La Nouvelle rêvée

by Arthur Schnitzler

Texte intégral révisé suivi d'une biographie d'Arthur Schnitzler. "Traumnovelle" selon le titre original allemand, "Rien qu'un rêve" ou "La Nouvelle rêvée" selon les traductions en français, est l'un des récits les plus captivants et les plus érotiques d'Arthur Schnitzler. À Vienne, au début des années 1920, un jeune médecin, Florestan, sa femme Albertine et leur petite fille, vivent une vie de famille stable et aimante. Mais un soir, Albertine confesse à son mari que l'année précédente, elle a eu un fantasme sexuel pour un jeune officier militaire danois. Troublé, Florestan est appelé en consultation auprès d'un patient. S'en suivent diverses rencontres, intrigues et aventures mystérieuses qui verront le couple se déchirer puis se sauver. Arthur Schnitzler, avec son sens très particulier des mouvements de l'âme, excelle dans ce récit freudien tout en fantasmes, en obsessions, en frustrations et en perversions. Songe et réalité, sérieux et jeu, grotesque et fantastique, sexualité et subconscient y reflètent l'atmosphère typique de la jeune Vienne crépusculaire de l'époque. "La Nouvelle rêvée" a été adaptée au cinéma par Stanley Kubrick sous le titre "Eyes Wide Shut", avec Nicole Kidman et Tom Cruise dans les rôles principaux.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, German Literature, Literature, Novella, Novels, 20th Century

116 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1926

About the author

Arthur Schnitzler was an Austrian author and dramatist.

The son of a prominent Hungarian-Jewish laryngologist Johann Schnitzler and Luise Markbreiter (a daughter of the Viennese doctor Philipp Markbreiter), was born in Vienna in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and began studying medicine at the local university in 1879. He received his doctorate of medicine in 1885 and worked at the Vienna's General Hospital, but ultimately abandoned medicine in favour of writing.

His works were often controversial, both for their frank description of sexuality (Sigmund Freud, in a letter to Schnitzler, confessed "I have gained the impression that you have learned through intuition — though actually as a result of sensitive introspection — everything that I have had to unearth by laborious work on other persons")[1] and for their strong stand against anti-Semitism, represented by works such as his play Professor Bernhardi and the novel Der Weg ins Freie. However, though Schnitzler was himself Jewish, Professor Bernhardi and Fräulein Else are among the few clearly-identified Jewish protagonists in his work.

Schnitzler was branded as a pornographer after the release of his play Reigen, in which ten pairs of characters are shown before and after the sexual act, leading and ending with a prostitute. The furore after this play was couched in the strongest anti-semitic terms;[2] his works would later be cited as "Jewish filth" by Adolf Hitler. Reigen was made into a French language film in 1950 by the German-born director Max Ophüls as La Ronde. The film achieved considerable success in the English-speaking world, with the result that Schnitzler's play is better known there under Ophüls' French title.

In the novella, Fräulein Else (1924), Schnitzler may be rebutting a contentious critique of the Jewish character by Otto Weininger (1903) by positioning the sexuality of the young female Jewish protagonist.[3] The story, a first-person stream of consciousness narrative by a young aristocratic woman, reveals a moral dilemma that ends in tragedy.
In response to an interviewer who asked Schnitzler what he thought about the critical view that his works all seemed to treat the same subjects, he replied, "I write of love and death. What other subjects are there?" Despite his seriousness of purpose, Schnitzler frequently approaches the bedroom farce in his plays (and had an affair with one of his actresses, Adele Sandrock). Professor Bernhardi, a play about a Jewish doctor who turns away a Catholic priest in order to spare a patient the realization that she is on the point of death, is his only major dramatic work without a sexual theme.
A member of the avant-garde group Young Vienna (Jung Wien), Schnitzler toyed with formal as well as social conventions. With his 1900 short story Lieutenant Gustl, he was the first to write German fiction in stream-of-consciousness narration. The story is an unflattering portrait of its protagonist and of the army's obsessive code of formal honour. It caused Schnitzler to be stripped of his commission as a reserve officer in the medical corps — something that should be seen against the rising tide of anti-semitism of the time.
He specialized in shorter works like novellas and one-act plays. And in his short stories like "The Green Tie" ("Die grüne Krawatte") he showed himself to be one of the early masters of microfiction. However he also wrote two full-length novels: Der Weg ins Freie about a talented but not very motivated young composer, a brilliant description of a segment of pre-World War I Viennese society; and the artistically less satisfactory Therese.
In addition to his plays and fiction, Schnitzler meticulously kept a diary from the age of 17 until two days before his death, of a brain hemorrhage in Vienna. The manuscript, which runs to almost 8,000 pages, is most notable for Schnitzler's cas

Reviews

[Jeffrey Keeten · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Am I sure? Only as sure as I am that the reality of one night, let alone that of a whole lifetime, can ever be the whole truth.”


The Bride (1918) by Klimt

It all begins with a confession of sorts as his wife Albertine tells him of a fantasy she had involving a man that she saw on their vacation. Fridolin also confesses that he had desired a young woman on the beach.

It seems fairly harmless after all.

When we marry, we don’t go numb from the waist down and the neck up. We continue to notice attractive people and continue to be titillated by charming and intelligent ones, as well. It could be a ruggedly handsome waiter in a restaurant or a pretty pearl wearing bartender or a French beret wearing poet or a saucy librarian with libidinous thoughts. There are a host of emotions that are involved with noticing that our spouse is interested in some other person. If it is one sided, it can just be amusing or mildly annoying. If the interest is reciprocated, then it can unleash a torrent of reactions from fear to pride to jealousy to finding your spouse that much more alluring because someone else recognized those qualities that you may have started to take for granted.

Flirtations or mild crushes, in most cases, just adds a bit of spice to life.

For Fridolin, this confession of his wife, even though his confession is very similar, unmoors him. It is as if the possibilities of his life are suddenly opening up to him, and women whom he met every day suddenly take on the glow of possibility. Soon after the dream confessions, Fridolin, who is a doctor,, is called out to a client in dire health. Unfortunately, his trip is for naught as the man has passed when he arrives.

Thus begins one of the strangest evenings, an odyssey really, of Fridolin’s life. By the end of the night, he has met a series of women, all women who are interested in sleeping with him and all whom he would like to sleep with. In thinking about which he would prefer, he canot decide. ”To the little Pierrette? Or to the little trollop in the Buchfeldgasse? Or to Marianne, the daughter of the dead Court Counsellor?” It does not matter for they are all about to be replaced by a woman he is on the verge of meeting in precarious circumstances.

”Fridolin was intoxicated, and not merely by her presence, her fragrant body and burning red lips, nor by the atmosphere of the room and the aura of lascivious secrets that surrounded him; he was at once thirsty and delirious, made so by all the adventures of the night, none of which had led to anything, by his own audacity, and by the sea-change he felt within himself. He stretched out and touched the veil covering her head, as though intended to remove it.”

He has fallen into a secret sex club with the help of his piano playing friend Nachtigall. He isn’t supposed to be there. He was never supposed to meet this woman with the burning red lips. He is supposed to be home with his wife and daughter.

Though it is an evening fraught with sexual possibilities, he is like a man walking through a museum admiring the intriguing paintings, but touching none of them.

His wife has more dreams to confess.


Look at all that hair the young Arthur Schnitzler had.

Arthur Schnitzler’s work was considered filth by Adolf Hitler. Anything that upsets that goose stepping, stiff necked, little pipsqueak should be read by the rest of the civilized world with reverence. Schnitzler was born in 1862 and died in Vienna in 1931. If he had lived long enough, the Nazis would have most certainly beaten him and had him thrown in some damp hole for being the Viennese Henry Miller, a few decades before Miller knew he was Miller. If his writing was not enough of an incentive to bring him to the attention of the Third Reich, certainly his Jewish ethnicity would have condemned him just as quickly.

Schnitzler had numerous affairs, sometimes with several women at the same time. He kept a Journal for most of his life and dutifully recorded not only every assignation, but every orgasm. A bit OCD about the adventures of his willie, wouldn’t you say? The venerated Viennese doctor of psychology Sigmund Freud said in a letter to Schnitzler, "I have gained the impression that you have learned through intuition – although actually as a result of sensitive introspection – everything that I have had to unearth by laborious work on other persons." Was there a bit of Freudian jealousy in that observation? Does Freud need some time on his own couch? Fridolin may have thought about making conquests of women, but Schnitzler turned thought into deed.


Nicole Kidman in Eyes Wide Shut. Is it just me or do those wire rimmed glasses make her look very naughty!

Stanley Kubrick directed a film based on this novel called Eyes Wide Shut, (1999) starring the then married Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise. I know I watched the film, but I don’t remember a bloody thing about it. I must have been plastered or snogging or both when I watched it, so I must apologize for not being able to make at the very least some pithy remarks comparing the film to the book. I have a feeling the two may have very little to do with each other, but I’m sure out there in GR land, there are several people who can weigh in on whether the film conveyed Schnitzler’s thoughts or was just a jumping off place for Kubrick/Kidman/Cruise to explore their own ideas.

A quick read with some fascinating observations about relationships, the brain, and our natural/unnatural attractions to the people we come into contact with.

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[Adina ( not enough time ) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dream Story was the beginning of my Viennese period. Ok, I read two books written by Austrian authors in preparation to my short visit to beautiful Wien. That somehow I’ve prolonged this period by later reading about a famous Viennese philosopher, Wittgenstein, is another story.
Arthur Schnitzler is an Austrian playwriter and novelist who was active during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was part of the Viennese intellectual and artistic circles of his time. The luck has it that, while in Wien, I found the time to visit the Leopold Museum, which hosts art from exactly the same period. The exhibition includes Gustav Klimt, the most famous member of the Vienna Secession . What I liked about this museum, was that the exhibits were described in context with the social and cultural environment. As a result, I read a few references to Arthur Schnitzler such as the following: “The founding of the Vienna Secession, which stirred up the art scene as a veritable act of liberation, must be viewed against this background. While Hermann Bahr, Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Arthur Schnitzler, all of them writers belonging to the literary group Young Vienna, expressed the prevalent sentiment of doom but also the sense of departure, while Otto Wagner and Adolf Loos developed innovations in architecture and city planning, while Gustav Mahler and Arnold Schönberg revolutionized music, and Sigmund Freud revealed ground-breaking insights in psychoanalysis, the founding of the Secession in 1897 is regarded as the hour of birth of Austrian Modernism in fine arts.”

