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Сестрата на Сигмунд Фројд
Sigmund Freud's sister
182 pages
First published January 1, 2007
60 people are currently reading
1,741 people want to read
About the author
Goce Smilevski
8books4followersGoce Smilevski (b.1975) was born in Skopje, Macedonia. He was educated at the Sts Kiril and Metodij University in Skopje, at Charles University in Prague and at the Central European University in Budapest. He is the author of the novels The Planet of Inexperience, Conversation with Spinoza and Sigmund Freud’s Sister. He won Macedonian Novel of the Year Award in 2003 for Conversation with Spinoza. In 2006, he was also awarded the Central European Initiative Fellowship for young European authors.
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July 29, 2024
No me ha gustado y aun así reconozco que el libro puede gustar e incluso entusiasmar a mucha gente. Es un libro sobre mujeres, sobre mujeres perdedoras, sobre mujeres perdedoras que vivieron una época en la que ya nacían perdedoras... y esta además poseía la condición de judía.
Adolphine fue una de las cinco hermanas de Sigmund Freud, una mujer que se sintió abandonada por su hermano, maltratada psicológicamente por su madre y humillada por su amante. No es extraño que Adolphine pasara largos años de su vida en un manicomio, en el que coincidió con la hermana de Gustave Klimt, Klara.
En definitiva, que esta historia de la hermana del padre del Psicoanálisis tiene todos los ingredientes para que guste y mucho... el que no haya sucedido así conmigo será cosa de mi inconsciente o mi subconsciente o vaya usted a saber.
April 5, 2025
أحيا الكاتب "جوسيه سميلفسكي" ذكرى امرأة منسية عاشت في ظل صخب شهرة أخيها "سيجموند فرويد" حياُ وميتاُ. كان صوت الصمت الذي أحاط حياة "أدولفينا" أعلى من أن يتجاهل الكاتب-على حد تعبيره في احدى اللقاءات-ما أراد أن يخبره به. وتلك ما حفزه لكتابة تلك الرواية.
في سرد يغلب عليه التخيل، يحكي لنا الكاتب حياة أدولفينا فرويد، الإنسانة التي قتل روحها رفض واحتقار أمها لها منذ أن كانت طفلة. كراهية عميقة من أم لإبنتها لم يقدم لها الكاتب تفسيراً أو سبب يجعل تلك الأم تخص تلك الإبنة بهذه القسوة دوناً عن أخواتها الست الأخرين.
وكما يحدث في كل حكايات الأبناء المنبوذين عاطفياً من اباءهم أو أمهاتهم، تُخلص أدولفينا بيأس مجنون لقصة حب مدمرة مع "راينر" الذي عاني مثلها من نبذ أمه له منذ ولادته وتخليه عنه لعائلة أخرى، مما يجعله في حالة رفض دائمة لنفسه ولحياته. ستفعل أدولفينا مثل كل امرأة أو فتاة تفتقر للتقدير الذاتي والإحترام للنفس، وتهتف لنفسها قائلة "سيبونى...آي كان فيكس هيم".
I can fix him
وطبعا هتلبس في أجدعها حيطة برضه زيها زي كل اللي حاولوا "يفكسوا هيم" قبلها وبعدها.
تقرر أدولفينا بعد تلك العلاقة التي أنهت على الباقي منها أن تعيش في مصحة نفسية أو "العُش"، وندخل معها في تحليل ومعايشة عميقة لعالم الجنون. ونسأل معها لو كان هناك منطق في هذا العالم، فما هو؟ وما معنى وجودنا؟ ومن العاقل ومن المجنون حقا؟
بتلك الرواية تجسيد فاتن ومخلص لمعنى أن يُنبذ الإنسان ويُرفض. لمس قلبي محاولات "أدولفينا" لتقديم الحب والبحث عنه طوال حياتها. لمسني أن نجد على طول الرواية الكثير والكثير من "المنبوذين" مثل أدولفينا.
مثل "كلارا كليمت" أخت الرسام الأشهر جوستاف كليمت التي عاشت معها في المصحة النفسية أو "العش". تلك المرأة التي حاربت من أجل حقوق المرأة في زمن كان يعد فيه المطالبة بتلك الحقوق هو ضرب من الجنون.
نرى حكاية سارة الفتاة العاجزة حركيا والتي أحبت سيجموند فرويد في شبابه حبا يائسا عالمة بأنه لن يتبادل الحب مع فتاة مثلها.
وقبيل نهاية الرواية نشاهد كيف كان حفيد فرويد "هاينيل" يستجدي الاهتمام قبيل رحيله عن العالم وهو لم يتخط الخمس سنوات من كبار عائلته الذين تجاهلوه من أجل الجد "فرويد" الذي كان مريضا بالسرطان في هذا الوقت.
ومن هنا نعرف أن الكاتب لم يكن يحاول الاستماع لصوت "أدولفينا" وحدها، بل كان يحاول أن يصغي لكل من طواه النسيان، لكل من عاش وجودا "شبحياً" يرى العالم والعالم لا يراه.
ما عاب تلك الرواية هو تخصيص صفحات طوال لشهادات أشهر علماء النفس عن الجنون. كنت أرى أن الكاتب خرج في تلك الأجزاء تماما عن الحكي، وانغمس في كتابة استشهادات مرجعية عن التحليل النفسي لم تكن القصة محلها الصحيح.
رواية استثنائية ومميزة، أنصح بها لكل محبي النكد اللي زي حالاتي
Want to read
March 21, 2021A-Back in 2004, I bought an issue of the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur, entitled “La psychanalyse en procè�*. I could freely translate the title as “Psychoanalysis on trial�.
(mine)
The magazine depicted on its cover a S. Freud seated on a couch, himself under analysis. It contained a series of articles by several experts dealing with questions such as the scientific character of Psychoanalysis; was Freud the inventor of the Unconscious?; is it really a psychotherapy?; healing: is it truly liberating or rather alienating?; do the neurosciences validate Freud’s hypothesis?...etc,etc. In short: the issue was dedicated to what was then called “the Psychoanalysis crisis�.**
B-The book by the Macedonian writer Goce Smilevski could be included amongst the LNO articles. Why? Because it adds a lot to the questions being raised and addressed in the LNO compilation. Indeed: to the question of Freud’s own analysis.
Carol Oates wrote about Goce’s novel something like “it’s a kind of biography in the shadow of S. Freud, highly critical with the great man�who didn’t authorize his sisters to accompany him in his trip to London.
So it seems: he had the chance and he didn’t take it. Why? Goce’s says ”nobody knows about the reasons�. Freud left “enough money� for their living. A tragic fact still remains: four sisters died in nazi concentration camps. “We don’t even know if they wanted to leave Vienna�. S. Freud left them money and later asked Princess Marie Bonaparte to try to get a “permit� for them to leave Austria.
C-Goce’s book is about the voice of one of his sisters: Adolphina Freud, the forgotten one. According to her brother: ”the best and most sensitive one�. On Adolphina little is known but that “she was neglected by her mother…was considered a bit retarded, was institutionalized in a Viennese hospice�.and never got married�.
Goce considers Adolphina “a metaphor of the forgotten ones who always lived in the shadow�. The novel narrates the death of the four sisters altogether in gas chambers, but, in fact, they died separately in different concentration camps.
(S. Freud, his mother and his sisters)
Critics say that it's not true that Adolphina was the best friend of Clara Klimt (sister of painter Gustav); nor was Clara a feminist, as the novel portrays. It seems that the first title for the book was The sister of Freud, but it became The list of...***, maybe for (obvious) market reasons.
D-What made Goce search, for 7 years and a half, more on Freud’s writings, was a sentence produced by the “father of Psychoanalysis�. �(Spinoza on Ethics)� wrote in a very cold state of mind, but also with the heat of a volcanic heart�. This sentence led Goce to the tragic story of the 4 sisters.
E-I would call the article to be inserted in the LNO: “Unethical Freud�; or maybe “Tricky Freudian Ethics". No, maybe “Any space for Freud’s own guilt?� . Whatever.
Goce’s affirmed several times: “I don’t blame Freud for his sisters� death�. But�.I wonder.
-
*L´Heritage Freudian survivra-t-il aux démentis opposé par ses nombreaux détracteurs?
**You can find “symptomatical" phrases in the issue such as: “SI CRISE IL Y A DANS LA PSYCHANALYSE AUJOURD’HUI, ELE EST À SITUER EN BORDURE DE SON TERRITOIRE, NON EN SON CENTRE� by Monique Schneider (from the CNRS). [If today there's a crisis in Psychoanalysis, it must be located on its borders, not in its center"]
Or: “C’est un fait que la théorie et la thérapie psychoanalityques sont de plus en plus en crise, aux États-Units et dans le monde entire, même si L´Argentine et la France sont des exceptions remarquables� by Adolf Grünbaum (from the Pittsburg university).
[It's a fact that both psychoanalytical theory and therapy are increasingly in a crisis, in the USA and the entire world, even though Argentina and France are remarkable exceptions]
***French edition: La Liste de Freud
(Goce's on the EU Prize for Literature 2010...)
July 27, 2017
Nisam nikada razmišljala o tome, nije me nikada ni zanimalo, ali pretpostavljam da ovakvih ili onakvih biografija ma koje znamenite ličnosti ima toliko da se ne bi pročitale ni za tri života. Takođe bez presedana nisu ni biografije relevantnih i irelevantnih rođaka slavnih ličnosti. Ali pošto srodstvo s nekim samo po sebi nije nikakvo postignuće, ono je ovde, srećom, dobro doziran začin, ne glavno jelo. Jer Sestra Sigmunda Freuda samo je donekle roman o � sestri slavnog brata. Prvenstveno je priča o Adolfini. U pitanju je ključna razlika za sučeljavanje dva identiteta, ili makar dva aspekta jednog identiteta. Uz to ide i identitet Amalijine kćeri, Sarine prijateljice, Klarine prijateljice i Rainerove� čega god.
