomes a guide himself. He plunges into the mythological realm of a dybbuk, the dislocated spirit of his dead wife, Ita, who possesses and inhabits Emma. Or so Ita-as-Emma claims. As the relationship intensifies between Jakob, Freud, and Emma, Ita’s haunting voice lures Jakob into a psychosexual seduction.

But here in Vienna, the cultural center of the world, supernatural notions and Jewish folklore is rejected in favor of more intrepid theories of science and psychology. Freud believes Emma is in the throes of hysteria, while his friend, Dr. Fliess, advances the theory of “nasal reflex neurosis” as the source of all unhappiness. In the meantime, Jakob just wants to lose his virginity. His tyrannical father, who spoke to him only in Hebrew scripture, forced him to marry Ita, the village “idiot,” after the first forced marriage to Hindele ended in chaste disaster. Just after the wedding, Ita fled and drowned herself. But she is back and commanding Jakob with menace and affection.

Jakob later meets Dr. Ludvik Zamenhof, a half-blind, retired oculist and language enthusiast. Zamenhof’s aim is to join all of humanity in a utopian, universal language called Esperanto. When Jakob meets the radiant Esperanto patron, Loe Bernfeld, he is smitten. Subsequently, Jakob is thrust into an idealistic world of love and linguistics–the neutral tongue to unite the world and a passionate one to join him with Loe. But the ether world has a different design on this incurable romantic.

Jakob’s Hebraic-Homeric journey is full of colorful and magical characters, such as bickering, burly angels; a bedeviling dybbuk; a wicked demon child; and zealous polyglots, to name just a few. A clash of the titans of intellect and faith crosscut through the leviathans of lexicon and argot. The story follows Jakob from the countryside of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to the cultural hub of Vienna, from the terrifying streets and ghetto of Warsaw, and to celestial, rarefied dimensions.

Skibell’s tale is wholly imaginative and inventive, with ripe and rollicking prose and outrageous, unforgettable characters. In addition, it is peppered with an array of languages and dialog, most notably Hebrew and the enigmatic Esperanto, which endow symbolic and metaphoric texture to the narrative. At times, he is overwrought and long-winded, dawdling down his shadowy side streets and rambling for too long in his self-indulgent thoughts. But his ardent, spunky voice keeps the reader engaged and hooked in this fantastical and sometimes unearthly odyssey.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-5from 9 readers
PUBLISHER: Algonquin Books (September 7, 2010)
REVIEWER: Betsey Van Horn
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Joseph Skibell
EXTRAS: Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Another imagined Freud meeting:

Another imaginative historical novel:

Bibliography:

]]> VIENNA SECRETS by Frank Tallis /2010/vienna-secrets-by-frank-tallis/ Tue, 23 Feb 2010 04:36:48 +0000 /?p=7928 Book Quote:

“Inspector? Have you ever encountered anything like this before? What I mean to say is . . . Brother Stanislav’s head.” He winced as he recalled the decapitation and blood. “It looked as if his head had been ripped from his body.”

Book Review:

Review by Bonnie Brody (FEB 22, 2010)

Vienna, 1903, is the pervasive ambiance of Frank Tallis’ book, Vienna Secrets. The atmosphere is spellbinding in its depiction of the people, architecture, food, mores, culture, and religious discord of the time. It is also a literary thriller in its finest form.

Max Liebermann, psychoanalyst and protégé of Sigmund Freud, is the book’s protagonist. He is a multi-faceted man of integrity and many talents. He is inquisitive, philosophical, a talented physician, a lover of music and a fine pianist. He and his close friend, Inspector Oskar Reinhardt, play classical music and discuss psychology together when they are not solving crimes.

Vienna in 1903 is a city rife with anti-Semitism, something not new to the Viennese. In 1424, Vienna attempted to purge “the terrible crimes of the Hebrew dogs. As the world was once purged by the flood, so this time it was by fire.” This legacy of anti-Semitism remains in 1903 Vienna and has become exacerbated by the influx of Jews from Eastern Europe and Russia due to the pogroms and the mass murders of Jews there.

Thus, when two heinous murders occur, with both victims having anti-Semitic leanings, Max and Oskar put their heads together to try and solve the crimes. The murders are by decapitation and there is a lot of mud left around the murder sites. There is an ancient Kaballic myth about a Golem, a creature created out of mud that is said to have been created to avenge Jews. Could the mud be associated with a Golem?

The novel takes us into the lives of progressive Jews and also groups of Hassidic Jews, groups very different from one another. Progressive Jews believe in science, psychoanalysis, medicine and culture. Hassids live in the past, are fundamentalists, and deny much of modernity. The difference between these two groups is portrayed vividly.

The reader is also privy to the secret societies of anti-Semites and the ugliness of anti-Semitism in early 19th century Vienna. As Max and Oskar struggle to solve the crimes, the politics of the times hinder their work in many ways as some of the Viennese people believe that the murders were committed by Jews and want to take vengeance by keeping Jews from holding any professional positions or positions of influence. When a third murder is committed, and this time the victim is a Jew, things become more unclear and leave Max and Oscar totally puzzled and scratching their heads.

The book is filled with wonderful descriptions of Viennese foods, especially desserts. The reader’s mouth is likely to water over the strudels, tortes, éclairs, soufflés, whipped creams, and puddings.

The mystery is also a very literary thriller that informs the reader about the cultural aspects of Vienna. We are present at concerts, at the theater, and in psychoanalytic sessions. We are privy to the mores of courtship and rejection. We are given great insight into family life and parent-child relationships. We get to see some of the machinations of politics, medicine, government and religion.

This is a reader’s book, much in the way John Dunning’s and Stephen Greenleaf’s mysteries are. Frank Tallis loves words and uses them beautifully. This is a book to fall in love with. For certain, I’ll be reading all the earlier books in this series.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 69 readers
PUBLISHER: Random House Trade Paperbacks; Original edition (February 23, 2010)
REVIEWER: Bonnie Brody
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Frank Tallis
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

The Liebermann Papers:

Writing as F. R. Tallis

Nonfiction:

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