I was also excited to see that the Wittgenstein family was mentioned a couple of times which went perfectly with the book I’ve chosen by Bernhard. More on that in the corresponding review. .
Also, Sigmund Freud’s ideas are featured inside the museum, which incidentally were also major inspiration for Dream Story. Schnitzler's work often delved into the psychological intricacies of human relationships and desires.

Finally, Schnitzler was a regular participant in the vibrant café culture of Vienna. Cafés like Café Central were hubs for intellectuals, writers, and artists to engage in discussions. Thomas Bernhard also had a love and hate relationship with these Cafes, which was extensively explored in Wittgenstein’s nephew. Everything seemed to connect during my trip. Unfortunately, I did not visit Café Central this time.

I finally arrived to the Novella. Dream Story (Traumnovelle) presents the story of Dr. Fridolin, a successful physician, whose life changes after his wife, Albertine, confesses to having sexual fantasies about another man. The revelation pushes Fridolin, who has fantasies of his own, to embark on a surreal and psychological journey that blurred the lines between dreams and reality. He somehow finds and tries to infiltrate a secret society with some strange sexual practices. The society did not want to be discovered so Fridolin’s life becomes in danger. It is not exactly clear if the events are real or not and the books leaves the reader pondering about this.

The influence of Sigmund Freud, who I mentioned above, is evident here. One of the central themes of the novella is the exploration of dreams and the complexities of human sexuality, also central theme of the philosopher. While Fridolin embarks in a dreamlike journey, the author explores themes such as desire, guilt, societal constraints, hidden and repressed feelings. The novella can also be described as uncanny, a concept also explored by Freud in an essay.

Finally, This novella is the inspiration for the movie Eyes Wide Shut with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.

[Orsodimondo · Rating 5 out of 5]

EYES WIDE SHUT



Schnitzler e Freud erano contemporanei e concittadini (entrambi viennesi). Avevano interessi molto simili, anche se uno li sviluppava in letteratura e l’altro in psicanalisi. Ma si frequentarono molto poco, preferendo scriversi.
Dalle lettere si evince che fosse piuttosto Freud a ‘temere’ la vicinanza di Schnitzler:
sempre, quando mi sono abbandonato alle sue belle creazioni, ho creduto di trovare dietro la loro parvenza poetica gli stessi presupposti, interessi e risultati che conoscevo come miei propri. Il Suo determinismo come il Suo scetticismo – che la gente chiama pessimismo – la Sua penetrazione nelle verità dell’inconscio, nella natura istintiva dell’uomo, la Sua demolizione delle certezze convenzionali della civiltà, l’adesione dei Suoi pensieri alla polarità di amore e morte, tutto ciò mi ha commosso come qualcosa di incredibilmente familiare. Così ho avuto l’impressione che Lei sapesse per intuizione – ma in verità a causa di una raffinata autopercezione – tutto ciò che io con un lavoro faticoso ho scoperto negli altri uomini. Credo, anzi, che nel fondo del Suo essere lei sia un ricercatore della psicologia del profondo, così onestamente imparziale e impavido come non ve ne sono stati mai.



Quanto a Schnitzler nei diari pubblicati postumi si legge che:
Non è nuova la psicanalisi, ma Freud. Così come non era nuova l’America, ma Colombo.
E anche:
Si scopre poi una specie di territorio intermedio fluttuante tra conscio e inconscio. La soglia del conscio non è così vicina come si crede, o talvolta si finge per comodità di credere (un errore non sempre evitato dagli psicanalisti). Tracciare quanto più decisamente è possibile i limiti fra conscio, semiconscio e inconscio, in ciò consisterà soprattutto l’arte del poeta.



Cento paginette divise in sette capitoli per seguire la crisi di una coppia, quel territorio marcato dall’incomunicabilità tra uomo e donna nel quale spesso un matrimonio finisce per sconfinare. Che conduce alla dicotomia fedeltà-tradimento.
Schnitzler segue in parallelo sia lui, Fridolin, che lei, Albertine.
Messa a letto la bambina, ebbero a un tratto fretta di riprendere la conversazione iniziata prima di cena, e cioè lo scambio (di racconto, opinione, reazione…) sul veglione mascherato della sera precedente.
Da qui, un vortice di dubbi, desideri repressi e poi liberati, di angoscia, perfino aggressività trascina la vicenda in una baraonda di avventure, reali, fantastiche, oniriche. Ma, nessuna delle avventure erotiche di lui si realizza, e l’orgia di piacere e libidine incontrollata che coinvolge Albertine è un sogno.



La novella sul sogno (Traumnovelle è il titolo orginale) è impregnata di umori assolutamente contemporanei, a cominciare dal ruolo tutt’altro che subalterno affidato alla donna: per il lungimirante Schnitzler non esiste una doppia morale se non nella società benpensante, desideri e realizzazione degli stessi non sono certo solo prerogativa maschile, neppure negli anni Trenta. La donna diviene protagonista superando la classica immagine di ipocrita virtù di “angelo-del-focolare”, soggetto e non più solo oggetto.



Mi sembra che qui risieda la fascinazione che spinse Kubrick a usarla come base per il suo ultimo film, quello che si dice gli causò una tale insoddisfazione da morirne.
A me il film è piaciuto. Ma è l’unico film di Kubrick che non ho mai voluto rivedere.
Almeno per ora.

[Violeta · Rating 5 out of 5]

What is this beautiful novella??
A mesmerizing fairy tale for adults dealing with the two eternal themes: Sex & Death. A hypnotic journey into the subconscious. An alluring allegory. A psychological thriller. A story inspired by Freud’s theories that were the new thing at the time it was written. An unmasking of the depravity lurking beneath the surface of civilized society. A study of marriage and infidelity. More likely a "Dream Story” that contains all of the above and lets its readers decide for themselves.

It was also the inspiration for Kubrick’s last film, Eyes Wide Shut; although I love Kubrick, I can safely say that it’s way more engrossing than that mediocre film. Plus, it won’t take up too much of your time and it will have your imagination work at full speed. What more could a reader ask?
The plot: a happily-married couple spice-up their love life by confessing to each other their erotic fantasies. Risky business! The confessions set in motion a series of conscious and subconscious reactions and feelings that find an outlet in their dreams. Or was that happening in real life? That is the question at the heart of the story. Poor husband has the added “benefit” of coming face-to-face with death (him being a doctor and being summoned to treat a patient who is already dead when he arrives) and that, combined with the confessions of his wife (that don’t work miracles on his confidence), throws him in deep existential agony that finds a variety of ways to manifest itself. Thus, his escapade (or his dream) begins…

It sounds cryptic and it is, same as our thoughts are sometimes obscure even to ourselves. Arthur Schnitzler, the author, a bon-viveur and a doctor himself, a conformist rebel who was Freud’s contemporary, was deeply influenced by the latter’s progressive theories. As Anne, my reading buddy for this book, said early on: “Freud is all over the story.” I was very fortunate to read this with her; not only it made the experience more pleasant but her informed opinions served as a guiding light in the maze of allusions to the psychoanalytic theories this book is full of. Not that one needs a psychotherapist like Anne to handle this but our different approaches made it very interesting and I’m grateful for our discussions.

The ending put a big smile on my face; I thought it was splendid and hopeful. I went away from this story thinking that we are our secrets and contradictions as much as we are our straightforward selves. We contain multiple realities, our awoken ones and those that exist solely in our dreams. Perhaps we shouldn’t complain too much about our lives being boring and uneventful; all we have to do is go to sleep and a whole new world of adventure is ready to welcome us. Which world feels more…real is up to us to decide…

…neither the reality of a single night nor even of a person’s entire life can be equated with the full truth about his innermost being.

[Cecily · Rating 3 out of 5]

“A game of gallantry, seduction, resistance and fulfilment” with “a whiff of freedom, danger, and adventure”.
That’s the intention, anyway.

Many editions have one of Klimt’s golden paintings on the cover: a mystical, sexual enticement that seems to fit the dreamy, steamy story. At first. But recreate those pictures with real people, as above, and they become disturbing in a way that is far more appropriate to the full dark arc of the story.

This novella takes place over barely 48 hours. It opens with an idyllic family scene and fond reference to the frisson of flirting at a masked ball the night before. But masks rarely symbolise anything benign, especially not black masks...

Fidelity, Temptation, and Truth

If we promise and expect fidelity, we’re usually thinking of sexual exclusivity, but the word also means truth, in the sense of a full and accurate recreation or reportage.

• Where does honest confession of sexual infidelity - real or imagined - fit?

• Is relishing the fantasy of betrayal as bad as committing it in the flesh, as the Bible says?

• Is seeking temptation, but not submitting to it, dishonourable, dangerous, or brave?

• Is true love unconditional, or is that an impossibility?
Love of one’s child would probably survive their deliberate harm of one’s partner, but would the converse be true?

• What if both partners get a thrill from an admission of infidelity?

• What if that flower of arousal then ripens into the toxic fruit of jealousy?

Truth… and Dare?

“Neither the reality of a single night nor even of a person’s entire life can be equated with the full truth about his innermost being.”

Deep, honest, and frequent communication is oft cited as the key to a happy long-term relationship, including sharing (though not necessarily carrying out) fantasies.

“With self-tormenting anxiety and sordid curiosity, each sought to coax admissions from the other.”

Such truths can be exciting and arousing, but are risky too. As Algy says in Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest (see my review HERE),
“The truth is rarely pure, and never simple”.

Fridolin is unexpectedly disoriented by Albertine’s fairly innocuous fantasy, despite his encouraging her to share it. He embarks on a night of costumes, passwords, clandestine encounters, secret societies, rituals, dire warnings, confusion, revenge, and redemption. When he returns, he finds Albertine laughing in a dream, and when she awakes, he implores her to describe the dream. Just a dream. But such a dream. It changes everything, and what has been said cannot be unsaid.