Od svih motiva koji čine ovo delo � odnos sestre i brata, sestre i sestara, deportacija Jevreja, ludilo u medicinskoj i društvenoj konotaciji, beg pred nacizmom, prijateljstvo u detinjstvu i prijateljstvo u odrasloj dobi, odnos majke i kćeri, odnos ljubavnika, propuštene prilike i propušteni trenuci, percepcija žene u društvu na početku XX veka, porodično Ja spram društvenog Ja spram ličnog Ja � dva su protkana kroz njega tako da mu daju osnovni ton. Namerno ih ne nazivam lajtmotivima, jer mislim da za to nisu dovoljno strukturisani. Oba se javljaju rano u svakom smislu: na početku dela i rano u Adolfininom životu. Još kao dete Adolfina opaža da su senke čudo svakodnevice koji obično ostane neprimećeno. Takođe još kao dete od šest godina starijeg brata Sigmunda čuje kako je svaki čovek, čak i u najdubljoj intimi, izdanak svog vremena, pa time i svaka ljubav, patnja, radost i tuga čedo svoje epohe.
Adolfine Freud je sena od osobe, i sama prozračna i jedva primetna u okruženju u kom bol, svoj osnovni beleg, nema s kim da podeli. Baš kao ova moja rečenica, i roman i Adolfina kao lik vrlo lako umeju da skliznu u patos. Na momente mi je ton romana bivao malo previše visokoparan, a Adolfinini postupci i rezon i više nego na momente potpuno nepojmljivi. Da je ovo delo drugačije, manje promišljeno i manje suptilno izgrađeno, verujem da bih prevrtala očima dok ne vidim vlastiti potiljak iznutra. Ali ideja sopstva ukotvljenog u epohi, iako se pominje u svega par rečenica, dovoljno je stabilna osnova da utiče i na čitalačku perspektivu. Ja, kao izdanak drugačijeg vremena, drugačijeg društva i drugačije porodice, svakako mogu da se emotivno i racionalno distanciram od Adolfine. Mogu, jer imam prostor za manevar. Uz sve lične odlike po kojima se razlikuje od brata, sestara i prijateljica, a razlikuje se u velikoj meri, ona ima prostora da se kreće samo u okviru svog vremena. I pitanje je kakva bi i ko bi Adolfina bila u nekom drugom dobu, da je mogla biti drugačija. Takođe je pitanje šta bi sa Adolfinom bilo u porodici, u društvu i u odbačenosti od društva da je početkom XX veka mogla da biti osoba, a ne žena. Zahvalna sam ovom romanu, jer me je tim aspektom naterao da se usredsredim i na perspektivu koja mi lično nije bliska. Koliko intelektualni stub romana čini Adolfinin odnos sa bratom, toliko bih rekla da je emotivni stub odnos sa majkom, a društveni odnos sa Klarom (Klimt, takođe ne samo i ne primarno sestrom znamenitog brata). Ovaj poslednji je ujedno i najdiskretniji i najintrigantniji, upravo zbog paralelizama i kontrasta među prijateljicama, iako su obe kao deca svog vremena i društva u istom polaznom položaju.
Iako smešten u fin de siècle i uokviren golim poniženjem i užasom gasne komore, roman Sestra Sigmunda Freuda nije ni istorijski roman, ni (romanizovana i romantizovana) biografija, ni panoramski prikaz belle époque niti optužba na račun društva ili pojedinca. Ali jeste vrlo intimno, mikroskopsko raslojavanje jednog bića u njegovom vremenu.
Od svih motiva koji čine ovo delo � odnos sestre i brata, sestre i sestara, deportacija Jevreja, ludilo u medicinskoj i društvenoj konotaciji, beg pred nacizmom, prijateljstvo u detinjstvu i prijateljstvo u odrasloj dobi, odnos majke i kćeri, odnos ljubavnika, propuštene prilike i propušteni trenuci, percepcija žene u društvu na početku XX veka, porodično Ja spram društvenog Ja spram ličnog Ja � dva su protkana kroz njega tako da mu daju osnovni ton. Namerno ih ne nazivam lajtmotivima, jer mislim da za to nisu dovoljno strukturisani. Oba se javljaju rano u svakom smislu: na početku dela i rano u Adolfininom životu. Još kao dete Adolfina opaža da su senke čudo svakodnevice koji obično ostane neprimećeno. Takođe još kao dete od šest godina starijeg brata Sigmunda čuje kako je svaki čovek, čak i u najdubljoj intimi, izdanak svog vremena, pa time i svaka ljubav, patnja, radost i tuga čedo svoje epohe.
Adolfine Freud je sena od osobe, i sama prozračna i jedva primetna u okruženju u kom bol, svoj osnovni beleg, nema s kim da podeli. Baš kao ova moja rečenica, i roman i Adolfina kao lik vrlo lako umeju da skliznu u patos. Na momente mi je ton romana bivao malo previše visokoparan, a Adolfinini postupci i rezon i više nego na momente potpuno nepojmljivi. Da je ovo delo drugačije, manje promišljeno i manje suptilno izgrađeno, verujem da bih prevrtala očima dok ne vidim vlastiti potiljak iznutra. Ali ideja sopstva ukotvljenog u epohi, iako se pominje u svega par rečenica, dovoljno je stabilna osnova da utiče i na čitalačku perspektivu. Ja, kao izdanak drugačijeg vremena, drugačijeg društva i drugačije porodice, svakako mogu da se emotivno i racionalno distanciram od Adolfine. Mogu, jer imam prostor za manevar. Uz sve lične odlike po kojima se razlikuje od brata, sestara i prijateljica, a razlikuje se u velikoj meri, ona ima prostora da se kreće samo u okviru svog vremena. I pitanje je kakva bi i ko bi Adolfina bila u nekom drugom dobu, da je mogla biti drugačija. Takođe je pitanje šta bi sa Adolfinom bilo u porodici, u društvu i u odbačenosti od društva da je početkom XX veka mogla da biti osoba, a ne žena. Zahvalna sam ovom romanu, jer me je tim aspektom naterao da se usredsredim i na perspektivu koja mi lično nije bliska. Koliko intelektualni stub romana čini Adolfinin odnos sa bratom, toliko bih rekla da je emotivni stub odnos sa majkom, a društveni odnos sa Klarom (Klimt, takođe ne samo i ne primarno sestrom znamenitog brata). Ovaj poslednji je ujedno i najdiskretniji i najintrigantniji, upravo zbog paralelizama i kontrasta među prijateljicama, iako su obe kao deca svog vremena i društva u istom polaznom položaju.
Iako smešten u fin de siècle i uokviren golim poniženjem i užasom gasne komore, roman Sestra Sigmunda Freuda nije ni istorijski roman, ni (romanizovana i romantizovana) biografija, ni panoramski prikaz belle époque niti optužba na račun društva ili pojedinca. Ali jeste vrlo intimno, mikroskopsko raslojavanje jednog bića u njegovom vremenu.
August 23, 2012
Disclaimer: I received a copy via Netgalley.
It is perhaps a little known fact that Freud’s sisters died in the Holocaust while the man himself and other members of family were able to escape. That is pretty much all I know about the Freud family. Regardless, it made me interested enough to request a copy of Freud’s Sister by Goce Smilevski.
I’m not entirely what I was expecting but the book wasn’t quite it. And that’s not a bad thing. It is the books that surprise us, but that don’t disappoint us, that are gems.
Smilevski’s novel is told from the viewpoint of Adolfina and starts with the days prior to the Second World War before moving into the War and then into the past, tracing Adolfina’s life . Mr. Smilevski writes in his author’s note that “The silence around Adolfina is so loud that I could write this novel in no other way than in her voice�. I find myself thinking about that line as I think about this book and struggle to do the book justice with this review.
For while the book wasn’t quite what I thought it would be and while it is quiet in terms of action, it is a beautiful, stunning, and powerful book. What Smilevski has done is taken a quiet life and made a quiet, yet engrossing story. While she is acquainted with famous men � her brother and Klimet - Adolfina’s story is her story. It is a story of a life that does shake the universe, a life that doesn’t call down the heavens, and a life that doesn’t seem to change anyone who history declares matter. If you take the action of the book alone, and just the action, then you have a book where what is of most interest is the discussion of philosophy and psychology. That’s it � well, that and a desire to smack Freud upside the head (as if the whole women wanting a penis thing didn’t make you want to do that already).
To look at the book in terms of action and solely in terms of physical action does the book and Smilevski a huge disservice. It is the language of this novel that makes the novel, that shows that there her brother, and her lover that makes the book. The language is like a melancholy poetry that yet, somehow, contains a kernel of hope in it.
Adolfina’s view of life is different, and perhaps more real, than her brother’s, a brother who the reader seems to only know though his coming and going, a figure that seems as distance and as dream made as the trees that other residents of the Nest see.
Ah the Nest, some of the best writing in this book deals with the Nest, a madhouse that is center in two ways to Adolfina and her friend Klara, sister of the famous Klimet, who campaigns for woman’s rights as well as more encompassing view of love and family than that expressed by Freud and Klara’s own family.
In many ways, this juxtaposition of two sisters of two famous men seems to be part of the point, the theme of the novel. It is like Woolf’s Shakespeare’s sister. What could have these women done if they had been offered more support in terms of parents and siblings as well as society? Part of the tragedy is how alone some of the characters are, as they are separated in various ways from both family and the society . It is hard, impossible really, to not think of Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own when reading this book. The sense of waste and undervalue simply because of the sex of the characters, because of the gender of the characters is major aspect of the novel.
While the book may not have been what I thought I wanted, it was exactly what I needed to read. The quietness of life is an aspect that gets overlooked in much fiction, undoubtedly because it is difficult to write an interesting book about it. There is a reason why stories end with the happily ever after � it’s boring to read about it. What Mr. Smilevski has done is take what many authors would only show as boring and make it magical.
