Dream Story (Sun and Moon Classics, 6) [Paperback]

Arthur Schnitzler (Author), Otto P. Schinnerer (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1995 | Series: Sun and Moon Classics, 6

novel, Austrian, tr Otto P Schinnerer

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This reprint of a 1927 American edition gives a new generation of English-speaking readers the opportunity to discover the Viennese novelist and dramatist's (1862-1931) haunting erotic fantasy, which blends dreams and reality. Summoned to a patient's bedside, Fridolin, a physician, begins a night-long journey through events in which he is merely an ineffectual observer. Finding his patient dead, Fridolin wanders the streets, is insulted by a student and responds aggressively--in his imagination. He meekly follows a prostitute to her rooms, but is frozen by fear. Entering a bizarre costume party uninvited and arrogantly challenging a guest to a duel, he is saved by an anonymous woman who buys his freedom with her life. Returning home, Fridolin wakes his wife, Albertina, who describes her own adventure, a dream in which the ever-faithful Fridolin is crucified while she laughs at his horrible death. Schnitzler's characters ultimately return from these sleeping and waking "dreams," but the daily routine in which they take refuge is shown to be a veneer, pasted over the unresolved, unsettling problems that color this portrait of the soul's double
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

The extraordinary Viennese writer Arthur Schnitzler (1862-19310) was born in Vienna, the son of a prominent Jewish laryngologist, Schnitzler studies medicine at Vienna University but soon abandoned medicine for writing. From 1895 he attracted public attention as a dramatist. Concentrating on sex and death, his work shows a remarkable capacity to create atmosphere and to pursue profound, ruthless and often Freudian analysis of human motives. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 167 pages
• Publisher: Sun & Moon Press; 2 edition (January 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1557130817
• ISBN-13: 978-1557130815
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,490,588 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dream Story: A study in the relation of dreams to reality, July 11, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Dream Story (Sun and Moon Classics, 6) (Paperback)

Arthur Schnitzler's "Dream Story", is a psychological novel which explores the relation of dreams and fantasies to reality. The principle characters, Fridolin and Albertina, are a happily married couple who confess their sexual might-have -beens to one another. However, whether or not the events are reality or merely dreams is not known. The book puts it this way, "no dream is entirely a dream." This book was optioned by film director Stanley Kubrick, director of "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "A Clockwork Orange", and is being filmed under the title, "Eyes Wide Shut". Kubrick described the book this way, "It explores the sexual ambivalence of a happy marriage and tries to equate the inportance of sexual dreams and might-have-beens with reality."

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Do You See What You Expected When You Look Behind The Mask?, November 16, 2005

By 

AliGhaemi (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dream Story (Twentieth Century Classics) (Paperback)

In a short novel of one-hundred pages length set after the turn of the twentieth century Arthur Schnitzler, the contemporary of Sigmund Freud, elegantly poses an implicit question. Are life, intentions and consciousness what they seem and would it matter were one's motives other than their outcome?
Dream Story came to me in the reverse order to what is typical. Having seen the film by Stanley Kubrick the masterful direction and intriguing premise acted as impetus for seeking out the book from which the former was adapted. Never mind that Kubrick is unlikely to be bettered; such was the quality of the film, Eyes Wide Shut. Moreover, it was unlikely that Kubrick would pick anything less than a winning novel as his outline to work on.
In twenty four hours the realities of a physician used to dealing with the corporeal and physical is altered once faced with the surprise, trauma and discovery of puzzling and nefarious happenings not oordinarily out in the open. Apparently, nothing is what it seems and reckoning only yields more questions. Forced to avert his eyes from the facade, the charlatans and the masquerade because of his emotions and coercion from a secret society Fridolin, the protagonist, comes to believe that what is most grounded in reality is something one cannot touch, namely feeling, emotions and intentions. Temptation might carry the battle, but the war is won by honesty, bonds of relationship and trust in the hidden motive.
Ultimately, as Fridolin and his wife Albertine concur, trusting in original intent surmounts momentary lapses or deviations from that essence. It is a lesson worth pondering.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Schnitzler's Ambition Exceeds His Talent, December 5, 2009

By 

stoic (Mobile AL) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Dream Story (Green Integer) (Paperback)

As a longtime fan of Stanley Kubrick, I looked forward to the movie "Eyes Wide Shut." I read a bit about Arthur Schnitzler's Dream Story that serves as the basis for the film. I decided to read the novella before I saw the film. The novella has its moments, but it wasn't up to the high expectations I had for it.

Dream Story concerns a young Viennese physician, Fridolin, who is drawn into a world of prostitution, violence, pedophilia, orgies, and murder. After his walk on the wild side, Fridolin returns home where his wife confesses that she has had a dream in which he was crucified. He perceives her dream as a form of emotional infidelity and journeys back into the Vienna underworld. Freud's ideas heavily influence Schnitzler's novella, which comes as no surprise given Schnitzler's background.

Schnitzler does a nice job of creating an eerie, grayish, otherworldly Vienna. The scenes in which Fridolin wanders Vienna at night are especially strong. Schnitzler writing is also strong when it depicts the confusion that Fridolian experiences when his well-controlled world crumbles as his desires awaken.

My main complaint about Dream Story is that it is a novella with a beginning and a middle, but not an ending. Schnitzler leads his reader down an interesting path, but there is no resolution. After reading Dream Story, I was reminded of John Gardner's admonition that a novel must have some definite ending - the hero can win or be defeated; the "slice of life" novel that resolves nothing, however, is always a letdown. Sadly, this is the case with Dream Story.

This isn't a bad novella, but I won't seek out any more of Schnitzler's work.