98 Reasons for Being [Hardcover]

Clare Dudman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 25, 2005

Novelist Clare Dudman, whose work has earned comparisons to Andrea Barrett and Peter Høeg, is that rare kind of author who manages to bring history dramatically to life. In 98 Reasons for Being, she conjures up the revolutionary nineteenth-century German physician Heinrich Hoffmann, best known today for his famous book of children’s rhymes, Struwwelpeter, or Shockheaded Peter.

In 1850s Frankfurt, a Jewish girl named Hannah Meyer is admitted to the town asylum; she hasn’t spoken, slept, or eaten in weeks and wagging tongues have resulted in a diagnosis of nymphomania. In an increasingly obsessed effort to cure her, Dr. Hoffmann uses all the methods at his disposal—from ice packs and blood letting to electrodes. Nothing works until he resorts to talking—revealing the fascinating case histories of his other patients as well as his own troubled home life. Only then does Hannah begin to respond and gradually yield her tale of love, transgression, and prejudice. As the secrets hidden in Hannah’s mind are exposed, Hoffmann begins to uncover his own buried truths and, in the end, discover his real reasons for being. Brilliantly composed with a keen sense of German and Jewish history, 98 Reasons for Being is written with the intensity of D. M. Thomas’s The White Hotel and confirms Dudman’s reputation as a gifted storyteller.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

After the success of her stunning One Day the Ice Will Reveal All Its Dead (2004), Dudman turns her interest in biographical fiction to progressive nineteenth-century psychiatrist Dr. Heinrich Hoffmann, longtime superintendent of a Frankfurt insane asylum who is best remembered today as the author of Struwwelpeter, a set of cautionary tales for children published 160 years ago. In 1852, as he treats Hannah Meyer, a young Jewish woman diagnosed with nymphomania, Dr. Hoffmann uses methods from electrodes to leeches. When these methods fail, he persists (particularly because Hannah has captured his interest) by talking, revealing his own personal and professional problems and gradually uncovering Hannah's secrets and the story of the man she loves, as revealed in her mesmerizing italicized interior monologue. While Hoffmann and Hannah are primary, all of the patients and staff at the asylum are exceptionally well drawn, and through them Dudman explores the nature of madness, prejudice, and love; and at the end of some chapters, she adds pertinent tales from Struwwelpeter. A beautifully written, emotionally powerful biographical novel. Michele Leber
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

Like Andrea Barrett, Dudman exposes the human, often irrational impulse behind scientific exploration without romanticizing it. (The Boston Globe) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult (July 25, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067003424X
• ISBN-13: 978-0670034246
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,937,456 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Clare Dudman has a PhD in chemistry and has worked as a research scientist and as a teacher in high schools and universities - both in science and creative writing. Her writing has won two national awards and she has won a prize for a short story. She has also been awarded two grants for travel and has wandered around remote parts of Greenland, Patagonia and China on her own, but some of her favourite travelling was inside her head when she trained to be shaman for a character in her latest book. As well as exotic settings she is interested in scientific ideas and enjoys incorporating these in her fiction - set either in the past or some other world of her own invention. She has been married for decades, has two adult sons and lives with her husband close to the town in north Wales where she was born.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A moving and richly human novel of depth and understanding, May 24, 2009

By 

Gary Selikow (Great Kush) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 98 Reasons for Being (Hardcover)

A moving and richly human novel of depth and understanding, at once a psychological and a historical novel.
Claire Dudman offers an original and offbeat perspective of life in a Frankfurt assylum in the 1850s.

A Jewish girl, Hannah Meyer, labelled as a nymphomaniac, is admitted to a Frankfurt insane assylum , in a deep and extremely debilitating state of melancholia. Dr Heinrich Hoffman, a Frankfurt physician who runs the sanatorium, and also the well known author of the book of children's poems known as Sturmwetpeter, undertakes to treat her, all treatments fail until Dr Hoffman patiently talks to her about his own life and patiently coaxes, slowly coaxes her out of her crippling melancholic state and teaches her to talk and respond again.

Her own inner thoughts and recounting of her own inner thoughts are recounted in italics, used in an intelligent and pertinent way.
Deeply in love with a German gentile who woos her and secretly marries her, and then cruelly spurns her, with strong anti-Semitic words, this incident has brought on her depressive state. The novel also focuses on the staff and other inmates of the asylum.
The novel also focuses on the staff and other inamtes of the assylum.

It is at once a window into 19th century Germany, the progressive thinking of Dr Hoffman, the inner world of the mentally ill and the anti-Semitism of the time.

An evocative novel despair and hope, love and cruelty, and ultimately the search for purpose and the reason for being, hence the name 98 reasons for being.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Complex and satisfying, February 13, 2006

By 

Gentle Reader (Boston MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 98 Reasons for Being (Hardcover)

After the first several pages, I almost gave up. Reading italics seems so gimicky and needless. But no - it's a sly and clever way to make you see the story from two points of view, the doctor's and the patient's. The time period is interesting, the characters are interesting, the plot, while simple enough, has a true feeling. I would slow down, savor this, enjoy.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Enthralling writing style for an enchanting book, May 20, 2010

By 

D. Sorel "book lovah" (Massachusetts USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: 98 Reasons for Being (Paperback)

Overall, an excellent read. I found the characters to be extremely dynamic and multidimensional. The story was also at times heartbreaking as well as uplifting. Yet, it was the writing style that made this book exceptional to read. There were sections of narration that were interrupted by case studies performed by the psychiatrist as well as the thoughts inside the main character's mind. Though I would not go as far to say that it is postmodern, the way that the story is presented is certainly nontraditional.
Basically, it is the story of a Jewish girl who is brought into a mental institution because she refuses to talk. Through her treatment, she encourages the doctor and other patients to open up and free themselves from their own demons. Of course, not all are saved and there are numerous characters that can be deemed as "not good". Still, the complexities of the characters makes them seem more real than the paper on which they are described.