Brilliant!
It is perhaps a little known fact that Freud’s sisters died in the Holocaust while the man himself and other members of family were able to escape. That is pretty much all I know about the Freud family. Regardless, it made me interested enough to request a copy of Freud’s Sister by Goce Smilevski.
I’m not entirely what I was expecting but the book wasn’t quite it. And that’s not a bad thing. It is the books that surprise us, but that don’t disappoint us, that are gems.
Smilevski’s novel is told from the viewpoint of Adolfina and starts with the days prior to the Second World War before moving into the War and then into the past, tracing Adolfina’s life . Mr. Smilevski writes in his author’s note that “The silence around Adolfina is so loud that I could write this novel in no other way than in her voice�. I find myself thinking about that line as I think about this book and struggle to do the book justice with this review.
For while the book wasn’t quite what I thought it would be and while it is quiet in terms of action, it is a beautiful, stunning, and powerful book. What Smilevski has done is taken a quiet life and made a quiet, yet engrossing story. While she is acquainted with famous men � her brother and Klimet - Adolfina’s story is her story. It is a story of a life that does shake the universe, a life that doesn’t call down the heavens, and a life that doesn’t seem to change anyone who history declares matter. If you take the action of the book alone, and just the action, then you have a book where what is of most interest is the discussion of philosophy and psychology. That’s it � well, that and a desire to smack Freud upside the head (as if the whole women wanting a penis thing didn’t make you want to do that already).
To look at the book in terms of action and solely in terms of physical action does the book and Smilevski a huge disservice. It is the language of this novel that makes the novel, that shows that there her brother, and her lover that makes the book. The language is like a melancholy poetry that yet, somehow, contains a kernel of hope in it.
Adolfina’s view of life is different, and perhaps more real, than her brother’s, a brother who the reader seems to only know though his coming and going, a figure that seems as distance and as dream made as the trees that other residents of the Nest see.
Ah the Nest, some of the best writing in this book deals with the Nest, a madhouse that is center in two ways to Adolfina and her friend Klara, sister of the famous Klimet, who campaigns for woman’s rights as well as more encompassing view of love and family than that expressed by Freud and Klara’s own family.
In many ways, this juxtaposition of two sisters of two famous men seems to be part of the point, the theme of the novel. It is like Woolf’s Shakespeare’s sister. What could have these women done if they had been offered more support in terms of parents and siblings as well as society? Part of the tragedy is how alone some of the characters are, as they are separated in various ways from both family and the society . It is hard, impossible really, to not think of Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own when reading this book. The sense of waste and undervalue simply because of the sex of the characters, because of the gender of the characters is major aspect of the novel.
While the book may not have been what I thought I wanted, it was exactly what I needed to read. The quietness of life is an aspect that gets overlooked in much fiction, undoubtedly because it is difficult to write an interesting book about it. There is a reason why stories end with the happily ever after � it’s boring to read about it. What Mr. Smilevski has done is take what many authors would only show as boring and make it magical.
Brilliant!
November 5, 2015
I kept coming across glowing reviews of this book, winner of the European Union Prize for Literature, and so looked forward to reading it. I was very disappointed. The first two chapters promise an enjoyable read, but then the drudgery begins. The author stated his intention - to “rescue in fiction one of the many lives forgotten by history� - but what he wrote is more of a philosophical treatise than a fictional biography.
According to Smilevski, Adolfina, Freud’s “sweetest and best� sister, did not have an easy life: as a child she was sickly; as a young girl she was emotionally abused; as a young woman she had an ill-fated love affair; as an adult she institutionalized herself in a mental hospital; and in her later years she had to care for her ailing mother. At the end of her lonely existence was death in a concentration camp.
This is not an uplifting book. It is full of abuse, loneliness, abortions, suicides, and deaths. Adolfina’s mother keeps telling her, “’It would have been better if I had not given birth to you’� (34) and has only “words of contempt and ridicule about how [Adolfina] ate, how [she] laughed, how [she] walked� (48). (Maternal abuse almost seems a motif; the mother of one of Adolfina’s friends “tied her sons and daughters to their chairs� (68) and “burned all the clothes and books� (69) of one of her daughters.)
The “meaningless of existence� (137) is a topic of conversation over and over and over again.
Virtually everyone Adolfina meets suffers from depression. Rainer, her lover, “stared into an absence . . . His gaze fled from everything and fastened on the emptiness� (47). Klara, a friend, is “lost to a kind of emptiness� and “Her gaze drifted somewhere far, far beyond the wall� (96). Adolfina compares herself to Venus de Milo: “I lacked something inside me, as if the arms of my soul were lacking, and that absence, that lack, that feeling of emptiness, made me helpless� (99). Her mother “looked with an absent gaze� (232). Another friend’s gaze “was fixed on a point, as if there, where her eyes looked, something immobile swallowed her gaze, swallowed her very self� (194). Yet another “looked into the emptiness . . . everywhere in that absence around her� (213). The constant repetition of “absence� and “emptiness� and fixed gazes is tedious. It’s not surprising that Albrecht Durer’s engraving, Melancholia, receives a two-page description.
Much is left unexplained. For example, Adolfina does not attend school: “On the day I was to set off to school for the first time, I begged my parents to allow me to stay at home. I stayed home the next day as well, and the days that followed� (39). Her education comes from Sigmund: “he took out one of his textbooks and leafed through the pages, telling me what he thought I needed to know� (39). There is no reference to her learning to read, but she reads Plato, Hegel and Schopenhauer (63)! There also seems to be a lot of purposeless name-dropping. Adolfina becomes acquainted with Johann Goethe’s grandson, Gustav Klimt’s family, Franz Kafka’s sister, and Hermann Broch’s mother!
The portrayal of Sigmund Freud is not flattering. Everyone kowtows to him. His mother, believing her son will be a “great man,� calls him “’my golden Siggie’� (38). When Freud’s grandson is seriously ill, “it was clear to us that he was not going to live long� (224), his health is largely ignored because Sigmund had surgery : “no one asked him how he was doing . . . every day we forgot to take his temperature . . . We were all thinking about Sigmund� (225). When his doting mother is dying, Sigmund ignores her requests that he visit her (233). He is a misogynist who does not let his daughter study medicine because “Sigmund did not believe that studies were for girls� (245). His arrogance seems to know no bounds; he says, “’And this explanation of mine, that religious belief originates in the search for comfort, will last longer than any religious belief’� (248). Most damning is the fact that Sigmund acquires exit visas for himself, “his wife, their children, and their families, . . . his wife’s sister, two housekeepers, . . . [his] personal doctor and his family . . . [and his]little dog� (10), but not for his four sisters who consequently die in concentration camps.
Much has been made of the lyrical language in the book. My problem with the language is the constant repetition. For example, this sentence appears on p. 167: “A smell of raw, disintegrating flesh, of excrement, of sweat, and, in the middle of this stench, of bodies tossing on the eve of death, and bodies stiffly awaiting it.� This same sentence appears again on pages 175 and 242. And then there are the long sentences: "At that moment, if someone had told us this was our final moment on earth, and that later no trace of us would remain, it would not have pulled us from our rapture, because we believed that what was between us, what made the two of us one, was eternal, and that if our material being were taken from us we would continue where the forces of nature and the laws of decay and transience have no power, and where the human soul is stronger than all the heavenly bodies, because they are condemned one day, millions of years after their creation, to burn out, whereas the soul in which our rapture and yearning were interwoven would last even after not a single particle of dust from all the matter in the universe remained"(106).
There is some useful information in the book. The history of the care of the mentally ill was certainly interesting. Some of the discussions (the nature of mental illness, the roles of the conscious and unconscious, religion) were less so. The discussions about religion are pedantic:
"According to my brother, the cult of Yahweh was spread among the Egyptians by a Midianite shepherd with the same name as the Egyptian leader, Moses. But this one, this second Moses, preached a God who was the complete antithesis of Aton: Yahweh was venerated by the Arab tribe of Midianites as 'an uncanny, bloodthirsty demon who walks by night and shuns the light of day.' Although 'the Egyptian Moses never was in Qades and had never heard the name of Yahweh whereas the Midianite Moses never set foot in Egypt and knew nothing of Aton,' they stayed in memory as one person, because 'the Mosaic religion we know only in its final form as it was fixed by Jewish priests in the time after the Exile about eight hundred years later,' by which time the two men named Moses had already fused into a single person, and Aton and Yahweh into a single God, as different in their essences as day is to night, precisely because He is two gods in one"(184). A summary of Freud’s book, "Moses and Monotheism," belongs in a book purportedly about the life of Freud’s sister?
I read a translation of the original Macedonian text. Perhaps much was lost in translation?
Please check out my reader's blog () and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski).
According to Smilevski, Adolfina, Freud’s “sweetest and best� sister, did not have an easy life: as a child she was sickly; as a young girl she was emotionally abused; as a young woman she had an ill-fated love affair; as an adult she institutionalized herself in a mental hospital; and in her later years she had to care for her ailing mother. At the end of her lonely existence was death in a concentration camp.
This is not an uplifting book. It is full of abuse, loneliness, abortions, suicides, and deaths. Adolfina’s mother keeps telling her, “’It would have been better if I had not given birth to you’� (34) and has only “words of contempt and ridicule about how [Adolfina] ate, how [she] laughed, how [she] walked� (48). (Maternal abuse almost seems a motif; the mother of one of Adolfina’s friends “tied her sons and daughters to their chairs� (68) and “burned all the clothes and books� (69) of one of her daughters.)
The “meaningless of existence� (137) is a topic of conversation over and over and over again.