Fridolin is unmoored and rudderless, as he sets sail on unfamiliar, choppy waters, for another voyage of strange encounters and enquiries, destination unknown.

Dreams may not be “real”, but their effects can be.

The Reality of Dreams

“No dream… is altogether a dream.”

The pages are suffused with the vocabulary of doubt about reality and free will: melancholy enchantment; secrets; magically infused illusions; masks; dreams; brooding menace; intoxication; mysterious people, events, and places; soporific atmospheres; being enveloped by a sultry fragrance, and surrendering to a swelling melody, as if under compulsion. The dark, disorienting, surreal, sexualised mood reminded me of scenes from Kafka.

“Everything was becoming increasingly unreal… His very identity”.

This confusion is not so strange. Boundaries between dreams and reality can be uncomfortably hard to discern. When my mother-in-law recently came round from a week of heavy post-op sedation, she recounted bizarre events as real. A fortnight later, she began to realise they were drug-induced dreams, even though they still felt too real to be dismissed as such. And when reading this, I had a couple of nights of vivid and memorable dreams – to the extent that during one dream, I remembered the dream from the previous night, and wondered if I was dreaming that imagined world again.

The veil is thin; we are easily confused. How much licence does that give us to explore and experiment, in mind - and maybe body?

Fridolin’s adventures appear to be real, in vengeful response to Albertine’s imagined and dreamed exploits. But readers cannot be certain, and I’m not sure the protagonists are either. (Fridolin, a doctor, questions whether he is hallucinating, and later plans to recount what he thinks are real events as if they were dreams, but neither point is definitive.)

That is the intoxicating essence of the story.

Quotes

• Real people “had all withdrawn into the realm of ghosts”.

• “Those trivial encounters became magically and painfully interfused with the treacherous illusion of missed opportunities.”

• “In every woman with whom I thought I was in love, it was always you that I was searching for.”

• “He quickened his pace, as if to escape all forms of responsibility and temptation.”

• “Her blood-red mouth glistened beneath her black lace mask.”

• “The torment of unsatisfied longing for the mysterious woman’s body, whose fragrance still caressed him.”

• “Fridolin’s eyes roved hungrily from sensuous to slender figures, from budding figures to figures in glorious full bloom; and the fact that each of these naked beauties still remained a mystery… transformed his indescribably strong urge to watch into an almost intolerable torment of desire.”

• “Fridolin was intoxicated, and not merely by her presence, her fragrant body and burning red lips, nor by the atmosphere of the room and the aura of lascivious secrets that surrounded him; he was at once thirsty and delirious.”

• “The breeze… even warmer and more springlike, seemed to bring with it a mild fragrance from the distant wakening woods.”

• “The treacherous warm air, pregnant with dangers.”

• “A triumphant sunbeam coming in between the curtains”. The culmination of many allusions to thawing, spring, and liberation.

Notes

• This story was filmed by Stanley Kubrik as Eyes Wide Shut, starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. I’ve reviewed and compared the film, via the screenplay HERE, but in summary, the plot is very similar, but the atmosphere is very different.

• A year before Eyes Wide Shut was released, Kidman starred in the premiere of David Hare’s play, The Blue Room, which is based on Schnitzler’s La Ronde. Daily Telegraph theatre critic, Charles Spencer, coined the phrase “theatrical Viagra” for the production.

• It seems appropriate that I reread this around the time Oxford Dictionaries announced “post-truth” as their Word of the Year 2016, albeit from its use in global-political, rather than inter-personal contexts.

• I read this in 2008 and in November 2016. This review replaces my two-sentence one from 2008.

• The image at the top is Inge Prader’s recreation of Klimt’s The Beethoven Frieze. See:
http://flavorwire.com/543239/gustav-k...

[Jan-Maat]

The big shock and surprise for me about this story was that it written in 1926, it feels like something that belongs to an era twenty or thirty years earlier, perhaps that is part of the point.

In a cafe by chance the main character Doctor Fridolin, meets his old friend Nightingale, Nightingale has a wife and four children back in Lemburg who he supports by playing the piano badly in various shady establishments. The thing is that in 1926 Lemburg wasn't Lemburg, it was Lwow and had been for a few years - this type of thing can happen to you if you are a city, you sit around minding your own business then suddenly somebody imposes a change of identity on you - or maybe they reveal your true identity, or allow the potential for a new identity to emerge. Something that seems at first very absolute and stable - literally a fact on the ground, turns out to be insubstantial and provisional and indeed a little while down the road the city would be L'vov, and then L'viv. Is one name, one identity more real, more correct, or did they all co-exist in reality, just that mostly only one is on display at anyone time? Yet the city is a fact. It does exist, it did exist, it will exist, just what it is called changes and each name implies a radically different reality without the reorientation of a single street or even the remodelling of a modest house. To me, that is what the story is about, hello city, are you Lemburg, or Lwow or really L'viv? Or do I perceive a certain L'vovness about your cafes and restaurants? Are all these names just masks? Does the mask hide, does it protect or project?

This is a geographical story, with clearly marked zones and spaces. The Fridolin at the beginning of the story has a safe space, within this space are himself, his wife and their daughter, however nothing happens and as a result of that his space is revealed in fact to be polluted. In the cafe, hard-working Fridolin flicks through the newspapers, he is reassured and settled by what he reads - people are dying horribly in foreign places which he didn't even know existed. He talks to Nightingale. Weird, potentially depraved things happen he asserts, in Romanian castles well obviously, Dracula, electoral fraud, financial insider dealing, Vlad the innumerate bookkeeper - take your pick (out there, a definite place but beyond Fridolin's territory) . In Lemburg there is the wife and child zone, Vienna is the work zone and in the wallet is some money that belongs correctly to Fridolin, a debt is repaid, however Nightingale asserts that Vienna is not what Fridolin is familiar with, no, weird things happen, secret societies, masked faces, naked bodies - everything smells of sex. Fridolin decides he wants in to transition from safe space to a danger zone.

Later Fridolin visits the mortuary, the mortuary we can read as the underworld, traditionally there the hero is given certain and precise guidance. This mortuary is presided over by Doctor Eagle, Fridolin is neither an eagle nor a nightingale, but each attracts him (non-sexually) as representing a certain attitude towards life, science versus sensuality. In a modern world we can read the mortuary as a place of science, definite, precise, analytic. Fridolin looks at a woman. Is she a woman who may have protected him, or not? All he can see is that this woman is dead, the woman he knew was alive, he moves through a space of secret knowledge but within himself finds only doubt and uncertainty.

Fridolin and his wife exchange almost erotic memories, once, says Fridolin, I saw a naked teenaged girl walking down a gangplank early one morning, just as the sun was rising by the seaside. But we look at this and how difficult it is for Fridolin - is she a girl or a woman? Is this virginal innocence or a sexual display that is, frankly whorish? Is this a family holiday and therefore a safe zone, or is it out there in dangerous Denmark?

The answer I feel is, Hello Dr. Freud, also geographic, specifically in that particular zone between the ears, above the tongue and below the scalp. Is there something weird happening out there on the mean streets of Vienna, ought he be frightened that his daughter's bedtime story spills over into his wife's erotic dream, should he fear the removal of the mask? He is bumped against by a member of a student fraternity - harmless accident or evidence of hostility on the street, he turn he suspects both. Can he cope with himself without the constant projection of his own lust on to others? In the end maybe a naked juvenile of the female variety enjoying the privacy of the early morning by the seaside is just that, as a Doctor we might think his duty was to warn her of the dangers of sunburn as a man we know he is doing a not so good a job of repressing his sexuality because it pops up everywhere and troubles him.

It is though a very cold story, oddly enough for a exploration of a man in a certain psychological state - wanting to have sex with all the women but when specific opportunities come his way he turns away, believing with some fierceness that everybody around him is busily having sex almost whereever he goes - and to me it felt like a Freudian word association game- hearse? Death. Death? Sex. Sex? Danger. Danger? Exposure.

Blargh what a lot I've written about a story that didn't even impress me so much, I might eventually learn to be concise. I think Jewishness and Vienna are essential here, Vienna was both a relatively safe space for Jews in the twilight of the Austro-Hungarian empire, but also a city in which anti-Semitism had become fused into main-stream politics. You might want to pass unnoticed, being exposed, unmasked, might be dangerous. Also, hello Dr. Freud, come in, sit down - I would offer you a cigar but I see you already have one, this the city of the discovery of the unconscious, most of us are too unlike turn of the century Viennese to find Freud congenial any more I guess, but we are considering a culture both interested in atypical human psychological states and in the realisation that what we see isn't what we get, we see the mask that is presented to the world, but beneath the L'viv, is the L'vov, and under that the Lwow, which covers the Lemberg, the mask projects - I am a German city, I am a Polish city, I am a Soviet city, I am a Ukrainian city, but also hides, and hides we might feel, quite reasonably, to protect itself - help, I am confused, I'm not sure who I am, or if I like who I am, or if any of this is real, yet I seem to be substantial - I have streets and schools and public transport.

Whose dream is this story? Fridolin's, his wife's? Vienna's? Ours?

[Luís · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dream Story appears as an initiatory journey into the heart of all temptations. The reader follows Fridolin through his nocturnal wanderings, fantasies, and encounters with enigmatic women, expressed in interior monologues.
Does it pose the question of the importance of communication within the couple - do we have to tell each other everything, abolish any form of the secret garden at the risk of hurting the other and endangering the couple? - like that of the faculty of two beings to exist freely outside the marital sphere.

[Eddie Watkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a read! Before sticking my nose into this I had no idea how faithful Eyes Wide Shut is to this novella, almost scene for scene, but as usual the book outdoes the movie; though unfortunately I could not rid my mind of the movie's images as I was reading. I actually like Tom Cruise but I don't want him and his brilliant white choppers in my head when I'm reading. Begone shorty!

