Perlman's Ordeal [Unknown Binding]

Product Details

• Unknown Binding
• Publisher: Soho Pr Inc; First Edition edition (January 1, 1999)
• ASIN: B001L0W5M4
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Intellectual Feast, but Needs some Spark, November 25, 1999

By 

Gerard Hildebrand - See all my reviews

This review is from: Perlman's Ordeal (Hardcover)

Hansen's first novel, The Chess Garden, deserves to be ranked with the best books of the 1990's. All of the dozen or so Amazon reviewers gave it five stars and I would happily write a review adding five more. I keep it conspicuously placed on my bookshelf so I am reminded of the fun of reading it. Perlman's Ordeal is another matter. Although the book is every bit the intellectual feast that the Chess Garden was, it lacks a certain spark that would have kept me interested in the story and in its protagonist, Dr. Perlman. Whereas Dr. Uyterhoeven in The Chess Garden was generously open-minded, Dr. Perlman is every bit the man who can't see beyond his rather educated nose. His ordeal is getting past that limitation - something he never completely seems to do. Hansen seems to have let his own main character attentuate his vision. Also, if there was a flaw in The Chess Garden, it was that its characters were not completely rounded - but somewhow it didn't really matter. It does matter in this book since we see everything through (via a third person narrator), Perlman's rather narrow, fretful, selfish eyes. This left me feeling cold. Still, Hansen's a major writer and I look forward to his next book.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Perlman's Ordeal-- fascinating disappointment, January 17, 2000

By 

India B. (Northern New Jersey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Perlman's Ordeal (Hardcover)

It was like one of those long, mysterious dreams you have on Sunday mornings, substantial while experiencing it but gossamer upon reflection. The Chess Garden's merits are well known, and Boone (Hansen's first book, with cowriter Nick Davis) was possibly the best book I ever read in my life. Unfortunately, this book did not live up to the previous promise in my mind.

The premise was irresistable to me. In London at the turn of the (previous) century, a psychiatrist who uses hypnotism to cure patients of various phobias is presented with a teenage girl who has such a sudden and severe fear of water that she has refused to drink for 11 days and almost dies. When he begins to treat her an alternate personality takes over her body, presenting a story akin to the Atlantean myth. This myth enchants a new friend of his, the sister of a dead composer revered by the doctor, and she begins to hold a salon around the girl, playacting the events retold, and threatening the doctor with her spiritualism.

The atmosphere was perfect, and the tension caused by hindsight (Freud is just on the horizon, as is Russian communism and the Holocaust) was superb. Hansen is a writer obsessed with the ideas behind art forms, and he goes into great detail to present philosophical arguments about music here (melody vs. structure) that totally engaged me. Unfortunately, I didn't feel the substance here that I felt in the two previous books. Conflicts were neatly wrapped up but it seemed too pat, and explanations were wholly devoid. (Considering the theme of the novel the author intended to leave one guessing, but I could have used a few more hints than this.) The book is more accessible than Chess Garden (the narrative is more straightforward and less symbolic) and presents many interesting questions, but in the end the protagonists are left unchanged, which to me is the failure of the novel. This would make a great book club book, though, lots to argue about. If it sounds interesting, go ahead and try it, I definitely enjoyed reading it, just got frustrated when I was done. Boone figuratively sliced the top of my head off to let in a cold breeze, and Chess Garden was an intellectual challenge, but this was, IMO, a failed but valiant attempt.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Art or Science, July 6, 2000

By 

RuthAlice "ruthalice" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Perlman's Ordeal (Hardcover)

Sometimes I sympathize with those authors whose first novel is brilliantly original and alive. After all, they have expectations to fulfill that must be daunting. They must fret whether the second book will be thought as good, fret that readers will find it too similar and say they are formulaic or too dissimilar and feel betrayed They must fret that they will become a one-book-wonder.

Brooks Hansen's first novel, The Chess Garden, was such an original and inventive book, that he must have been a real fretnik. Judging by his second book, Perlman's Ordeal, he needn't fret anymore.

This book has its similarities to the Chess Garden. It is fantastic in the original sense of the word. It is saturated with myth and fable. It is delightfully original. It is also very different. Perlman, the protagonist in this book, is a crabbed and limited in his personal life as Dr. Uyterhoven was generous and open. Perlman finds his security in routine and in not taking risks. Dr. Uyterhoven would have smothered in the small life Perlman carved out for himself. However, Perlman is forced out of his routine and cast bewilderingly adrift in Atlantis, of all places. This Atlantis, however, is not the real Atlantis as Dr. Uyterhoven's Antipodes are The Antipodes. This Atlantis is in the mind of his patient, Sylvie Blum -- or more accurately, in Nina the "shard" personality that has taken over Sylvie Blum.

Dr. Perlman is an eminent practitioner of "clinical suggestion," the science of curing people through suggestion during a hypnogogic state. He is most definitely NOT a mere hypnotist nor something so bizarre as a mesmerist. Sylvie Blum is brought to him, completely out of protocol, since he prefers patients to ask for his services themselves...meaning patients who are ready for suggestion and success. She is dehydrated, refusing water and positively phobic in her fear of water. She is brought to him, sedated and is being forcefully hydrated. He is upset and expects failure since this patient was brought to him in such a disorderly way.

However, he is intrigued when he brings Sylvie to consciousness (he thinks) and discovers that there is a healthy young girl inside there who not only doesn't fear water but practically craves it. Unfortunately, that healthy young girl says her name is Nina. There begins the tale and what a tale it is, taking you from late 19th century London to the days when gods and goddesses walked the earth with humanity.

The ordeal is Perlman's struggle within himself, for he must break free of his routines and his regimens of treatment in order to successfully treat his patient. For once in his life, he must let events take their course and go along for the ride. And when it all comes back to him, when he must finish the tale, what will he do? Will he follow his regimen and his protocols, his science, or will he let himself fall into the story and be carried by it? Who will win Dr Perlman, art or science?

Dr. Perlman may not agree with me, but I think he did the right thing.