Virtually everyone Adolfina meets suffers from depression. Rainer, her lover, “stared into an absence . . . His gaze fled from everything and fastened on the emptiness� (47). Klara, a friend, is “lost to a kind of emptiness� and “Her gaze drifted somewhere far, far beyond the wall� (96). Adolfina compares herself to Venus de Milo: “I lacked something inside me, as if the arms of my soul were lacking, and that absence, that lack, that feeling of emptiness, made me helpless� (99). Her mother “looked with an absent gaze� (232). Another friend’s gaze “was fixed on a point, as if there, where her eyes looked, something immobile swallowed her gaze, swallowed her very self� (194). Yet another “looked into the emptiness . . . everywhere in that absence around her� (213). The constant repetition of “absence� and “emptiness� and fixed gazes is tedious. It’s not surprising that Albrecht Durer’s engraving, Melancholia, receives a two-page description.
Much is left unexplained. For example, Adolfina does not attend school: “On the day I was to set off to school for the first time, I begged my parents to allow me to stay at home. I stayed home the next day as well, and the days that followed� (39). Her education comes from Sigmund: “he took out one of his textbooks and leafed through the pages, telling me what he thought I needed to know� (39). There is no reference to her learning to read, but she reads Plato, Hegel and Schopenhauer (63)! There also seems to be a lot of purposeless name-dropping. Adolfina becomes acquainted with Johann Goethe’s grandson, Gustav Klimt’s family, Franz Kafka’s sister, and Hermann Broch’s mother!
The portrayal of Sigmund Freud is not flattering. Everyone kowtows to him. His mother, believing her son will be a “great man,� calls him “’my golden Siggie’� (38). When Freud’s grandson is seriously ill, “it was clear to us that he was not going to live long� (224), his health is largely ignored because Sigmund had surgery : “no one asked him how he was doing . . . every day we forgot to take his temperature . . . We were all thinking about Sigmund� (225). When his doting mother is dying, Sigmund ignores her requests that he visit her (233). He is a misogynist who does not let his daughter study medicine because “Sigmund did not believe that studies were for girls� (245). His arrogance seems to know no bounds; he says, “’And this explanation of mine, that religious belief originates in the search for comfort, will last longer than any religious belief’� (248). Most damning is the fact that Sigmund acquires exit visas for himself, “his wife, their children, and their families, . . . his wife’s sister, two housekeepers, . . . [his] personal doctor and his family . . . [and his]little dog� (10), but not for his four sisters who consequently die in concentration camps.
Much has been made of the lyrical language in the book. My problem with the language is the constant repetition. For example, this sentence appears on p. 167: “A smell of raw, disintegrating flesh, of excrement, of sweat, and, in the middle of this stench, of bodies tossing on the eve of death, and bodies stiffly awaiting it.� This same sentence appears again on pages 175 and 242. And then there are the long sentences: "At that moment, if someone had told us this was our final moment on earth, and that later no trace of us would remain, it would not have pulled us from our rapture, because we believed that what was between us, what made the two of us one, was eternal, and that if our material being were taken from us we would continue where the forces of nature and the laws of decay and transience have no power, and where the human soul is stronger than all the heavenly bodies, because they are condemned one day, millions of years after their creation, to burn out, whereas the soul in which our rapture and yearning were interwoven would last even after not a single particle of dust from all the matter in the universe remained"(106).
There is some useful information in the book. The history of the care of the mentally ill was certainly interesting. Some of the discussions (the nature of mental illness, the roles of the conscious and unconscious, religion) were less so. The discussions about religion are pedantic:
"According to my brother, the cult of Yahweh was spread among the Egyptians by a Midianite shepherd with the same name as the Egyptian leader, Moses. But this one, this second Moses, preached a God who was the complete antithesis of Aton: Yahweh was venerated by the Arab tribe of Midianites as 'an uncanny, bloodthirsty demon who walks by night and shuns the light of day.' Although 'the Egyptian Moses never was in Qades and had never heard the name of Yahweh whereas the Midianite Moses never set foot in Egypt and knew nothing of Aton,' they stayed in memory as one person, because 'the Mosaic religion we know only in its final form as it was fixed by Jewish priests in the time after the Exile about eight hundred years later,' by which time the two men named Moses had already fused into a single person, and Aton and Yahweh into a single God, as different in their essences as day is to night, precisely because He is two gods in one"(184). A summary of Freud’s book, "Moses and Monotheism," belongs in a book purportedly about the life of Freud’s sister?
I read a translation of the original Macedonian text. Perhaps much was lost in translation?
Please check out my reader's blog () and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski).
October 22, 2016
"Kendi çocuğundan daha uzun yaşamaktan daha büyük acı yok.
Ölüm ve çocuk. Bir zamanlar bu iki kelimeyi yan yana duyunca, bir şeyin karnıma batıp deldiğini hissederdim."
Hikaye içinde hikaye, keder içinde keder...
Kitap baştan sona keder yüklü.
Delilik, normallik ve ikisi arasında gidip gelme..
Savaş, hayat, acı, kardeşlik, aile bağları ve tercihler...
Kitap, Avrupa Birliği Edebiyat Ödülü kazanmış.
Ben çok beğendim yazarın anlatım dilini. Garip bir şekilde de kitabı sevdim. Kitabın kapağı da bence hem çok güzel hem çok ama çok anlamlı...
Aile kavramı, bireysellik çıkmazı, bir annenin bir çocuğuna övgüler yağdırırken, diğerinin hayatını sözleriyle zehir etmesi...
Ve savaş, şu en lanetli şey...
Savaş hep var ,
geçmişte de,
şimdide de,
gelecekte de...
Yine en çok bu savaş ortamından da kadınlar ve çocuklar etkileniyor.
Küçük , 7 yaşında bir çocuk eğer resimlerinde kan gölü içinde kopmuş insan bedenlerini ve gökten yağan bombaları çiziyorsa; güneş, kuş ve sevinçle oynayan çocuklar yerine...
Batsın bu dünya!!!
Resim:
Ölüm ve çocuk. Bir zamanlar bu iki kelimeyi yan yana duyunca, bir şeyin karnıma batıp deldiğini hissederdim."
Hikaye içinde hikaye, keder içinde keder...
Kitap baştan sona keder yüklü.
Delilik, normallik ve ikisi arasında gidip gelme..
Savaş, hayat, acı, kardeşlik, aile bağları ve tercihler...
Kitap, Avrupa Birliği Edebiyat Ödülü kazanmış.
Ben çok beğendim yazarın anlatım dilini. Garip bir şekilde de kitabı sevdim. Kitabın kapağı da bence hem çok güzel hem çok ama çok anlamlı...
Aile kavramı, bireysellik çıkmazı, bir annenin bir çocuğuna övgüler yağdırırken, diğerinin hayatını sözleriyle zehir etmesi...
Ve savaş, şu en lanetli şey...
Savaş hep var ,
geçmişte de,
şimdide de,
gelecekte de...
Yine en çok bu savaş ortamından da kadınlar ve çocuklar etkileniyor.
Küçük , 7 yaşında bir çocuk eğer resimlerinde kan gölü içinde kopmuş insan bedenlerini ve gökten yağan bombaları çiziyorsa; güneş, kuş ve sevinçle oynayan çocuklar yerine...
Batsın bu dünya!!!
Resim:
July 15, 2020
Adoro estas temáticas: psicologia e filosofia, logo foi meio caminho andado para esta atracção.
Goce, depois de anos imerso em cartas, fotos e livros de Freud, descobriu que ele não incluiu as irmãs numa lista que as teria salvado dos campos de concentração nazi. Assim como numa carta à sua noiva, o psicanalista terá descrito Adolfine Freud como “a melhor e a mais sensível� das irmãs. Surgiu então o mote para escrever esta história controversa.
O relato do autor é ficcional, mas apesar do carácter de fantasia, a premissa da obra é verdadeira.
Vou me socorrer do que o autor declarou em tempos no Público porque esclarece vários pontos importantes da obra:
“Não culpo Freud pela morte das irmãs. Ele não as incluiu na lista e ninguém sabe as razões. Freud era um homem cansado e doente. Tinha feito, nos últimos dois anos em Viena, mais de 20 operações ao cancro da boca. Talvez não acreditasse na possibilidade de lhes vir a acontecer o pior, como não acreditara antes na anexação da Áustria por Hitler. E também não sabemos se elas queriam, de facto, deixar Viena. As únicas coisas de que há certeza é que ele lhes deixou dinheiro bastante para poderem viver e que, passado algum tempo, pediu à princesa Marie Bonaparte para tentar que lhes fosse passada uma autorização para deixar a Áustria.�
E o porquê de se centrar na irmã de Freud:
“Para mim, Adolfine é uma metáfora dos esquecidos, dos que viveram sempre na sombra. É como se a sua voz fosse o eco das vozes daqueles que tiveram uma vida tão anónima quanto a sua, num tempo tão crucial como foi a mudança do séc. XIX para o XX, e sobretudo numa sociedade patriarcal e repressora das vontades femininas�.
É muito interessante este seu ponto de vista e acrescenta ainda:“� penso que a historiografia é injusta na sua obsessão pelos poderosos e pelos influentes, enquanto a memória dos restantes morre com aqueles que os conheceram� e a propósito cita Milan Kundera (na A Arte do Romance)“A historiografia escreve a história da sociedade, não a de um homem, mas o romance tem a capacidade para examinar a dimensão histórica da existência humana.�
Sobre a sua narradora, Goce confessou ainda que: ”Não costumo acreditar na inspiração, sempre achei que um escritor tem de se sentar e escrever. Mas neste caso foi como se tivesse de ficar à espera que essa voz me chegasse, à espera de a reconhecer e de a agarrar.�
E efectivamente as suas palavras contém alma, a alma de Adolfine. Tão intensa! Tão impactante! E não menos extraordinárias as outras personagens femininas tal como a Amalie (a mãe), Sarah, Klara. Não descurando contudo personagens mais esbatidas mas não somenos importantes, o próprio Freud e Rainer.
Um dos principais temas tratados na obra é a loucura, que culmina com uma inteligente discussão entre os dois protagonistas a respeito da felicidade e do sentido da vida.