There's something very reminiscent of Chekhov in Schnitzler's writing - a kind of styleless style wedded to superb storytelling with an emphasis on mundane details that manage to bore deep into the characters' psyches. Literary pragmatism if you will. (Maybe these similarities have something to do with both being doctors roughly around the same time?) But Schnitzler is infected (in a darkly deliciously sinister way) with a viral sexuality that manifests as suppurating boil after boil in sentence after sentence in the dream narrative of this novella. This is a masterpiece unpeeling layer after layer of reality to show that there is no "core" reality (besides sex and death maybe), only illusion after illusion.

Something that helps create the dream atmosphere of this book are the inconsequential details that Schnitzler includes, such as when Fridolin (Tom Cruise) comments to himself on the smell of the costume as he's putting it on. There's no other mention of this, but it's just this kind of detail in one's own dreams that seems so pregnant with unspecified meaning and significance, and it works in the same way in the book.

The one thing I liked better about the movie was Nicole Kidman's line at the end.

And on a side note - I've come to think that most novels are simply too long and involved (if they're good) to adapt to movies, that short stories and novellas are more appropriate, and Dream Story helped prove this to me.

[Mohammad Hrabal · Rating 4 out of 5]

کتاب شامل پیشگفتار مترجم، داستان بلند "بازی در سپیده‌دم"، داستان بلند "رویا"، و پس‌گفتار مترجم است که همگی خیلی خوب بودند. اگر فیلم "چشمان باز-بسته‌" استنلی کوبریک را دیده‌اید بدانید که از داستان بلند "رویا" اقتباس شده است. پس گفتار مترجم هم عالی بود و نکات بسیار جالبی داشت. مترجم در بخشی از پس‌گفتار فیلم را با داستان مقایسه کرده بود.


********************************************************************************
راستی چطور زندگی بعضی آدم‌ها به اصطلاح از پیش مقرر شده است، در حالی که دیگران در عرض یکسال، گاهی در عرض یک روز... ص 50 کتاب
حس می‌کنم واقعیت یک شب، حتی واقعیت یک عمر زندگی، در عین حال عمیق‌ترین حقیقت آن نیست. ص 195 کتاب
قرابت آثار شنیتسلر به طور کلی با نظریات فروید از جمله از نامه‌ای معلوم می‌شود که فروید برای شنیتسلر نوشته است. در این نامه می‌خوانیم: « جناب آقای دکتر(...) قصد دارم نزد شما به مطلبی اعتراف کنم، اعترافی که شما بزرگوارانه آن را پیش خود نگه می‌دارید و به خاطر رعایت حال من آن را با هیچ دوست یا بیگانه‌ای در میان نمی‌گذارید. من چه بسیار از خود پرسیده‌ام راستی چرا در طول این همه سال سعی نکرده‌ام به دیدار شما بیایم و با شما گفت و گو کنم؟(...) به گمانم پاسخ این پرسش در اعترافی نهفته است که برای من به شدت جنبه‌ی خصوصی دارد. منظورم این است که من به علت نوعی ترس از رو به رو شدن با بدل خودم از دیدن شما احتراز کرده‌ام. البته نه اینکه من معمولا به آسانی تمایل داشته باشم خود را با دیگری یکی فرض کنم یا احیانا بخواهم تفاوت استعدادی را نادیده بگیرم که شما را از من متمایز می‌کند، نه. با این همه هر بار با عمیق شدن در آثار زیبای شما، به نظرم می‌رسد در پس ظاهر شاعرانه‌ی آنها، آن ملزومات، علایق و استنتاج‌هایی را می‌بینم که در وجود خود سراغ داشتم. (...) تمام این چیزها مرا سرشار از حس آشنایی می‌کند. (...) این است که احساس می‌کنم شما به گونه‌ای شهودی- البته در اصل از طریق مکاشفه‌ی ظریف در روحیات خود- به تمام آن دانشی دست یافته‌اید که من با کار طاقت‌فرسا روی دیگران کشف کرده‌ام.» ص 206 کتاب

[بثينة العيسى · Rating 4 out of 5]

ليس ثمة حلم هو حلم تمامًا.

[Algernon · Rating 4 out of 5]

But now that the day work was done – the child had gone to bed and no disturbance was likely – the shadowy forms of the masquerade, the melancholy stranger and the red dominoes, rose again into reality. And all at once those insignificant events were imbued, magically and painfully, with the deceptive glow of neglected opportunities.

Fridolin and Albertina – names that seem destined to be part of a commedia del arte show – are a young and happily married couple in pre-war Vienna, that city that was the very symbol of the belle epoque era, a hub of scientific research and of elegantly wasting your life to the tune of a Strauss waltz. They are living their happy-ever-after dream life, raising a child, taking care of a private doctor's practice, basking in the warmth of their shared feelings for each other. But they are both wearing masks, even after returning home from a fashionable evening at a bal masque. Behind the conventional picture of marital happiness lurks the shadowy urges of the subconscious.

They spoke of those mysterious regions of which they were hardly conscious but toward which the incomprehensible wind of fate might some day drive them, even if only in their dreams. For though they were united in thought and feeling, they knew that the preceding day had not been the first time that the spirit of adventure, freedom and danger had beckoned them.

I read somewhere that Sigmund Freud congratulated Schnitzler on the story, remarking how extraordinary it is for an artist to feel and to describe instinctively what he has spent hundreds of hour analyzing in his patients. We are creatures of secret and sometimes irrepressible urges, desires that we may or may not acknowledge in the light of day. Night time is the time to let our dreams run wild against the background of our conventional daily routine. Fridolin, surprised to discover through conversations with Albertine that she is capable of virtual infidelity and of harbouring sexual fantasies about strangers, sets out to roam the dark streets of Vienna in search of answers to his divided loyalty: how can he be so jealous of things he is also guilty of? Does he love her less or more now that he discovered she is his equal also in this virtual dance?

... he was moving farther and farther away from his everyday existence into some strange and distant world.

The imagery of bourgeois complaisance, night time revels and masquerades makes it very tempting to draw parallels between "Dream Story" and "Steppenwolf", which I read earlier this year and with "Belle de Jour" from last year. All three novels are coming from the same prewar period, challenge accepted social norms and announce sexual emancipation. I believe they are still relevant today due to the talent of their respective writers and to their instinctive grasp of human nature.

I know that it's dangerous. Perhaps that's the very thing that tempts me.

The whole adventure might be nothing more than a figment of Fridolin imagination, of his repressed desires and yearning for freedom and adventure even while happily married.
Wasn't he feverish? Perhaps at this moment he was lying at home in bed – and everything he thought he had experienced was merely delirium?

also,
Then the idea occurred to him – not deliberately but as a flash across his mind – to drive to some station, take a train, no matter where, and to disappear, leaving everyone behind. He could then turn up again, somewhere abroad, and start a new life, as a different personality.

What is important though are not the spicy details of Fridolin's gloomy and ambiguous revels or the form of Albertine's sexual fantasies, but the acknowledgement that we are all wearing masks and that granting others the same benefit of the doubt and the same freedoms we give ourselves is the start on the road to acceptance and understanding.

Great stuff here in an elegant and concise package. Recommended!

later: I forgot to mention I did the see the movie version when it first came out, but I can't remember a thing from it. rather boring, but then I'm not a fan of Tom Cruise.

[Το Άθχημο γατί του θενιόρ Γκουαναμίρου · Rating 5 out of 5]

Με πολύ ενδιαφέρον διάβασα πως ο συγγραφέας είχε σκεφτεί έναν εναλλακτικό τίτλο γι’ αυτήν την νουβέλα: “Doppelnovelle” που δεν έχει την έννοια του διπλού αλλά εκείνου που υπάρχει με δύο παράλληλες μορφές. Υπάρχει ένα απόσπασμα που δεν προδίδει την εξαιρετικά ιντριγκαδόρικη υπόθεση του έργου και συνάμα φωτίζει κάπως αυτήν την προσέγγιση:

“Του ήρθαν στο νου κάποιες αλλόκοτες παθολογικές περιπτώσεις που είχε διαβάσει σε βιβλία ψυχιατρικής, για τις λεγόμενες διπλές ζωές. Ένας άνδρας που ζούσε υπό φυσιολογικές συνθήκες, εξαφανίστηκε στα ξαφνικά, δεν υπήρχαν νέα του, ωσότου επέστρεψε μερικούς μήνες ή χρόνια αργότερα δίχως να έχει την παραμικρή ιδέα για το πού βρισκόταν όλον αυτόν τον καιρό. Αργότερα ωστόσο τον αναγνώρισε κάποιος, που τον είχε συναντήσει σε μια άλλη χώρα. Ο άνδρας όμως δεν μπόρεσε να θυμηθεί τίποτα. Τέτοια πράγματα βέβαια δεν συμβαίνουν συχνά, είναι ωστόσο πέρα για πέρα αληθινά”.

Συνδυάζοντας έναν αέρα φροϋδικής ψυχολογίας και το ελαφρύ μυστήριο μιας αστυνομικής περιπέτειας με τη γοητευτική και παρακμιακή ατμόσφαιρα της Βιέννης του μεσοπολέμου, ο Schnitzler χτίζει μια ιστορία της οποίας το τέλος αφήνει σκόπιμα να αιωρείται. Φαίνεται να ενδιαφέρεται περισσότερο για τις αντιδράσεις ενός ανθρώπου και τις παρορμήσεις εκείνες που τον ωθούν να παρεκκλίνει από αυτό που θα ορίζαμε ως συμβατική πραγματικότητα. Η γυναίκα ως περισσότερο καταπιεσμένη βιώνει μια περιπέτεια μέσα στο όνειρό της ο άνδρας από την άλλη οργώνει το κέντρο και τα προάστια της πόλης του. Έτσι κι αλλιώς από την δική του οπτική γωνία είναι υποχρεωμένος ο αναγνώστης να δει τα πράγματα, αυτός είναι ο πρωταγωνιστής της ιστορίας.

