Fair’s Fair “For Book Lovers”

Yalom, Irvin. When Nietzsche Wept. New York: HarperPerennial, 1992

Irvin Yalom’s When Nietzsche Wept is a fascinating work, but I would not describe it as “an intellectual thriller,” not that I’m sure what the New York Times designates as thriller. There is no fast action plan, but there are a lot of allusions to philosophers, psychiatrists, psychologists, and various literary writers. The plot drills into the human psyche and soul.

If there is any thrill to the work it is Yalom’s reversal of Breuer the doctor and Nietzsche, the philosopher-patient. In the beginning a 21 year old woman comes to see Breuer and demands that he help set Nietzsche free of his unrelenting despair. She had previously had a very short love relationship with Nietzsche that Nietzsche had broken off in favour of intellectual friendship. The young woman has already given Breuer Nietzsche’s two unpublished manuscripts” Gay Science and Human All To Human.

Enticed into trying to solve Nietzsche’s despair, Breuer meets with Nietzsche and reverses roles, inviting Nietzsche to figure out why Breuer is in despair. In return he promises Nietzsche to deal with his physical problems for approximately three months. Far more time is spent by Nietzsche figuring out ways to cure Breuer than vice-versa. Ultimately, Nietzsche learns that he is free in that he can choose his own fate. He finds some relief, after the flow of tears—hence the title—that he has made this discovery. He goes off to complete his Zarathustra. Breuer returns to his usual life and thirty more years of medical practice.

This book is important as a piece of literature and as a general text to set the milieu for those studying philosophy and / or psychology, or medicine. There are hundreds of allusions and ethical questions posed throughout. Nietzsche’s philosophy is everywhere planted in it for those among us, who believe as Nietzsche did that we can “choose our fate—love our fate.” (301)