Adorei a escrita, com imensas frases profundas, cruas, repisadas, criando um impacto intenso, pesado.
Provocante e imaginativo.
“Embora eu fosse uma criança com propensão para a doença, não eram as enfermidades que me faziam sofrer, mas a minha mãe,�
“Teria sido melhor se eu não te tivesse tido.�
Goce, depois de anos imerso em cartas, fotos e livros de Freud, descobriu que ele não incluiu as irmãs numa lista que as teria salvado dos campos de concentração nazi. Assim como numa carta à sua noiva, o psicanalista terá descrito Adolfine Freud como “a melhor e a mais sensível� das irmãs. Surgiu então o mote para escrever esta história controversa.
O relato do autor é ficcional, mas apesar do carácter de fantasia, a premissa da obra é verdadeira.
Vou me socorrer do que o autor declarou em tempos no Público porque esclarece vários pontos importantes da obra:
“Não culpo Freud pela morte das irmãs. Ele não as incluiu na lista e ninguém sabe as razões. Freud era um homem cansado e doente. Tinha feito, nos últimos dois anos em Viena, mais de 20 operações ao cancro da boca. Talvez não acreditasse na possibilidade de lhes vir a acontecer o pior, como não acreditara antes na anexação da Áustria por Hitler. E também não sabemos se elas queriam, de facto, deixar Viena. As únicas coisas de que há certeza é que ele lhes deixou dinheiro bastante para poderem viver e que, passado algum tempo, pediu à princesa Marie Bonaparte para tentar que lhes fosse passada uma autorização para deixar a Áustria.�
E o porquê de se centrar na irmã de Freud:
“Para mim, Adolfine é uma metáfora dos esquecidos, dos que viveram sempre na sombra. É como se a sua voz fosse o eco das vozes daqueles que tiveram uma vida tão anónima quanto a sua, num tempo tão crucial como foi a mudança do séc. XIX para o XX, e sobretudo numa sociedade patriarcal e repressora das vontades femininas�.
É muito interessante este seu ponto de vista e acrescenta ainda:“� penso que a historiografia é injusta na sua obsessão pelos poderosos e pelos influentes, enquanto a memória dos restantes morre com aqueles que os conheceram� e a propósito cita Milan Kundera (na A Arte do Romance)“A historiografia escreve a história da sociedade, não a de um homem, mas o romance tem a capacidade para examinar a dimensão histórica da existência humana.�
Sobre a sua narradora, Goce confessou ainda que: ”Não costumo acreditar na inspiração, sempre achei que um escritor tem de se sentar e escrever. Mas neste caso foi como se tivesse de ficar à espera que essa voz me chegasse, à espera de a reconhecer e de a agarrar.�
E efectivamente as suas palavras contém alma, a alma de Adolfine. Tão intensa! Tão impactante! E não menos extraordinárias as outras personagens femininas tal como a Amalie (a mãe), Sarah, Klara. Não descurando contudo personagens mais esbatidas mas não somenos importantes, o próprio Freud e Rainer.
Um dos principais temas tratados na obra é a loucura, que culmina com uma inteligente discussão entre os dois protagonistas a respeito da felicidade e do sentido da vida.
Adorei a escrita, com imensas frases profundas, cruas, repisadas, criando um impacto intenso, pesado.
Provocante e imaginativo.
“Embora eu fosse uma criança com propensão para a doença, não eram as enfermidades que me faziam sofrer, mas a minha mãe,�
“Teria sido melhor se eu não te tivesse tido.�
March 10, 2024
تأخذنا الرواية عبر صفحاتها في رحلة نفسية، تحليلية عميقة لمعاني وجودية مختلفة، أخت فرويد كما يوضحه العنوان أو "أدولفينا فرويد" أخت عالم النفس وأبو التحليل النفسي"سيجموند فرويد"، فعبر خطوط الرواية التي نسجها الكاتب ببراعة فنان، حيث مزج الحقيقة بالخيال، نتعرف على مختلف مسارات حياة فرويد موازاة بحياة أخته، نغوص في معنى الحياة و الموت، الشعور و اللاشعور، الفناء والخلود، التيه، النسيان والكثير... استمتعت كثيرا بقرائتها والتوقف عند معانيها، شكرا لدار المحروسة على اختيارها ترجمة هذا العمل المبدع وشكرا كيلاني كريم للترجمة الموفقة .
عن معنى التوقيت المناسب كتب جوسيه سميلفسكي:
"ثمة أشياء يجب أن ترى في الوقت المناسب، ليس مبكرا.. ليس متأخرا، إن رأيتها قبل اللحظة المناسبة أو بعدها فذلك أسوأ من عدم رُؤيَتِكِ لها على الإطلاق، فأنت حتى لو لم تريها فإن فكرتها تحيا بداخلك، يُساعدها على ذلك خيالك، أو ربما تحلمين بها أولا ثم يمنحها الحياة بداخلك، وإذا رأيتها مبكرًا أو متأخرًا فكأنك تقتلين شيئًا ما بداخلك، شيئًا كان حيا حتى تلك اللحظة، أو ولد أولا بداخلك."
وعن العالم المادي الذي سلب حقوق الكثيرين وجعل الطغاة يزيدون في طغيانهم ،جاء على لسان أدولفينا :
"ليس ثمة عدل في هذا العالم، لا يوجد عقاب واحد يمكنه تصحيح ظلم ما؛ لأن ما مضى لا يمكن تغييره، وأولئك المضرورون من هذا الظلم سيبقون مع خسارتهم، لكن حتى في عالم آخر ما، سيمحو العدل ما وقع من ظلم في العالم الأول، وفي هذه الحالة سيعود المجروحين ما خسروه هنا، لا يعد ذلك عودة لإنجازاتهم في الحياة. إن هي إلا تعزية؛ إذ إن ما فقد في لحظة ما لا يمكن أبدا تعويضه؛ فما فقد كان ضروريا لحظ اختفائه، وحتى لو استمر وجودنا في عالم آخر ما بعد موتنا في هذا العالم، فوجودنا في العالم الآخر لن يكون إلا تعزية، مواساة.
في العالم المادي كل شيء ظالم، وبما أننا نجهل ما إذا كنا سنحيا بعد ذلك في وجود آخر معز أم لا: فخلاصنا الوحيد في هذا العالم هو بالاستمتاع بمحاسنه وجماله".
للتذكير فإن الرواية من الأدب المقدوني و حائزة على جائزة الاتحاد الأوروبي للأدب.
عن معنى التوقيت المناسب كتب جوسيه سميلفسكي:
"ثمة أشياء يجب أن ترى في الوقت المناسب، ليس مبكرا.. ليس متأخرا، إن رأيتها قبل اللحظة المناسبة أو بعدها فذلك أسوأ من عدم رُؤيَتِكِ لها على الإطلاق، فأنت حتى لو لم تريها فإن فكرتها تحيا بداخلك، يُساعدها على ذلك خيالك، أو ربما تحلمين بها أولا ثم يمنحها الحياة بداخلك، وإذا رأيتها مبكرًا أو متأخرًا فكأنك تقتلين شيئًا ما بداخلك، شيئًا كان حيا حتى تلك اللحظة، أو ولد أولا بداخلك."
وعن العالم المادي الذي سلب حقوق الكثيرين وجعل الطغاة يزيدون في طغيانهم ،جاء على لسان أدولفينا :
"ليس ثمة عدل في هذا العالم، لا يوجد عقاب واحد يمكنه تصحيح ظلم ما؛ لأن ما مضى لا يمكن تغييره، وأولئك المضرورون من هذا الظلم سيبقون مع خسارتهم، لكن حتى في عالم آخر ما، سيمحو العدل ما وقع من ظلم في العالم الأول، وفي هذه الحالة سيعود المجروحين ما خسروه هنا، لا يعد ذلك عودة لإنجازاتهم في الحياة. إن هي إلا تعزية؛ إذ إن ما فقد في لحظة ما لا يمكن أبدا تعويضه؛ فما فقد كان ضروريا لحظ اختفائه، وحتى لو استمر وجودنا في عالم آخر ما بعد موتنا في هذا العالم، فوجودنا في العالم الآخر لن يكون إلا تعزية، مواساة.
في العالم المادي كل شيء ظالم، وبما أننا نجهل ما إذا كنا سنحيا بعد ذلك في وجود آخر معز أم لا: فخلاصنا الوحيد في هذا العالم هو بالاستمتاع بمحاسنه وجماله".
للتذكير فإن الرواية من الأدب المقدوني و حائزة على جائزة الاتحاد الأوروبي للأدب.
August 28, 2012
Fascinating History of Mental Health Care in Europe
The first 20% o this book is riveting. The opening is set in 1942 Germany and Freud’s four sisters are caught up in the Nazi plan to hunt down, inter, torture, and kill millions of Jews and others. Sigmund Freud and his immediate family have already fled Germany for the safety of England. The story focuses on Freud’s youngest sister Adolfina. She and Freud, as the first and last born children in their family, had been especially close as children and then again as young adults. Then, in their early careers, things began to go very right for Sigmund and very wrong for Adolfina. This widens the breach between them.
“Freud’s Sister� is mostly about Adolfina but the most interesting parts are about the interface between she and Sigmund and the specifics of how their relationship and other factors in their upbringing informed his theories. The historical parts that relate to late 19th century Germany and specifically the history of the care of the mentally ill are top rate. The writing is inspiring, informing, evocative. Where things fell apart for me was the philosophizing. It went on for pages in a dreamlike way. While it didn’t exactly feel preachy it bordered on pedantic. It definitely didn’t progress the story line however. Based on the excellent beginning and the subject matter itself, not to mention the laudatory European reviews, I expected to love “Freud’s Sister�. I didn’t. I made it through about 70% of the book but couldn’t force myself to finish.