Εκεί, μέσα στη σφαίρα όπου κρύβονται όλα τα απαγορευμένα πράγματα, εκείνα στα οποία δεν έχουμε πρόσβαση, υπάρχει μια άβυσσος από αλυσοδεμένες επιθυμίες. Μπορεί να μην είναι καν επιθυμίες, μπορεί να είναι απλώς αντανακλαστικές αντιδράσεις απέναντι σε καταστάσεις, συναισθήματα και συμπεριφορές που τείνουμε να εκλαμβάνουμε ως δεδομένες. Μέσα εκεί λοιπόν, σε αυτόν τον σκιώδη χώρο, ίσα που ακροπατά ο ήρωας αυτής της ιστορίας, ίσα για να δοκιμάσει τα όρια, τις λεπτές εκείνες γραμμές που χωρίζουν την πραγματικότητα από την φαντασίωση.

Και τί ανακαλύπτει τελικά;

[Mohamed Shady · Rating 4 out of 5]

حلم - أرتور شنيتسلر
التقييم 4/5

لدى البشر رغبة غير مفهومة في إفساد كل شيء، غريزة راسخة في كيان كل إنسان في البحث عما يؤرقه، مازوخية يتلذذ صاحبها بشعوره بالحزن، وبأن شخصًا آخر قد آذاه.
في ليلة شتوية هادئة، تقرر "ألبرتينه"، الزوجة الجميلة، أن تخبر زوجها عن نزوة راودتها منذ فترة، بفتىً، غيره، اشتاق جسدها إليه في لحظة شهوانية غير مبررة. كأي زوج، يُصاب "فريدولين" بالغيرة، ويقرر، مدفوعًا برغبة في الانتقام، أن يحكي لزوجته موقفًا مشابهًا اشتهى فيه غيرها.
تنتهي الليلة، وداخل كل منهما تضرم نار الكراهية والحقد، وكل منهما يسعى للانتصار على الآخر في معركة عبثية لا جدوى منها.
لماذا
ينطلق "فريدولين" في مغامرة ليلية، يتسلل إلى منزل غريب يُقام فيه حفل ماجن، يحاول أن يعيش ما يكفيه من مغامرة لا لشيء إلا ليعود إلى منزله ويخبر زوجته بمجونه، بينما تعيش "ألبرتينه" مغامرتها عبر حلم تلتقي فيه معشوقها الشاب، وتشاهد زوجها وهو على وشك أن يُصلب، وتنظر إليه ولا تُبالي.

هذه النوفيلا تقول تمامًا ما تريد أنتَ قوله ولا تستطيع، ربما لسخافة الحديث عنه، ربما لأن الحديث عنه لا يُقابل بأي ترحاب، وربما لأن الشخص الوحيد الذي سيُدرك ما تقول هو أنت.

ترجمة أستاذ سمير جريس ممتازة ودقيقة كالعادة.

#بتاع_الكتب

[°°°·.°·..·°¯°·._.· ʜᴇʟᴇɴ Ροζουλί Εωσφόρος ·._.·°¯°·.·° .·°°° ★·.·´¯`·.·★ Ⓥⓔⓡⓝⓤⓢ Ⓟⓞⓡⓣⓘⓣⓞⓡ Ⓐⓡⓒⓐⓝⓤⓢ Ταμετούρο Αμ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Πρόκειται για ένα συντριπτικά ένοχο κομμάτι της μοντερνιστικής γραφής, που περιέχει δηλητηριώδη επεισόδια ψυχοπαθητικού εσωτερικού μονόλογου από τον κύριο χαρακτήρα.
Ο Fridolin έρχεται αντιμέτωπος με τις εμμονές του,
και η γραφή του Schnitzler διερευνά τα αρχέτυπα,
και τα ένστικτα του Σεξ, του θανάτου και της ενοχής στην γενέτειρα της ψυχανάλυσης, την Αυστρία.

Αν φαίνεται λίγο γνωστό στον αναγνώστη, αυτό οφείλεται στο γεγονός ότι το 1969 κυκλοφόρησε μια ταινία του ίδιου τίτλου σε σκηνοθεσία του Wolfgang Gluck. Ένας άντρας που ονομάζεται Stanley Kubrick παρακολούθησε την ταινία τη στιγμή της κυκλοφορίας της, αγόρασε τα νόμιμα δικαιώματα και τα υπόλοιπα είναι ιστορία…

Το μυθιστόρημα του Schnitzler «Ονειρική ιστορία» ταξιδεύει μέσα από ανθρώπινα συναισθήματα
ζηλοτυπίας, εκδίκησης και ενοχής. για μια βαθύτερη διορατική εικόνα αναφορικά με την αδυναμία και τις αντιξοότητες της ανθρώπινης κατάστασης.
Η ζωή σε ένα θάμπωμα μεταξύ
ονείρων και πραγματικότητας, αλλά σε πραγματικό ρεαλισμό.

Σαν όνειρο μέσα σε όνειρο σαν αφήγηση αληθινών παραστατικών γεγονότων, εκεί όπου οι ήρωες τους πρωταγωνιστούν στις πιο απόκρυφες και μυστικιστικές επιθυμίες τους.
Εκεί όπου γνωστοί και άγνωστοι χαρακτήρες
θυμούνται και ξεχνούν πότε βίωσαν ασυνείδητες εμπειρίες , αν τα όνειρα είναι αλήθειες ξεχασμένες
απο την φαντασία, εκεί όπου σύζυγοι που αγαπήθηκαν τυχαία εξομολογούνται ή θυμούνται ή ελπίζουν
την επιδίωξη τους να απομακρυνθούν απο
την πραγματικότητα, να μπουν σε πειρασμούς σεξουαλικής προδοσίας και συναισθηματικής αδιαφορίας.
Μια ονειρική ιστορία που αμφισβητεί την τάξη της καθημερινότητας με ακλόνητα επιχειρήματα,
απο αυτά που δικαιολογούν ή όχι, συντροφικούς πειρασμούς, μυστικά, ψέματα, υποκριτικές συμπεριφορές.

Υπάρχει μια διάσταση άλλη που ελλοχεύει εσωτερικά βασανιστήρια και αμφισβήτηση σχετικά με την δύναμη της ένωσης.
Σαφώς το βιβλίο είναι ανώτερο και πνευματικά κατατοπιστικό για τις αληθινές ονειρικές καταστάσεις και την ψυχεδελική ανατροπή των συμβάντων που δεν συνέβησαν σε σχέση με την ταινία που βασίστηκε σε αυτό,
« Μάτια ερμητικά κλειστά».

Ωστόσο και λίγο ανεπίτρεπτα συγκριτικά,
ας μου επιτραπεί να ομολογήσω ότι
το θείο δώρο της γραφής του
Marcel Proust ή του Flaubert, αναλύει πολύ
πιο αληθινά, πιο έντονα, πιο ανθρώπινα,
χωρίς υπαινιγμούς και εικόνες αλλά με πλήρεις λεπτομέρειες τον ασυνείδητο νου και την εφαρμογή της ψυχοδυναμικής, την μελέτη της αλληλεξάρτησης διαφόρων μερών του νου, της προσωπικότητας
ή της ψυχής και των διανοητικών, συναισθηματικών
ή κινητήριων δυνάμεων που εξαπολύονται κατά συνέπεια.

🥰🥰🥰🖤


Καλή ανάγνωση
Πολλούς ασπασμούς.

[Tahani Shihab · Rating 4 out of 5]

“حقيقة حياة إنسان بأكملها، لا تعني في الوقت ذاته حقيقته الداخلية”.

[Fereshteh · Rating 5 out of 5]

با وجود این که طی خوندن کتاب نتونستم ذهنم رو از شر صحنه های فیلم "چشمان کاملا بسته" آخرین فیلم کارگردان بزرگ، استنلی کوبریک راحت کنم -بخصوص که فیلم، جز به جز به کتاب وفادار هم بود- ولی باز هم کتاب فوق العاده و لذتبخشی بود. متن نسبتا فشرده ی کتاب، جایی برای پرداختن ب�� حاشیه نگذاشته و باعث شده در مدت زمانی کوتاه یه اثر درخشان رو با لذت به پایان برسونید

فضای حاکم بر داستان تنیدگی بین وهم و واقعیته ..طوری که تشخیص مرز بین این دو ناممکن میشه

انعکاس نظریات فروید در باب عقده های سرکوب شده جنسی و تأثیر منفیشون در نا خود آگاه آدمی در این داستان مشاهده میشه...همچنین میشه گفت این داستان اشاره ای هم به نظریه فروید درباره ی رویا داره. فروید معتقد بود که رویا تحقق امیال و آرزوهای درونی ماست که در عالم واقعیت چون از داشتنشون شرمساریم مانع وقوعشون می شیم ولی در خواب بهشون رجوع می کنیم تا هم به این امیال رسیده باشیم و هم حس گناه نداشته باشیم

تمایلات برآورده نشده اروتیک بین فریدولین و البرتینا،سر منشأ مشکلات عاطفی بین این زوج میشه.فریدولین و البرتینا از شروع داستان شروع به فاصله گرفتن از هم و بیگانه شدن می کنن.چرا؟ چون هرکدوم اعتراف می کنند که در فلان روز بدشون نمیومده رابطه جنسی خارج از خانواده رو با فلان شخص تجربه کنند...اتفاقی که علی رغم امکان وقوعش و وجود تمایل از طرف اونها عملی نشد ولی با این حال اثر سو خودش رو بر رابطه زناشویی این دو گذاشت

فریدولین و آلبرتینا هر یک به شیوه ای این امیال فرو خورده خود رو برآورده می کنند. فریدولین در واقعیتی خواب گونه و آلبرتینا در خوابی نزدیک به واقعیت . در این دنیای خیالیه که وسوسه های دیر پا و فروخورده ی انها برآورده می شه. در واقع در این دنیای غیرواقعی نفس هر یک از زن و شوهر چیزی رو تجربه می کنه که در واقعیت بیرونی تحققی براش نیست

در قصه کوتاه رؤیا فریدولین ، از همسر خود فاصله عاطفی و سپس فیزیکی می گیره، سفری رؤیا گونه در دنیای بین خواب و بیداری رو تجربه می کنه و در پایان با اشتیاق برای داشتن رابطه ای محکم تر نزد البرتینا بر می گرده


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آلبرتینه لبخند زد و پس از لحظه ای مکث پاسخ داد : به گمانم باید ممنون سرنوشت باشیم که از تمامی ماجرا به سلامت گذشته ایم، ماجراهای واقعی و رؤیایی

فریدولین پرسید : تو مطمئنی ؟

همان قدر مطمئنم که حس می کنم واقعیت یک شب ، حتی واقعیت یک عمر زندگی در عین حال عمیق ترین حقیقت آن نیست

فریدولین آهسته ناله کرد : ” و هیچ خوابی به تمام و کمال خواب نیست

[Megha · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Of course, one remembers some dreams, but there must be others one completely forgets, of which nothing remains but a mysterious mood, a curious numbness."

