Freud's Alphabet: A Novel [Hardcover]

Jonathan Tel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 8, 2003

At once a delightfully inventive chronicle of Freud's last days and an insightful reflection on Freudian existence.

1939. The War is about to begin. Sigmund Freud has fled from Vienna to London. Accompanied by his faithful disciple, Ernst Jones, he ventures out into this alien city. He goes swimming with Jones, and dancing with him. He finds his way to Madame Tussaud's. He consults a fortuneteller.

He uncovers a series of shocking secrets...Or does he? Perhaps Freud does no more than dream up versions of the city, each more insightful and extraordinary and magical than the one before. Freud's Alphabet is a brilliant and moving narrative, closely based on fact, describing the last days of Freud; it is also a dazzlingly original series of riffs on Freud's ideas. It is the guide to all our dreams, and the guidebook to the world in which, ever since Freud, we have all been living.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Tel (Arafat's Elephant: Stories) reimagines Freud's final days in London as WWII approaches in this elegant but oblique debut. In dreamlike chapters (from "Apple" to "Zebra"), "The Doktor" explores his new city-he walks in parks, buys gelato and considers taking a bus-emerging as a pensive, questioning man who "is most fascinated by jokes, though he seldom laughs at them"; as a "connoisseur of silence" who reflects on foggy London and his own history. The narrative is noticeably short on event, and the lone secondary character is Freud's long-time disciple Dr. Ernest Jones, who accompanies Freud on some of his outings and gives him morphine to dull the pain of the cancer that is slowly consuming him. The focus, instead, is on Freud's perceptions: Is human thought "a rough draft of dog psychology"? Do sex dreams signify a desire for flight? In one charming chapter, a figure called the Valuer appraises Freud's knickknacks, turning up his nose at a Dali sketch in favor of a ship-in-a-bottle Freud built when he was young. As the book progresses, it becomes less and less clear what is real and what's dreamed. Freud's visit to Madam Tussaud's to contemplate his wax likeness, for example, seems to take place after the eminent man has been euthanized by his beloved Jones. Tel's story is based on fact-Freud did spend his last days in London, though Jones did not give him the final morphine overdose-but the author favors airy philosophizing and rich meditations over a strong narrative thread. Artful as the novel is, many readers may wish for more plot and substance.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Freud seems to be a resilient focus for historical fiction (remember D. M. Thomas' bawdy and disturbing The White Hotel [1981] or Irvin Yalom's When Nietzsche Wept ? [1992]), but this selection is notable in both its historical accuracy and imaginative originality. Set in 1939 London, this is the story of Freud's last days: his dreamlike navigation of a foreign-tongued city preparing for war, his uncovering of secrets without and within, his throbbing mouth cancer. In its thoughtful, impressionistic way, it is also the story of Freud's friendship with Ernst Jones, who takes him dancing before administering his final morphine injection. Described in a series of vignettes corresponding to each letter of the alphabet, Freud's final days are a mirage of London life. As with other fiction about Freud, this selection engages Freudianism and its place in our consciousness (so to speak), but Wittgenstein and Shakespeare have their places in the alphabet as well. Tel, a particle physicist who has been acclaimed for his character studies in Arafat's Elephant (2002), continues to demonstrate his intellectual versatility in this ultimately very original novel. Brendan Driscoll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Counterpoint (July 8, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582432198
• ISBN-13: 978-1582432199
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,852,808 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Thought Provoking Fable, July 10, 2003

By 

Keir Derek E. Gray (Fort Mill SC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Freud's Alphabet: A Novel (Hardcover)

Be aware that this is not a novel in the strict sense. It is a series of short vignettes, not unlike Hemingway's story frgaments in "in our time". (This is not to compare Tel's & Hemingway's styles in any way.) Though "Freud's Alphabet" does chronicle Freud's last days in London somewhat, it is more a collection of meditations on life in England circa 1939 as seen through a very perceptive foreigner who is slowly dying, painfully, of cancer. Is "Freud's Alphabet" an homage? A pastiche? Is it meant ironically? Whatever the author's intentions, he succeeds wonderfully. He brilliantly evokes a man, a time, and a culture that is long gone. A well written work of short length (I read it in a quiet evening) but much depth.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars P is for Pretty Good, September 6, 2003

By 

A. Liebling (Long Island City, NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Freud's Alphabet: A Novel (Hardcover)

Sigmund Freud never wanted to leave his homeland of Austria. Finally, surrounded by Nazis, he was left with no choice and allowed himself to taken to London to die. This book in a way chronicles his last days in a foreign land he couldn't stand (or understand), tormented by cancer and a painful prosthetic palate.

But this isn't your Irving Stone historical fiction. The book is a collection of 26 short stories or episodes, each with an alphabetical Freud-appropriate theme per letter (Id for I, Sleep for S, etc.). The stories themselves are dreamlike; there is little dialogue or action, but hazy descriptions of Freud's internal and external environment. Moods and settings are painted well, but in short and choppy Celine-ish sentences, giving off a feeling of what must've been a zoned-out time for the heavily drugged and dying doctor, perceiving a bleak and unknown London days leading up to WWII.

Freud's Alphabet doesn't offer too much historical insight into Freud's last days, but you do get a powerful sense of that disorienting stranger-in-a-strange-land feeling, compounded by his pain, a zombified morphine state, and the lurking shadows of war. If you were wondering about Freud's attitudes toward his work or place in history, you won't find it here. But then again, perhaps these stories do more accurately reflect what must've been a very dreamlike mind-state.

It's a short book and not worth the hefty $24 cover price, but you may want to take out of the library or pick it up on sale. It may not be for Freud fanatics, as it is less of a book on Freud, than a refreshing look at pre-war London. But more than that, it's a lovely showcase of Jonathan Tel's imaginative style.