The first 20% o this book is riveting. The opening is set in 1942 Germany and Freud’s four sisters are caught up in the Nazi plan to hunt down, inter, torture, and kill millions of Jews and others. Sigmund Freud and his immediate family have already fled Germany for the safety of England. The story focuses on Freud’s youngest sister Adolfina. She and Freud, as the first and last born children in their family, had been especially close as children and then again as young adults. Then, in their early careers, things began to go very right for Sigmund and very wrong for Adolfina. This widens the breach between them.
“Freud’s Sister� is mostly about Adolfina but the most interesting parts are about the interface between she and Sigmund and the specifics of how their relationship and other factors in their upbringing informed his theories. The historical parts that relate to late 19th century Germany and specifically the history of the care of the mentally ill are top rate. The writing is inspiring, informing, evocative. Where things fell apart for me was the philosophizing. It went on for pages in a dreamlike way. While it didn’t exactly feel preachy it bordered on pedantic. It definitely didn’t progress the story line however. Based on the excellent beginning and the subject matter itself, not to mention the laudatory European reviews, I expected to love “Freud’s Sister�. I didn’t. I made it through about 70% of the book but couldn’t force myself to finish.
June 12, 2022
عن حياة فرويد من خلال عيون شقيقته و كذلك التعرف على المرض العقلي و النفسي في أوروبا أواخر القرن 19 و بداية القرن 20 .
العمل يبدأ من نهاية مسار ال فرويد الممثل في شقيقاته اللاتي يتم اعتقالهن و ترحيلهن إلى معتقل قبيل اعدامهن من قبل النازيين باعتبارهن يهوديات بعد رحيل سيغموند فرويد الى لندن ووفاته متأثرا بمرض السرطان لنعود في فلاش باك مع شقيقته أدولفينا الى طفولتها و مراهقتها ثم شبابها و دخولها إلى مصحة عقلية و كل حالات الفقدان الذي عرفته .
العمل يجمع بين تاريخ المرض العقلي و علاجه و سيرة فرويد و المقاربة الاجتماعية لأوروبا في تطوراتها الكبرى .
العمل جيد في عمومه رغم وجود حشو للمعلومات التاريخية بطريقة مباشرة و فجة شيئا ما.
العمل يبدأ من نهاية مسار ال فرويد الممثل في شقيقاته اللاتي يتم اعتقالهن و ترحيلهن إلى معتقل قبيل اعدامهن من قبل النازيين باعتبارهن يهوديات بعد رحيل سيغموند فرويد الى لندن ووفاته متأثرا بمرض السرطان لنعود في فلاش باك مع شقيقته أدولفينا الى طفولتها و مراهقتها ثم شبابها و دخولها إلى مصحة عقلية و كل حالات الفقدان الذي عرفته .
العمل يجمع بين تاريخ المرض العقلي و علاجه و سيرة فرويد و المقاربة الاجتماعية لأوروبا في تطوراتها الكبرى .
العمل جيد في عمومه رغم وجود حشو للمعلومات التاريخية بطريقة مباشرة و فجة شيئا ما.
June 9, 2020
Vienna, 1938: The four Freud sisters are sent to the Terezin concentration camp as Freud for some reason didn’t chose to protect them when he had a choice of an exit visa for him and the people he could take with him.
The book starts with brief introduction of the Terezin camp and then moves back in time and reveal’s the story of Adolfina. And that’s what I was looking forward to, getting to know Freud’s sister.
But the problem is the pace of the story, some parts move the story at a good pace, and some parts especially the ones involving feelings move at a very slow pace.
The book starts with brief introduction of the Terezin camp and then moves back in time and reveal’s the story of Adolfina. And that’s what I was looking forward to, getting to know Freud’s sister.
But the problem is the pace of the story, some parts move the story at a good pace, and some parts especially the ones involving feelings move at a very slow pace.
February 6, 2017
Sigmund, de apelido Freud, personagem incontornável do século XX, deixou uma marca indelével na humanidade. Com ele vieram teorias obscuras que permitiam explicar muitos fenómenos do comportamento humano até então indecifráveis. Génio, alguns o chamariam; controverso, isso é certo.
Goce Smilevsky utiliza-o como tema de partida e assim construir uma história em redor de uma das suas irmãs. Circulam rumores sobre Freud. Ao que tudo indica, não teve compaixão por ela na hora de partir para Inglaterra, durante o holocausto, deixando-a ser levada para um campo de concentração. A história é contada do ponto de vista dela. Palavra a palavra, conta a história da sua vida, desde a infância, até à morte.
É isto romance: um relato simples, por vezes monótono, poético e cuidado mas que, na minha opinião, pouco acrescenta à experiência.
Goce Smilevsky utiliza-o como tema de partida e assim construir uma história em redor de uma das suas irmãs. Circulam rumores sobre Freud. Ao que tudo indica, não teve compaixão por ela na hora de partir para Inglaterra, durante o holocausto, deixando-a ser levada para um campo de concentração. A história é contada do ponto de vista dela. Palavra a palavra, conta a história da sua vida, desde a infância, até à morte.
É isto romance: um relato simples, por vezes monótono, poético e cuidado mas que, na minha opinião, pouco acrescenta à experiência.
November 3, 2012
Some Spoilers.
A fascinating novel about the life and death of Freud's sister Adolfina and told in her voice. being part of Sigmund Freud's family and also about how being female child resulted in being valued less than the golden son. In this family, Sigmund was literally called "my golden Siggie" by his mother.
All four of his elderly surviving sistersultimately were deported by the Nazis from Vienna to the concentration/death camps. None of them survived the war. The horrifying facts about their deaths isn't just that they were exterminated, but that Freud did not include them among his party when he left Vienna for London. He took his children, his sister-in-law and his DOG, but NOT his sisters. While the author portrays Freud as thinking Hitler couldn't last, but by then he had been in power for 5 years. Hitler clearly had staying power and the Western democracies weren't showing any backbone in their dealings with them. If he truly thought his sisters would be safe, he was totally delusional. I can't help but think that his refusal to include them demonstrates Freud's misogyny.
Despite the emphasis I give to Freud's desertion of his sisters, the novel is really about how hard a life his sister Adolfina had. Despised by her mother and denied a fuller life by a society that valued only beauty and submissiveness in women when she had little beauty and was not totally obedient, she took refuge for years in a mental asylum, the Nest. While the Nest had its share of the truly mentally ill, some of its patients were like Adolfina, just different and therefore rejected by society. Gustave Klimt's sister Klara is another one of the different, also hated and rejected by her mother while the son Gustave is the center of the family's world. and it is with her that Adolfina shares a deep friendhip. Klara's madness included agitating for women's rights and wanting to wear trousers in a world a corsetted women.
The novel is written/translated in a poetical style. That is to say that it isn't a story told as a poem but that the style penetrates your consciousness in the way that a truly profound poem does.
A fascinating novel about the life and death of Freud's sister Adolfina and told in her voice. being part of Sigmund Freud's family and also about how being female child resulted in being valued less than the golden son. In this family, Sigmund was literally called "my golden Siggie" by his mother.
All four of his elderly surviving sistersultimately were deported by the Nazis from Vienna to the concentration/death camps. None of them survived the war. The horrifying facts about their deaths isn't just that they were exterminated, but that Freud did not include them among his party when he left Vienna for London. He took his children, his sister-in-law and his DOG, but NOT his sisters. While the author portrays Freud as thinking Hitler couldn't last, but by then he had been in power for 5 years. Hitler clearly had staying power and the Western democracies weren't showing any backbone in their dealings with them. If he truly thought his sisters would be safe, he was totally delusional. I can't help but think that his refusal to include them demonstrates Freud's misogyny.
Despite the emphasis I give to Freud's desertion of his sisters, the novel is really about how hard a life his sister Adolfina had. Despised by her mother and denied a fuller life by a society that valued only beauty and submissiveness in women when she had little beauty and was not totally obedient, she took refuge for years in a mental asylum, the Nest. While the Nest had its share of the truly mentally ill, some of its patients were like Adolfina, just different and therefore rejected by society. Gustave Klimt's sister Klara is another one of the different, also hated and rejected by her mother while the son Gustave is the center of the family's world. and it is with her that Adolfina shares a deep friendhip. Klara's madness included agitating for women's rights and wanting to wear trousers in a world a corsetted women.
The novel is written/translated in a poetical style. That is to say that it isn't a story told as a poem but that the style penetrates your consciousness in the way that a truly profound poem does.
April 9, 2018
Interesantísima novela que recrea el ambiente familiar y social de los Freud desde una perspectiva femenina, la que marca la mirada permitiendo adivinar las sombras detrás de las luces. Si bien la genialidad de Freud (Sigmund) queda intacta, la novela profundiza en una sociedad marcadamente machista dentro de la cual las mujeres debían sortear múltiples dificultades. El ámbito familiar tampoco escapa a los difíciles desafíos que en ocasiones se volvían insalvables, y exceden a la familia Freud para abarcar, por ejemplo, a los Klimt, especialmente a partir de la vida de la hermana del pintor. Además, contextualiza el valor de las nuevas perspectivas científicas, las somete a alguna crítica y se demora particularmente en reflexionar sobre la locura. Si bien algún fragmento vinculado a esa temática se vuelve demasiado denso y resiente la fluidez narrativa, la novela recupera a tiempo el interés y nos ofrece un buen panorama sobre una época al mismo tiempo fascinante y terrible.
May 20, 2013
Before I begin my review, Freud's Sister is FICTION. It is not a work of non-fiction. It is not a memoir, nor biography. I even hesitate to call it historical fiction. The author states in the Author's Note that little is known about Freud's sister Adolfina. There is a lot of freedom for artistic expression or interpretation by the author in Freud's Sister. The author chose to use the first person voice of Adolfina (I'll explain more about that underneath My Thoughts).
Summary:
Adolfina was born Esther Adolfine (Dolfi) Freud on 23 July 1862 and died 5 February 1943. She was a younger sister to Sigmund Freud. Sigmund, or Siggi, as his mother called him, was the child doted on in the family. His parents sent him to college, and to medical school. His parents were of humble means.