Atmospheric and haunting! Schnitzler's novella is a perfect Dream (or dream-like) Story. He doesn't create the kind of dream world that is engineered by hanging two moons from the ceiling. His world only consists of realistic things and events and yet it is shadowed by something intangible and unsettling. He simply colors the world his characters inhabit with a hypnotic quality that seduces the reader into the dream-scape. And how subtly he does that! Little details - one elusive gesture, one innocent-looking piece of the setting, one fleeting thought - all come together beautifully to create the atmosphere.

The novella explores the intimate life of a married couple. Schnitzler digs into the psyche of his characters by gently leading them to a space where their hidden thoughts, desires and anxieties find the freedom to manifest themselves. He lets the characters assess what constitutes truth and reality for them. And once the spell breaks, they can go back to continue living the illusion of real life they create for themselves.

"I have gained the impression that you have learned through intuition — though actually as a result of sensitive introspection — everything that I have had to unearth by laborious work on other persons." - Freud in a letter to Schnitzler (Wikipedia).

Whether the events in the novella happen for real or was Schnitzler only staging an illusion - I will leave that for you to decide through your own reading. Perhaps it won't even matter.

"Just as sure as I am that the reality of one night, let alone that of a whole lifetime, is not the whole truth."
"And no dream," he said with a slight sigh, "is entirely a dream."

Best read in a sitting or two.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Fridolin’s eyes roved hungrily from sensuous to slender figures, from budding figures to figures in glorious full bloom; and the fact that each of these naked beauties would forever be a mystery ….The delight of beholding transformed to an almost unbearable agony of desire.”

This quote is taken from one of the most erotic scenes in this Dream Novel and is the one you probably remember most if you have seen Stanley Kubrick's film Eyes Wide Shut” which is an adaptation of this novella. Fridolin is one or our main protagonists. The other is his wife, Albertina, who is not at this party with her husband. She is at home sleeping and dreaming about a lover.

How did this couple end up separated and in these different dream worlds?

It all started with the two of them going to a “bal masque,” which inspired them to share sexual fantasies once they came home. Fridolin did not cope well with his wife’s fantasy and ends up feeling duped. In fact, he becomes very distraught. Unfortunately, before they have a chance to speak any further Fridolin, a doctor, is called away to see a dying patient and he ends up staying out all night having one adventure after another with his wife’s fantasy not far from his mind. These adventures, sometimes feel very dreamlike, while at other times they seem very real.

Fridolin’s first stop is his patient’s house. Upon his arrival he finds that his patient has died. The dead body reminds Fridolin of his own mortality which makes him anxious. His next thoughts are about sex and desire for women.

Dream Novel was originally written in German. The German word for dream is “traum.” Traum is very close to the word “trauma” which is the same in German and English. Fridolin does undergo a kind of trauma after hearing his wife’s fantasy and with the dreamscape partly focused on death and fear it isn’t too far-fetched to consider that Schnitzler may have called his novel “ Traumnovelle” as a play on the word Traum. At another level, “to dream for something” also reflects wishing or desiring something one does not have. This novella also delves in the realm of wishes and desires.

So what is this novel really about? Is it a study of marriage and infidelity? A story written in the form of a dream or a nightmare? A study of the underbelly of society lurking beneath the surface of civilized Viennese society of the early 20th Century? A story inspired by Freud’s theories which were all the rage at the time this novella was written (1926)? A novella concerned with the distinctions between dreaming and reality? It is, in fact, a combination of all of these.

In Dream Story, Arthur Schnitzler conveys his ideas about the nature of the human psyche as well as reality while at the same time asking what is real vs. what is a dream? The latter is a trick question because dreams hold deep truths about our greatest desires and fears but in a disguised form. In fact, in the novel, masks and disguises abound. Why disguises? Because dreams are the means by which the unconscious mind works out anxieties or wishes from the day before with which the conscious mind cannot cope during the day. That’s also why we dream in symbols or strange, odd or surprising juxtapositions of images. These dream images are conjured up by the unconscious so that the disturbing truths are not laid bare to the dreamer.

So, in a sense, dreams can be more true than everyday reality in which we wear disguises, or put on a different face, or mask, depending on the role we are playing. We wear one mask at work, another at home and yet another when playing with our children or having sex with a lover.

Appropriately, this dream novella is full of masks and disguises. To understand the dreams in this story (or in our own lives) we must look behind the masks. Sigmund Freud famously wrote in (his best work IMO) “The Interpretation of Dreams,” that "The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind.”

Themes of desire and death run throughout Dream Story. Why is that? Because as Schnitzler said, "I write of love and death. What other subjects are there?” Snitzler wasn’t kidding. I have no evidence from his personal life that Schnitzler dwelt on the subject of death, though it is a preoccupation in some of his other literary works, but there is an abundance of evidence that he was obsessed with the erotic side of life. He was a married man who often had mistresses, sometimes many at the same time. He kept meticulous notes in a diary from the age of 16 until two days before his death, of each sexual conquest including every orgasm. This manuscript is almost 8,000 pages long and takes up ten volumes.

Schnitzler’s artistic focus on love and death may have been intuited or borrowed from Freud, his contemporary and friend, but either way, his ideas gel perfectly with Freud’s theories on love and death. The two most basic instincts which rule the psyche and behavior: Love (Eros) is the drive which includes anything that makes people feel alive and that which sustains life for the individual or society. Some examples are desire and sex, procreation, and creativity.   The “death drive” (Thanatos), involves anything which leads individuals or society towards destruction. These can include aggression, sadism, masochism, and suicide.

Understanding these two instincts we can understand why Fridolin’s mind is suddenly obsessed with sex and desire after he sees the dead body of his patient and starts to worry that he may die soon also. He’s a 35 year old man and not ready or likely to die soon. To reassure himself of this his mind focuses on the opposite of death, sex and desire. From that point on the story, or “dreamscape,” comes alive with thoughts and scenes of sex and desire with death and the threat of death also continuing to appear in different guises.

This was a fun and interesting read, partly because it is so imaginative and like nothing I have ever read and partly because it was so much fun to read and discuss in great detail with Violeta, my reading buddy for this novella. Also, being a psychologist it became quickly apparent that Schnitzler’s story was highly influenced by Freud’s writings so seeing Freud’s ideas brought to life in a work of fiction was fascinating. That’s not to say that one needs to know anything about Freud to enjoy this novella. It just made it more interesting for me as Violeta and I went about thoroughly discussing every page of the story. Ironically, this also made it harder to write this review because I had too many ideas and notes which I had to pare way down (Thank you, Violeta, for your help).

Some of the aspects of this novella which Violeta and I discussed were the many questions posed to the reader:

Is complete honesty in a love relationship healthy for that relationship? What if that honesty involves fantasies of infidelity? How much do people hide from themselves? From their partners? What kind of masks do we wear? Is it best to reveal all to oneself? What about to one’s partner?

To know what the author thinks about these questions you will need to read the novel. No spoilers here. But I will give you a hint: these questions assume a certain degree of knowledge of oneself and one’s “reality.” A person’s “reality” is complicated and not stagnant. It is a moving target changing all the time depending on circumstances. It may never be possible to completely understand ourselves, but we can try. If we are willing to look behind the disguises of our dreams and of our waking lives then we can begin to know ourselves, or, to distinguish between dreams and reality.

“No dream…is entirely a dream” and no one reality is the whole story. “


For a different take on this novella please see Violetta’s terrific review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Warwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘I write of sex and death,’ Schnitzler once told an interviewer. ‘What else is there?’ Well, Nutella is pretty good – but I take his point. Certainly eros and thanatos are the twin poles of this slim, witty, oneiric work of fiction, which is much deeper than its size might suggest.

It begins with someone drifting off to sleep; and from then until the end, we are never entirely sure of what is real and what is fantasy, who is dreaming and who awake. Fridolin, our protagonist, spends a night in Vienna pursuing a series of strange erotic encounters, none of which quite reaches fulfilment; the next day, trying to recapture the threads of his desires, all of them turn out to end in disappointment or death. The bourgeois daughter who declared her love for him is now entirely unattractive; the sex worker who took his fancy in the street is in hospital, presumably with venereal disease; the shopgirl who made a pass at him turns out to be a common whore; and the beautiful woman he met at an orgy is now, it seems, in the morgue.

Meanwhile Fridolin’s wife, Albertine, is at home in bed, lost in elaborate sex dreams of frustrated desires and missed opportunities from her own past.

Which of the two of them is really ‘dreaming’ – and how much difference is there, really, between the visions we imagine while asleep and the tricks our brain plays on us while awake?

The story is infused with a melancholy sense of the trügerischen Scheine versäumter Möglichkeiten, the treacherous illusion of missed opportunities, but also with a sense that dream logic communicates truths that cannot be expressed in waking logic. Small wonder that Freud called Schnitzler his ‘alter ego’; they apparently developed their ideas about the importance of dreams independently, and Schnitzler – a trained doctor – presents his fictions as though they are case notes. We read as though listening to someone speaking from the analyst’s couch. We're reminded that ‘dream’ and ‘trauma’, in German, are perilously similar.

The tone is sexy and woozy and worldly-wise, with an unexpected pragmatism running through it. Schnitzler’s view of marriage seems on the one hand rather bleak – a permanent state of duplicity and denial – but on the other hand it offers the only lasting comforts available here: shared understanding, and the practicality of building a life together.

