Customer Reviews

Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'm a psychologist, and especially enjoy books with psychological content. This book provides remarkable insight into psychoanalytic thought and human complexity and fallibility. It's interesting and a good read, actually quite exciting at some points. I loved it!

I'm a voracious reader with high standards, and this is one of my five favorite novels of all time. It's one of those books I can't wait to forget so I can read it again.

The fact that I'm a therapist in training may partly explain why I disagree with some other reviewers who find this book pretentious, pedantic, or silly. Neruda presents the story as a psychiatrist documenting three case histories, so the narrator mostly addresses the reader as a fellow mental heatlh professional and doesn't bother to define terms or concepts. I can see how this could alienate readers who don't have the assumed knowledge base.

However, if you're familiar with, or just interested in, psychology, this book is exquisitely pleasurable. You don't have to trudge through tiring explanations; Neruda assumes you understand the basics and doesn't hesitate to leap right into the complicated stuff. You may even find that, like me, your own beliefs and theories are challenged and expanded by Yglesias.

This book reminds me a bit of The Name of the Rose, another of my top 5 all-time greatest. Remember Eco's passages of untranslated Latin and abundant references to medieval obscurities? If, like me, you didn't major in medieval studies, you probably feel like you deserve 16 credit hours by the time you've gotten through it. I can hardly get through a page without consulting The Key to The Name of the Rose, which explains all the references.

No such key exists for Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil, but I think Neruda's book is more accessible than Eco's. If you want to learn more about psychology and you're willing to Google a lot of terminology, I think you'll be able to appreciate it. If you *do* work in mental health, I think you'll adore it.

The first and second divisions of the book are incredibly well written. The dialogue, settings and explanations of the genuinely awful things that occur to the main character and his patient are enthralling. The reason I can't rate this novel higher is that the final third of the book, while interesting, does not capture me as being in sync with the rest of the novel. We are supposed to believe that Dr. Neruda, a man who spent most of his life up until that point helping children who suffered tortures, would behave in a basically evil way to 'cure' two socially unredeemable characters. I can't buy it and frankly, I don't think the author was very good at describing his concept of evil.

According to this author, the likes of Hitler and Stalin weren't evil, but the two businesspeople Neruda hunts after in a chilling manner are. Strange, but true. Granted, these characters are incredibly dislikeable, and Halley in particular is the least engaging character in the book. Perhaps Yglesias' failure to make these two characters intriguing is what emotionally distanced me from the finale of the novel. I was left thinking, is the author trying to show that evil is as evil does, that there is a certain banality and randomness to true evil? If so, aren't those obvious points already?

The characters that are built up and introduced in parts 1 and 2 of the novel were fantastic and quite real. What Yglesias does to some of them in part 3 is deeply boring.

I found the groundwork-laying portion of the novel to be overly long, with insufficient compelling reading, up until almost the half way part of the book. My favorite parts in the second half were too short and quick to conclude. Many nights of casual reading at start, followed by hungry reading marathon at end. Strong technique and good background research. Careful about who I reccommend this book too.

One of the best books I've read. Great character's with all you might need in a book--depth, page turning, can't put it down story. Insights on two different cultures and one way someone handles a painful child hood. Humor. I has a mystery, a tale of power and pain, of two American cultures, a tale of a childhood that helps create a brilliant psychiatrist. It's too complicated to describe-read it if you want a dense page turner with interesing characters.

Makes you think about all kinds of childhood terrors and how that turns you into the person you are...And to overcome what happened and be a happy, decent human being without you hurting the people you love in the same way you were hurt. Ygliesias knows the evil that lurks in the hearts of men (and women)

This is certainly not the best book of all time but it is very good. Yglesias has written an engrossing story about a psychiatrist with a lurid past who loses a patient to suicide. The patients murders his own wife before he kills himself. Dr. Neruda begins an obsessive quest of revenge that ultimately shows him succumbing to the very evil he opposes

It is joyous to find a book of such intelligence and moral sensitivity; a book devoid of the obvious in its plotting and philosophy. It is unlike any other book I have read and reasserts how moving and enlightening and good a great novel can be.

This book is very well written, and I had trouble putting it down. Yglesias creates fascinating characters and develops them well. However, what had first drawn me to the book --a cure for evil-- was not even mentioned until the last few chapters. Neruda's "cure" consisted of manipulating others and making them dependent on him. I found that a bit hard to accept. A wonderful lead-up to disappointment.

this is one of the best books i have ever read in my entire life. the book draws the reader in immediately and holds the reader's attention for all 600 plus pages. i finished it a couple days ago and cannot stop thinking about it.