Although they were Jewish by blood, they were not Jewish by religion. The children knew little about their ancestry. They were considered to be agnostic.
Aldolphina grew up with a passive-aggressive mother. She could be loving one minute and vindictive the next moment. This is one of the few facts known about Adolphina, was the hostile relationship between mother and daughter.
Adolphina was a super-sensitive person, dependent, clingy. These character traits were magnified having an abusive mother.
Adophina's world was her thoughts and dreams. Her voice in this story is mainly of her thoughts, of words that never bring forth her feelings. Her life is a life of repression.
Freud's Sister, begins shortly before Sigmund Freud's departure to London, England. Then, the story backs up to the beginnings of the Freud family, centering around Adolphina.
My Thoughts:
I have mixed feelings about this book and give it a 3. I'll explain.
A book about Sigmund Freud's family, with himself as a main character, would not be complete without using his beliefs. These beliefs include his thoughts on monotheism, religion, dreams, sex, after-life, repression, and psycho-analysis. We will never know if any of these beliefs were believed by Adolphina. We can only speculate. I did wonder at times if the author made Adolphina the female version of Sigmund Freud. Maybe Adolphina believed as Freud did, and maybe she did not.
The family was dysfunctional. The mother had large "issues" in repressed or unacknowledged anger, that she took out on her daughter Adolphina. She abused Adolphina.
Sigmund, was poor in character for his lax of moral judgment as far as his sister was concerned. Even children who've had little parental authority do not act out in some of the ways he did. What he did, and what any one like him does, leaves scars. (I know this is a thought in story that is fictional, but it is my opinion).
And further....Freud is a repressed individual as well. He is repressed in morality. He is repressed in the ability to make moral decisions. He is repressed in the ability to believe period. He prefers to discussions and detached actions.
The descriptive prose in the book went on too long at some points. I felt a bit over-done, like burnt toast.
Symbolism is over-used, using the word and descriptions of dreams, repressed words and feelings, birth and babies (signifying life).
There is zero happiness or lightheartedness in this book. If you're already depressed, don't read it.
It is a book that would make a good book discussion. Skip any appetizers or dinner, just conversation on a controversial belief system.
Why did I give this book a 3 for good?
Gave me a better understanding of Sigmund Freud's belief system.
Gave me a better understanding of Austria during the Holocaust, and World War II.
Gave me a better understanding of what happens when a person becomes a VICTIM of his or her thoughts.
Was a different sort of read for me.
A quote from the book (I did not say I like the quote or agree with it, just a quote):
"All normal people are normal in the same way; each mad person is mad in his own way."
Summary:
Adolfina was born Esther Adolfine (Dolfi) Freud on 23 July 1862 and died 5 February 1943. She was a younger sister to Sigmund Freud. Sigmund, or Siggi, as his mother called him, was the child doted on in the family. His parents sent him to college, and to medical school. His parents were of humble means.
Although they were Jewish by blood, they were not Jewish by religion. The children knew little about their ancestry. They were considered to be agnostic.
Aldolphina grew up with a passive-aggressive mother. She could be loving one minute and vindictive the next moment. This is one of the few facts known about Adolphina, was the hostile relationship between mother and daughter.
Adolphina was a super-sensitive person, dependent, clingy. These character traits were magnified having an abusive mother.
Adophina's world was her thoughts and dreams. Her voice in this story is mainly of her thoughts, of words that never bring forth her feelings. Her life is a life of repression.
Freud's Sister, begins shortly before Sigmund Freud's departure to London, England. Then, the story backs up to the beginnings of the Freud family, centering around Adolphina.
My Thoughts:
I have mixed feelings about this book and give it a 3. I'll explain.
A book about Sigmund Freud's family, with himself as a main character, would not be complete without using his beliefs. These beliefs include his thoughts on monotheism, religion, dreams, sex, after-life, repression, and psycho-analysis. We will never know if any of these beliefs were believed by Adolphina. We can only speculate. I did wonder at times if the author made Adolphina the female version of Sigmund Freud. Maybe Adolphina believed as Freud did, and maybe she did not.
The family was dysfunctional. The mother had large "issues" in repressed or unacknowledged anger, that she took out on her daughter Adolphina. She abused Adolphina.
Sigmund, was poor in character for his lax of moral judgment as far as his sister was concerned. Even children who've had little parental authority do not act out in some of the ways he did. What he did, and what any one like him does, leaves scars. (I know this is a thought in story that is fictional, but it is my opinion).
And further....Freud is a repressed individual as well. He is repressed in morality. He is repressed in the ability to make moral decisions. He is repressed in the ability to believe period. He prefers to discussions and detached actions.
The descriptive prose in the book went on too long at some points. I felt a bit over-done, like burnt toast.
Symbolism is over-used, using the word and descriptions of dreams, repressed words and feelings, birth and babies (signifying life).
There is zero happiness or lightheartedness in this book. If you're already depressed, don't read it.
It is a book that would make a good book discussion. Skip any appetizers or dinner, just conversation on a controversial belief system.
Why did I give this book a 3 for good?
Gave me a better understanding of Sigmund Freud's belief system.
Gave me a better understanding of Austria during the Holocaust, and World War II.
Gave me a better understanding of what happens when a person becomes a VICTIM of his or her thoughts.
Was a different sort of read for me.
A quote from the book (I did not say I like the quote or agree with it, just a quote):
"All normal people are normal in the same way; each mad person is mad in his own way."
July 7, 2022
رواية يصعب تقييمها، فهي تقع مابين ٣ و ٤ نجمات و ربما ٣ نجمات ونصف. رغم اني لا أحب قراءة تقديم الرواية إلا ان" اخت فرويد" من تلك الروايات التي وجب وضع تنويه او مقدمة خفيفة لتضع القارئ في السياق، ليس السياق التاريخي للأحداث بل على الأقل شرح بعض الحيثيات. والتعقيب الثاني هو في كثير من الأحيان، اظن ثلاث مرات كان هناك نسخ ليس لجمل بل لفقرات طويلة تم إعادة كتابتها كما هي جملا وتفصيلا.
وماتبقى فهي رواية مرهفة و شاعرية. رغم انها مليئة بالألم والمعاناة إلا انهما عولجا بنعومة فائقة ورقة شديدة. مابين الفقد و الخذلان والحب والنسيان و المرارة و الانهيار تطوف بنا ادولفينا في ثنايا حياتها وحياة كل من يحيطون بها من اخيها فرويد وعلاقتهما و نظرياته إلى أمها و تعاملها المجحف إلى أبيها الغائب الموجود إلى اخواتها و رابطتهن المتقطعة إلى صديقتها و وفائها المتين. ينتقل جوسيه سميلفسكي ببراعة من حوارات شيقة لسرد سلس ثم في صفحات متعددات، يضع موضوع الجنون( الذهان) وتاريخه موضع دراسة وتحليل معرفا به وبحالاته وكيفية تطوره وكيف تم استوعابه منذ الازل باسلوب مبسط للغاية منتقيا لغته بذكاء حاد. الرواية ليست غوصا في شخصية فرويد فحسب و منظروه في التحليل النفسي بل في النظريات المعاكسة لها والتي تمثلت في الرواية بالدكتور "جوته" وعيادته للأمراض العقلية "العش" ومنظوره هو الآخر وتعريفاته المتباينة مع فرويد. الرواية كذلك غوص في الفن؛ في لوحات كل من بلليني و كليمت و فان غوغ و أخرين و هي كذلك مليئة باقتباسات لاعمال كل من نيتشه و شوبنهاور، جيرارد دي نيرفال، فريدش هولدرلين، ديوتيما، سورين كيركجراد، بندار و زينون. كما اتى على ذِكر فصيل من السياسيين و الأطباء وعلماء الاقتصاد. الرواية سفر عبر المفاهيم و التعريفات عن الموت و الحياة و الخلود ،عن العالم و ما وراءه، عن الدين و الاعتقاد و عن الحب و السعادة، وعن الشقاء و المتعة وكذلك عن الحرب و الدمار. دمج جوسيه سميلفسكي كل هذا و ذاك في قالب واحد وفي صفحات لا تتعدى ٢٧٤. لمحبي و عاشقي الاقتباسات فالرواية دسمة ستمطركم بوابل منها حتى تقولوا كفى لم تبقى صفحة واحدة سلمت من التخطيط.
من الاقتباسات الحلوة:
" الجمال هو خلاصنا في هذا العالم"
وماتبقى فهي رواية مرهفة و شاعرية. رغم انها مليئة بالألم والمعاناة إلا انهما عولجا بنعومة فائقة ورقة شديدة. مابين الفقد و الخذلان والحب والنسيان و المرارة و الانهيار تطوف بنا ادولفينا في ثنايا حياتها وحياة كل من يحيطون بها من اخيها فرويد وعلاقتهما و نظرياته إلى أمها و تعاملها المجحف إلى أبيها الغائب الموجود إلى اخواتها و رابطتهن المتقطعة إلى صديقتها و وفائها المتين. ينتقل جوسيه سميلفسكي ببراعة من حوارات شيقة لسرد سلس ثم في صفحات متعددات، يضع موضوع الجنون( الذهان) وتاريخه موضع دراسة وتحليل معرفا به وبحالاته وكيفية تطوره وكيف تم استوعابه منذ الازل باسلوب مبسط للغاية منتقيا لغته بذكاء حاد. الرواية ليست غوصا في شخصية فرويد فحسب و منظروه في التحليل النفسي بل في النظريات المعاكسة لها والتي تمثلت في الرواية بالدكتور "جوته" وعيادته للأمراض العقلية "العش" ومنظوره هو الآخر وتعريفاته المتباينة مع فرويد. الرواية كذلك غوص في الفن؛ في لوحات كل من بلليني و كليمت و فان غوغ و أخرين و هي كذلك مليئة باقتباسات لاعمال كل من نيتشه و شوبنهاور، جيرارد دي نيرفال، فريدش هولدرلين، ديوتيما، سورين كيركجراد، بندار و زينون. كما اتى على ذِكر فصيل من السياسيين و الأطباء وعلماء الاقتصاد. الرواية سفر عبر المفاهيم و التعريفات عن الموت و الحياة و الخلود ،عن العالم و ما وراءه، عن الدين و الاعتقاد و عن الحب و السعادة، وعن الشقاء و المتعة وكذلك عن الحرب و الدمار. دمج جوسيه سميلفسكي كل هذا و ذاك في قالب واحد وفي صفحات لا تتعدى ٢٧٤. لمحبي و عاشقي الاقتباسات فالرواية دسمة ستمطركم بوابل منها حتى تقولوا كفى لم تبقى صفحة واحدة سلمت من التخطيط.