Dreams and reality are not the same; but maybe to move forward, you have to understand (as Fridolin finally understands) that kein Traum ist völlig Traum. No dream is entirely a dream – for better and for worse.

[Nickolas B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Η "Ονειρική Ιστορία" είναι ένα μικρό διήγημα με τεράστια δυναμική, κάτι που το οφείλει στην πένα του Σνίτσλερ ο οποίος μέσα από μια ιστορία μυστηρίου κατάφερε να καταδυθεί σε σκοτεινά μέρη της ανθρώπινης ψυχολογίας. Σε μέρη που κρύβονται οι απαγορευμένες απολαύσεις αλλά και τα πραγματικά "θέλω" των ανθρώπων. Εκεί που η παραδοχή του απαγορευμένου απελευθερώνεται.
Ο γιατρός Φρίντολιν θα ζήσει ένα πολύ περίεργο εικοσιτετράωρο στο οποίο θα έρθει σε επαφή με τις φαντασιώσεις κάθε άντρα. Την αθώα κορασίδα, την "πεταλούδα" της νύχτας, την έμπειρη γυναίκα και την "απαγορευμένη" ηδονή. Σχεδόν χαμένος μέσα σε όνειρο μέχρι την επόμενη μέρα, όπου θα προσπαθήσει να βάλει σε μια σειρά τα γεγονότα αλλά και να ρίξει μια πιο ενδελεχή ματιά στην μέχρι τώρα ζωή του - γάμος, παιδί, γυναίκα - .

Περιχαρακωμένος ο αυστριακός συγγραφέας από από τα ήθη της εποχής θα τολμήσει να μιλήσει για την ανθρώπινη σεξουαλικότητα και παράλληλα να υπεισέλθει στο υποσυνείδητο των βασικών του χαρακτήρων τεστάροντας τις αξίες τους και οδηγώντας τους σε ένα κόσμο όπου τα όρια πραγματικότητας και ονείρου γίνονται απολύτως δυσδιάκριτα.

Φυσικά, υπάρχει και η αριστουργηματική μεταφορά στον κινηματογράφο από τον Στάνλει Κιούμπρικ! Με σχεδόν ευφυή τρόπο ο Κιούμπρικ και σεβόμενος το αρχικό κείμενο, μεταφέρει την ιστορία στην σύγχρονη Αμερική σε μια ταινία η οποία ξεχειλίζει από ερωτισμό και μυστήριο καταδεικνύοντας την παρακμή της κοινωνίας.
Για όσους δεν κατάλαβαν "Μάτια ερμητικά κλειστά" είναι το αριστούργημα.
5/5!!

[Heba · Rating 4 out of 5]

حسناً...ألن تروي لنا حكاية الحلم ؟؟...
لن أستطيع ، عليك أن تراه بنفسك...، كما إنه لا يمكنني ان أجزم بأنه كان حلماُ..لربما كان حقيقة..ولكنني أعدك بأنه سيراودك مراراً....
وليس ثمة حلم هو حلم تماماً.....

[Alexandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Prinzipiell hat Arthur Schnitzler hier eine sehr gute Geschichte begonnen, diese Ehe voller Nadelstiche, kleiner Kränkungen und gegenseitiger Entfremdung. Leider steht in diesem Fall der literarische Typ der Novelle wieder mal gegen eine wirklich ausgezeichnete Aufarbeitung des angerissenen Themas. Ich finde einfach eine bzw. diese Beziehung ist viel zu vielschichtig und komplex, um derart kurz abgehandelt zu werden. Das merkt man auch beim Ende, als der Ehemann alles beichtet und dann ist alles wieder gut. Wirklich? Das ist mir einfach zu platt, wird viel zu hastig abgehandelt und das Finale kommt mir dadurch auch als unlogischer Handlungssprung vor. Eine Paartherapie einer Ehe mit jahrelangen kleinen Verletzungen und massiver Entfremdung kann auch nicht in einer Sitzung erfolgreich absolviert werden.

Daran krankt aber meiner Meinung nach die Gattung der Novelle sehr oft. Sie nimmt sich zu komplexe Themen vor, die einfach nur für einen Roman geeignet sind. Lediglich beim Lieutnant Gustl und bei der Schachnovelle kam mir die Geschichte hinreichend erzählt und konsistent abgeschlossen vor.

Die Traumszenen der Ehefrau sind wundervoll in die Handlung eingefügt. Diese Dame versteht es wirklich, Ihren Mann zwar nicht körperlich zu betrügen, aber ihm durch die Erzählung ihres Traumes unmissverständlich klarzumachen, dass sie es erstens könnte und dass sie es zweitens aus Verachtung sehr gerne tun wollte. Eine ganz perfide Manipulatorin, die dann auch noch ein paar sehr subtile Tötungsfantasien in den Traum einbringt. Hier zeigt sich auch der Einfluss von Freud, Jung und Konsorten, die sich zur Zeit Schnitzlers mit der Traumdeutung befasst haben. Auch die Figur des Ehemanns und Arztes Fridolin ist sehr gut und konsitent entwickelt. Schnitzler zieht dies konsequent bis zur ärztlich angehauchten Sprache durch. Die außerehelichen Abenteuer Fridolins, die nie zum Abschluss kommen, sind erstens sehr spannend konzipiert (nämlich ein jedes ist völlig unterschiedlich), zeugen aber durch ihren gemeinsamen Coitus Interruptus-Charakter durchaus von sehr bösartigem Humor. Die Ehefrau betrügt und verletzt ihren Mann im Traum mehr als dieser - zu allen Schandtaten bereit - imstande ist, die ihm dargebotenen Gelegenheiten wirklich am Schopf zu packen. Fridolin hat ein derart schlechtes Timing und die Tendenz, in gewissen Situationen immer genau das Falsche zu tun, dass ich oft schmunzeln musste. Letztendlich bleiben sich die beiden Partner in ihrem kleinen Ehegefecht nichts schuldig. Diese Szenen einer Ehe hätte ich aber gerne noch ein bisschen länger, intensiver betrachtet und nicht mit so einem derart abrupten unglaubwürdigen Happy End versehen.

Fazit: 3,5 Sterne wohlwollend aufgerundet auf 4 weil die Geschichte natürlich sehr gut geschrieben ist, aber viel zu kurz abgehandelt wurde.

[Cláudia Azevedo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Depois de ter visto Eyes Wide Shut, filme de Stanley Kubrick baseado neste livro, estava com algum receio. Isto porque gostei muito do filme e receava agora uma desilusão. Afinal, foi uma boa surpresa. As fronteiras entre sonho e realidade e entre fantasia e traição são postas em causa. Onde acaba uma coisa e começa a outra? O que revelam as nossas fantasias sobre nós próprios? Questões da área da Psicanálise são aqui muito bem colocadas, com um enredo que prende. Gostei muito.

[John Hatley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating book, a scandal almost 100 years ago when it was first published. It describes the sexual fantasies and adventures of a husband, Fridolin, and wife, Albertine. Schnitzler expertly contrasts Albertine's dreams and fantasies and Fridolin's reality. Arthur Schnitzler knew and had corresponded with Sigmund Freud.

[Sofia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Η ιστορία αυτή είναι ο ορισμός του "μερικά πράγματα καλό είναι να μην γίνονται και να μην λέγονται". Πέρα απο την πλακα όμως πρόκειται για μια πολυ ατμοσφαιρική νουβέλα με χαρακτήρες ολοκληρωμένους κι ενα από τα πιο πετυχημένα ψυχογραφηματα ενός παντρεμένου ζευγαριού.

[Come Musica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Qual è il confine tra sogno e realtà?
In quale occasioni i due mondi si mescolano fino a non far distinguere più uno dall’altro a chi ne è immerso?

Onirico-reale-surreale sembrano tre facce di una stessa medaglia: e già questo dovrebbe destare qualche perplessità, visto che le facce di una medaglia sono due.

Il romanzo si articola in sette capitoli, che corrispondono a sette tappe della crisi di una coppia di sposi, Fridolin e Albertine. La crisi scoppia per una situazione di incomunicabilità (come tutte le crisi di coppia, ahimè!!!), che trasforma un equilibrio apparentemente stabile in una disarmonia, una dissonanza, una discordanza, un allontanamento.

E così, negli interstizi dello spazio vicino-lontano, si incuneano all’interno della coppia una serie di dubbi, di desideri repressi, che portano al tradimento reale o immaginario che sia.

“Dunque... avevo l’impressione di vivere una serie innumerevole di giorni e notti, non esisteva né tempo né spazio”: una situazione così vicina a questo lungo periodo di isolamento forzato.

Scrive il traduttore nella postfazione

“Ma la facciata inganna, la realtà è un paravento illusorio e nasconde un groviglio di dubbi, di angosce, di aggressività, di desideri repressi che, una volta liberati, coinvolgeranno i personaggi in una ridda di avventure reali, fantastiche e sognate, costringendoli a percorrere le stazioni della loro crisi alla ricerca affannosa di una verità che non esiste se non nel tentativo, precario ma forse il solo valido al momento, della reciproca comprensione. La trama di quella che si potrebbe definire una ‘commedia dei disinganni e dei desideri insoddisfatti’ – nessuna delle avventure erotico-surreali di Fridolin giungerà a compimento, l’orgia di piacere e di libidine incontrollata di Albertine è solo un sogno! – si dipana lungo il filo dell’alienazione, della vicendevole estraniazione dei due personaggi principali. Il simbolo di tale alienazione è la maschera e il mistero che ad essa si accompagna; non a caso la novella si apre col racconto delle vicende del veglione mascherato della sera precedente. Ma anche lo strano intermezzo presso il mascheraio Gibiser, la partecipazione notturna di Fridolin al singolare ballo in maschera nel club segreto e l’assenza, comunque, di volti che contraddistingue l’episodio, concluso con quell’allucinante confronto con il corpo della morta nella sala anatomica, sono il segno della perdita d’identità che connota la crisi dei protagonisti.”

