Why is it that every change to the site that Ciao rolls out makes it that little bit harder to use?
Why is it that every change to the site that Ciao rolls out makes it that little bit harder to use?
Member since:04.08.2003
Reviews:120
Members who trust:111
At work we have a lounge. It’s a very nice lounge with comfy chairs and a view over the atrium. It’s a place where you can have a break-out meeting or a little quiet time, it is also popular with non smokers looking to take advantage of the hourly ten minute breaks their puffing buddies appear to be entitled to. In this lounge is a selection of books, left by community minded colleagues. As you can imagine there is an awful lot of jumble sale tat fodder here but the odd interesting book has been known to turn up. Alongside the usual crime/historical pot boilers this little number stood out. I mean, Arthur Schnitzler? Who ever heard of him.
Well, not me anyway but the back cover blurb was intriguing. Regarding the man it went as follows: ‘Like his Viennese contemporary Sigmund Freud, the doctor and dramatist Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931) was a bold pioneer in exploring the dark tangled roots of human sexuality.’ And for the book itself it read thus: ‘Schnitzler is probably most famous for la Ronde, a play whose daisy chain of couplings was too scandalous to be published or performed in his lifetime. Dream Story is an equally erotic work, in which a married couple are first traumatised and then achieve a new depth of understanding by confessing to each other their sexual fantasies, dream-like adventures and might-have-beens…’
Time to
pull on the clever trousers and read on, I thought.
The book starts with a comprehensive introduction by Frederic Raphael. I often find these very useful, particularly with a writer I’m unfamiliar with as they can provide masses of background detail and contextual information. Sometimes they lean towards overly academic discussion and can be guilty of over-egging a topic and this is the case here. It does well to place the book in context, although published in 1926 the Vienna of the story feels much more pre-Great War. The talk of duels and calling people out on matters of honour as well as the lack of motor cars on the city streets evokes an earlier age. There is also mention of the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Austria at the time (the author and, by intimation, the lead character are both Jewish) and much is made of this. While this may inform a study of the author it adds little to the understanding of the story as it refers to a very minor episode where Fridolin is jostled by some drunken German students. The story is more human than social anyway and is more concerned with the lead’s, albeit short, journey of self discovery.
The story revolves around Fridolin and his wife Albertine and one event filled night and day. Again, I am paraphrasing the back cover but Fridolin’s journey takes us on a tour of Vienna’s seedy cafes, red-light district, decadent villas, hospitals and morgue. From the outset we learn a great deal about Fridolin’s character. Young, handsome and self confident he is sure of himself and pleased with the respect that his being a doctor engenders in the neighbourhood. The night starts with the couple daring each other to reveal their sexual fantasies and dreams. Things start innocently enough with them both recalling a couple of ‘what if’ events; people met in passing who in other circumstances may have become something more. This leads onto Albertine recounting a disturbing dream where the couple, living in a castle above a town become separated and while she is pleasured by hordes of young men the townsfolk take him away to be hung. Given the opportunity to save his life Albertine feigns ignorance and he is killed. For Fridolin, faced with his wife’s albeit dream-state dismissal, this comes as something of a blow and rather takes the wind out of his sails.
With these disturbing thoughts in his head Fridolin is grateful for the opportunity to escape provided by a call to visit a dying patient and so leaves the house. As he visits the patient and later when wandering the streets he is able to repair his bruised ego by spending time talking with a young prostitute and spurning the advances of the patient’s daughter. At this point in the story I was becoming distracted by a vague tinkling in the back of my mind and as he enters a bar and meets an old, piano playing, friend the tinkling turned into the unmistakable clanging of pennies dropping.
Maybe you’re way ahead of me, maybe not but when I go further and mention that the pianist is talking about his next gig where he will be playing blindfold at what amounts to an exclusive orgy you may well find yourself dodging those falling pennies as well. This is the film Eyes Wide Shut. Directed by Stanley Kubrick, starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Damn.
Perhaps some of you are thinking: Durrr, of course it is. Others, perhaps the lucky ones, are thinking what is Eyes Wide Shut anyway. Either way it threw me, and over shadowed my enjoyment of the rest of the book as it followed the film almost scene for scene (obviously the film followed the book but you get my meaning).
The remaining story follows a series of set pieces centring on his ill fated gate crashing of the exclusive party from which he is brutally exposed and expelled and where the fate of a beautiful woman who protected him is very much in doubt. For the rest of the night Fridolin must face up to the challenges his world view has undergone, his wife’s dreams of betraying him and how all his charm and presumed social status could not prevent his utter humiliation at the masked party.
By uncovering the fate of the young woman or unmasking the revellers maybe he can recover some of his lost self worth. The question is do we, as readers, care? By now I’m seeing Tom Cruise as I’m reading and you certainly don’t feel a lot of sympathy for his character but even before then, when Fridolin was just Fridolin with no baggage he was a character that was hard to warm to. A little too full of himself, a little too sure of others opinions of him he carried himself with an arrogance that was off putting and while he is pleasant to those he encounters his aloofness and superiority make you quietly rather pleased when he his caught out and brought down a peg or two.
So, is the book worth reading? Not surprisingly I found my enjoyment curtailed once I’d made the connection with the film not least because I then knew how every scene would work out. The book itself is diverting and pleasant and a good example of early social eroticism but it doesn’t reach any great heights (or depths for that matter). Despite its age, Schnitzler’s writing hasn’t dated and it is easy to forget that a century may have passed since it was penned. At less than 100 pages it is a very short book and there is not a great deal more to the story here than in the film. If you happen to come across a copy I’d recommend a read but I wouldn’t suggest you go out of your way to find one.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Good review, but not one I'll seek out. I always think its better to read the introduction after the book. As for the film version...well, if you've already seen it, not much to be done. Lx
MALU 20.07.2009 17:17
Even though I could read it in German, it doesn't appeal to me much. :-(
exceptional by (7%):
very helpful by (93%):
