Customer Reviews

The Spinoza Problem: A Novel

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I have read, if not all of Dr. Yalom's works of fiction, certainly most of them. This opus is certainly one of his best, which is admittedly saying a great deal when you consider that he has also written "When Nietzsche Wept" and "Lying on the Couch" - both of which are masterpieces. This work has an extra dimension not found in his earlier works (except perhaps to some extent in "The Schopenhauer Cure)", in that he alternates chapters from two separate stories that take place almost 300 years apart. The first story focuses on the excommunication of Baruch Spinoza from the Jewish community of Holland in the 17th Century, and its impact on the life and thought of this Father of Enlightenment. The second story revolves around the life and distorted thought of the uber Nazi, Alfred Rosenberg. Yalom is brilliant in how he connects these stories. Spinoza had a modest library in his home away from the Jewish world of Amsterdam in Rijnsburg, Holland. Rosenberg ordered the dismemberment of this library. Why? According to a Nazi soldier who was to carry these books off to oblivion, the books were of "great importance for the exploration of the Spinoza problem". But why should Rosenberg have had a "problem" with a long dead Jew when he was confronted with many live ones in Germany whose very presence contaminated the purity of the German race - a pre-occupation of Rosenberg. Here Yalom, through some of Alfred's teachers and later through a Freudian analyst who worked with Rosenberg, uncovered complexities in the psychological make-up of the Nazi that truly makes Spinoza, this long dead Dutch Jew, a veritable "problem" for the young Nazi. You learn that to Alfred, Goethe is the epitome of Arian superiority. But how does he reconcile the fact that this German so admired the work of that 17th Century Dutch Jew. You will not only enjoy this book as a fine novel, but you will at the same time learn a great deal about the brilliance of Spinoza's thoughts, which Dr. Yalom generous spoon feeds to his readers. And what is on the spoon is delicious.