E come i lembi di un elastico, i due si allontanano per poi ricongiungersi, fluttuando nell’interregno del conscio-inconscio. Fino a giungere alla conclusione a cui giunge Albertine.

«“Che dobbiamo fare, Albertine?”. Lei sorrise, e dopo una breve esitazione rispose: “Ringraziare il destino, credo, di essere usciti incolumi da tutte le nostre avventure... da quelle vere e da quelle sognate”. “Ne sei proprio sicura?” chiese Fridolin. “Tanto sicura da presentire che la realtà di una notte, e anzi neppure quella di un’intera vita umana, non significano, al tempo stesso, anche la loro più profonda verità”. “E nessun sogno” disse egli con un leggero sospiro “è interamente sogno”. Albertine prese la testa del marito fra le mani e l’attirò affettuosamente a sé. “Ma ora ci siamo svegliati...” disse “per lungo tempo”. Per sempre, voleva aggiungere Fridolin, ma prima ancora che pronunciasse quelle parole, lei gli pose un dito sulle labbra e sussurrò come fra sé: “Non si può ipotecare il futuro”».

"I singhiozzi che lo scuotono sono tuttavia, questa volta, solo il segno di una débâcle fisica: caduta la maschera, dietro cui aveva creduto di poter celare le sue contraddizioni, riaffiora in lui la coscienza del suo reale rapporto con Albertine. È possibile allora una ripresa della vita in comune sulla base della reciproca comprensione, al riparo dalle oscure forze dell’istinto e del destino? «Non si può ipotecare il futuro»."


Tra 3 e 4 stelle

Da questa storia di smarrimenti paralleli, Stanley Kubrick ha tratto il film «Eyes wide shut».

[Razieh Shahverdi · Rating 5 out of 5]

مدت‌ها بود کتاب به این خوبی نخونده بودم. در شروع «بازی در سپیده‌دم» حس چندان خوبی نداشتم و گمون می‌کردم با یک تقلید از رمان‌های روسی طرفیم، اما هرچه پیش‌تر رفت، هرچه جزئیات بیشتر شد، دیدم که نه، نویسنده کارش رو خیلی خوب بلده، چنان با روح و روان آدم آشناست که حسابی و مدام غافلگیرت می‌کنه. این غافلگیری از دسته‌ی شوک‌های بزرگ نیست، بلکه در جزئیات، در بالا و پایین‌های روح آدمی، در سیاهی‌ها و سفیدی‌ها، در فهم اون‌هاست که غافلگیری می‌شی. آدم با خودش ممکنه فکر کنه چطور ممکنه قصه‌ای درباره‌ی قمار، حرف جدیدی برای گفتن داشته باشه؟ آقای شنیتسلر جواب می‌ده: اینطوری.
اما داستان بلند (رمان کوتاه/ نوولا)ی دوم: رؤیا. با یک شاهکار مواجهیم. با یکی از باهوش‌ترین، بهترین و واقعی‌ترین زوج‌های تاریخ ادبیات: فریدولین و آلبرتینه. اگر چشمان باز-بسته (کاملاً بسته؟)ی کوبریک رو دیده باشین، که گمونم کمتر کسی هست که ندیده باشه، خب با خط کلی قصه آشنایید. اما مثل هربار، مثل همیشه، ادبیات جلوتر از سینما حرکت می‌کنه وبه مراتب تجربه‌ای بهتر از تماشای فیلمش خواهید داشت. به‌خصوص که جزئیاتی هست که مشخصاً به مکان قصه (اتریش) و زمان داستان برمی‌گرده. می‌خوام حرف بدی بزنم و بگم هربار قصه‌ای رو از اروپا (به‌خصوص اروپای قرن نوزده) به آمریکا (به‌خصوص آمریکای امروز) انتقال بدی، پیچیدگی‌ها کمتر می‌شه و ادبیات درباره‌ی پیچیدگی‌هاست.
نکته‌ی عجیب اینه که فروید و شنیتسلر در یک زمان و تنها به فاصله‌ی چند دقیقه از هم زندگی می‌کردند، اما هرگز هم رو ندیدند. با وجود اینکه نامه‌نگاری‌هایی وجود داشت. شباهتشون به همدیگه و حسادت‌های پنهان احتمالاً مهم‌ترین عامل این دیدار نکردن بوده.
و اینکه، ادبیات در کنار علوم انسانی، همیشه از استعداد قوم یهود بهره برده. این دو اثر هم سندی دیگه برای این حرف. بدون یهودی‌ها جهان اینی نبود که الان.

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

از آغاز بشریت، پول و ثروت همواره یکی از مهم‌ترین دغدغه‌های انسان بوده و حتی بعضی اوقات تمام شخصیت فرد حول محور آن می‌چرخد و فقدانش آن‌ها رو به سمت نابودی می‌کشوند.
البته، عشق زیاد از حد به ثروت ناخواسته می‌تواند طمع را هم با خود به همراه بیاورد و همین میل سیری ناپذیر، بشر را در طول تاریخ به سمت قمار و بازی های مشابه کشانده.

داستان بازی در سپیده دم برام خیلی تاثیر گذار بود. طبیعتا من رو یاد قمارباز داستایفسکی انداخت، اما شاید حتی بهتر.

متوجه شدم که ارتور شنیتسلر چقدر استادانه روح و روان شخصیت هاش رو به خواننده نشون میده.
خیلی پیش اومده که حین خواندن یک رمان، ناخواسته خودم رو جای قهرمان اول داستان میذارم و سعی می‌کنم دنیا و اشتباهاتش یا کارهای خوبش رو از دیدگاه خودم ببینم.
اما با خوندن این کتاب به این نتیجه رسیدم چقدر سطحی این همذات پنداری رو انجام میدادم ، چندین بار پیش اومد که نویسنده بهم یادآور شد که در قعر بدبختی و پوچی هنوز نمیتونم همه ی احساسات رو درک کنم.

و اینجاست که نویسنده با خلاقیتش، شاید با یک جمله یا فقط با حالت پلک زدن چشم یک شخصیت در یک موقعیت حساس، خواننده رو به سمت تصویری که خلق کرده می‌بره و شما رو بیشتر و بیشتر در بطن داستان فرو می‌بره.

این هم جالبه که چقدر اشاره به کافه رفتن شخصیت های شنیتسلر توی هر دو داستان زیاده یه جورایی خیلی باب هستش که نویسنده در مورد چیزی مینوسه که ازش تجربه داشته باشه و جالبیش اینجاست کسایی که مثل ارتور شنیتسلر، اشتفان تسوایگ، هوفمانستال و… همه چهره های برجسته ای بودن که روزانه در کافه های وین اون دوران جمع می‌شدند و درباره‌ی هنر و فلسفه و ادبیات و خلاصه همه چی حرف میزدن.

اگه دوست داشتید در مورد این قسمت کافه ها و زندگی اون دوران در وین بدونید، کتاب دنیای دیروز تسوایگ رو پیشنهاد میدم.

[Kyriakos Sorokkou]

Until last week I was enjoying three things from Austria:
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's music
Arnold Schwarzenegger's films and
Vienna's Apple Strudel.

Now there is a fourth thing I enjoy from Austria: Literature.

I loved Stefan Zweig's novella Chess Story when I read it back in 2015, and I enjoyed this small novella called Dream Story / Traumnovelle by Arthur Schnitzer; a name that looks very similar to Schnitzel (one more thing originating from Austria).

I bought this book mainly because I want to read all the books Stanley Kubrick adapted into film.
I read 6 out of 11 and by the end of the month I'll raise the number to 7.

Even though I've only seen the trailer of this novella's adaptation a.k.a. "Eyes Wide Shut" I know it's loosely based and there was more fantasy than reality in this book.

There is also a lot of Freudian psychology in this book (Freud (another Austrian) and Schnitzler knew each other)
We see a couple confessing to each other.
Doctor Fridolin and his wife Albertina (it reminds me of the word libertine (a person, who freely indulges in sensual pleasures without regard to moral principles) ).
She confesses her sexual fantasies with (probably) a hung military officer from Denmark she saw while they were on vacation there.
Then the doctor admits he had also been attracted to a young girl during that same vacation.

Then we see Fridolin's wanderings through the streets of Vienna to pursue his own personal fantasies.
He encounters a secret society's orgy, he meets with a prostitute at a brothel, and comes in contact with a woman's corpse in the morgue among other experiences.

Of course the whole novella leaves many things unsaid.
Were Fridoli's experiences a dream or not. How many of them were real and how many of them true.
In other words reality and dream are indistinguishable.

The interesting thing is that in German dream and trauma are almost identical words: (Dream=Traum) (Trauma=Trauma)
So maybe the author choose this word (Traum) intentionally to show that dreams (Träumen) can carry traumas (Traumen) as well.

Schnitzler's works were called "Jewish filth" by Adolf Hitler and were banned by the Nazis in Austria and Germany.
So that's one more reason to read this novella.
Whatever anger(ed)s the Nazis is good to be enjoyed to the fullest.

This edition includes an introduction by Frederic Raphael who co-wrote "Eyes Wide Shut" with Stanley Kubrick.
Also, the cover is a detail of a beautiful painting called "The Bride" by Gustav Klimt, yet another Austrian, a painter.

I'm not sure if my review is enlightening or endarkening you opinion whether you should read this book or not but I can only say as a conclusion that I enjoyed Schnitzler's writing and I hope I'll enjoy Kubrick's adaptation.

Rating: 7.5/10

[Noel · Rating 4 out of 5]

“‘And no dream,’ he sighed quietly, ‘is altogether a dream.’”


The Kiss (detail), by Gustav Klimt.

This pre-Freudian, not-so-erotic novella was the basis for Kubrick’s swan song, Eyes Wide Shut. After a man’s ego is shattered by a sexual confession from his wife, he sets off alone on a nocturnal odyssey through decadent Vienna and falls into an erotic netherworld. The book is very much “style over substance,” but that’s more than excused by its intoxicating atmosphere, especially in a particular scene in the middle—which I’ll leave a mystery for anyone who doesn’t already know it. Recommended, especially if you like the film.