من الاقتباسات الحلوة:
" الجمال هو خلاصنا في هذا العالم"
November 24, 2012
Sigmund Freud had several sisters; Adolfina was the one he called ‘the sweetest and best of my sisters�. She never married, was treated poorly at home, spent years in a psychiatric hospital, and ended her life in a Nazi concentration camp. This book is historical fiction, not biography- it would be difficult to write a biography of Adolfina as there is not much known about her. But it’s more than a fictional biography; it’s also a treatise on the lack of meaning of life and how horrible most lives are. Everyone seems to have mental health problems- Adolfina’s mother is emotionally abusive, her lover suffers from extreme depression, her best friend Klara Klimt (sister of artist Gustav) spends years in the asylum rooming with Adolfina, Sigmund, while brilliant, is fixated on the Oedipus syndrome and penis envy. A fair part of the novel takes place in the asylum, describing the patients there. All of the people except Sigmund Freud have hard, hard lives. The story is brutal and moving, albeit written in lovely prose (no mean feat when the story was written in Macedonian and translated to English).
The question that this story hangs on is this: When Sigmund Freud got visas to leave Vienna for the safety of England, why did he take, along with his wife and children, his wife’s family, his doctor and his family, and the house servants, but not his four sisters? Did he not value them? He was dying of cancer; did the pain affect his thinking? Did his wife’s family have something to do with it? The question goes unanswered. I personally thought the story was good, but I did not enjoy it.
The question that this story hangs on is this: When Sigmund Freud got visas to leave Vienna for the safety of England, why did he take, along with his wife and children, his wife’s family, his doctor and his family, and the house servants, but not his four sisters? Did he not value them? He was dying of cancer; did the pain affect his thinking? Did his wife’s family have something to do with it? The question goes unanswered. I personally thought the story was good, but I did not enjoy it.
March 24, 2020
“Peki,bütün o anlar, günler ve yıllar yaşananlar nerede?Sanki hiç var olmamışlar gibi.�
March 4, 2018
Prezenta scriere este o abordare inedită şi o punere în scenă a raporturilor existente în familia Freud, relaţii cu precădere dintre adolescentul Sigmund, căruia destinul îi prescrisese să devină cel mai renumit şi, de ce nu, controversat reprezentant al psihanalizei moderne, şi sora sa Adolfine.
Smilevski a reuşit să recreeze momente intime din adolescenţa celor doi, clipe rememorate de sora marelui psihanalist în apropierea morţii, căci se cuvine a se menţiona că aceasta a căzut victimă a represaliilor naziste din lagărul hitlerist. Istoria reală din spatele acestei ficţiuni a solidificat subiectul într-o manieră cu totul aparte. Sigmund Freud s-a născut într-o familie de evrei așkenazi din Freiberg, Moravia. Esther Adolfine este una dintre surorile mijlocii ale lui Freud, care simte pentru fratele său o nesperată beatitudine, dar şi o atracţie aproape nesănătoasă încă de la frageda vârstă de şase ani.
Întreaga recenzie disponibilă pe:
Smilevski a reuşit să recreeze momente intime din adolescenţa celor doi, clipe rememorate de sora marelui psihanalist în apropierea morţii, căci se cuvine a se menţiona că aceasta a căzut victimă a represaliilor naziste din lagărul hitlerist. Istoria reală din spatele acestei ficţiuni a solidificat subiectul într-o manieră cu totul aparte. Sigmund Freud s-a născut într-o familie de evrei așkenazi din Freiberg, Moravia. Esther Adolfine este una dintre surorile mijlocii ale lui Freud, care simte pentru fratele său o nesperată beatitudine, dar şi o atracţie aproape nesănătoasă încă de la frageda vârstă de şase ani.
Întreaga recenzie disponibilă pe:
July 20, 2022
Macedónsky autor g. Smilevski napísal román o Freudovej sestre Adolfíne, ale samozrejme celý príbeh sa viac- menej točí okolo osoby Sigmunda Freuda. Autor (ročník narodenia 1975) napísal knihu, ktorá by štýlom odpovedala skôr 60-80- tym rokom 20-teho storočia. Autor sa často uchyľuje k bezpredmetnej repetetívnosti viet a slovných spojení. Dokonca veta, ktorú použije niekoľkokrát v závere alebo na začiatku kapitol nie je ničím iným ako parafrázovaním slávnej prvej vety románu Anna Karaninová. Autor vkladá do textu filozofické zamyslenia a celé state s Freudových vedeckých spisov, ktoré si medzi sebou hovoria v dlhých dialógoch, alebo vnútorných monológoch hlavné postavy spôsobom, akoby sa rozprávali Freud a Jung.
Smilevski bol za román ocenený literárnou Cenou Európskej únie, ale neviem či sa naozaj v roku 2010 nenašlo lepšie a modernejšie dielo.
Téma literárneho spracovania Freudovho životopisu nie je ani originálna, aj keď rozprávačkou je jedna z jeho štyroch sestier, ktorá bola niekoľko rokov hospitalizovaná vo viedenskej psychiatrickej klinike Hniezdo.
Freud sa na svoje sestry, ktoré finančne podporoval skoro celý život na záver svojho a ich života vykašlal. Autor knihy napísal príbeh stretnutia Antónie so sestrou Gustava Klimta aj so sestrami Franza Kafku v Terezíne. Neviem, do akej miery toto naozaj odpovedá skutočnosti, alebo sú tieto príbehy iba výtvorom jeho fikcie.
Kniha sa mi zdá byť nesúrodá a nevyhla sa na mnohých miestach zbytočnému pátosu. Moje hodnotenie je skôr 2,5 hviezdičky.
Smilevski bol za román ocenený literárnou Cenou Európskej únie, ale neviem či sa naozaj v roku 2010 nenašlo lepšie a modernejšie dielo.
Téma literárneho spracovania Freudovho životopisu nie je ani originálna, aj keď rozprávačkou je jedna z jeho štyroch sestier, ktorá bola niekoľko rokov hospitalizovaná vo viedenskej psychiatrickej klinike Hniezdo.
Freud sa na svoje sestry, ktoré finančne podporoval skoro celý život na záver svojho a ich života vykašlal. Autor knihy napísal príbeh stretnutia Antónie so sestrou Gustava Klimta aj so sestrami Franza Kafku v Terezíne. Neviem, do akej miery toto naozaj odpovedá skutočnosti, alebo sú tieto príbehy iba výtvorom jeho fikcie.
Kniha sa mi zdá byť nesúrodá a nevyhla sa na mnohých miestach zbytočnému pátosu. Moje hodnotenie je skôr 2,5 hviezdičky.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 18, 2021
Го прочитав романот „Разговор со Спиноза� и бев воодушевена, многу ми се допадна и побрзав да ја прочитам и оваа книга, но ефектот беше прилично различен. Иако книгата е одлично напишана, има интересна замисла и идеја, делови од книгата некако ја разводнија целата приказна и ми го намалија впечатокот за книгата. Сепак, целосно разбирам зошто романот ја добил престижната награда на ЕУ за книжевност, иако мене лично не ми „легна� баш најдобро.
October 25, 2017
Sunki knyga. Labai erzino Adolfinos bejėgystė. Tas žiūriu ir nedarau, pykstu ir nedarau, vaikštau gatvėmis ir vis kažko laukiu. Aš galiu įsivaizduoti, kad tuo metu moteriai buvo ne taip jau ir lengva, tačiau vis tiek manau, kad šiokių tokių galimybių suimti savo gyvenimą į rankas, o ne leisti jam tekėti pro šoną, tikrai buvo.
April 9, 2013
I am (admittedly) not a fan of Freud and could sit and discuss his many flaws for hours. When I learned that he didn’t save his sisters from the fates of Jewish death camps; I was even more appalled. Goce Smilevski explores the life of Sigmund’s oldest sister, Aldolfina, in “Freud’s Sister� (translated from Macedonian).
“Freud’s Sister� is a novel work of art and is masterfully written; combining WWII historical fiction, a biography of the Freuds, psychology, character studies, and philosophy. “Freud’s Sister� is a ‘thinking novel� which strips away the bells and whistles of a traditional piece and exposes emotions and thoughts on the real meanings/fears/loves/hates of life and living.
The novel begins with a WWII introduction which is very moving on its own. In fact, it is so powerful, that the simplest of comments induced tears and images which caused me to close the book because the material was difficult to digest. This suggests Smilevski’s talent in bringing the plot and imagery to life. Making the novel even more powerful, is its calm and steady storytelling and characterization of Adolfina which is more memorable than having an agitated or angry environment relating to the subject matter.
Although the characters are not “formally� introduced; the reader will already feel camaraderie and will dive into the story of an “old friend�. Also relatable is Smilevski’s plot. Either he has an abusive mother or is an even more remarkable writer than thought, as the actions of Aldolfina are spot-on and hit on personal level for those with such experiences. These events allow one to understand Adolfina’s psyche and Sigmund in “real life�.
Smilevski’s writing style and language is simple and yet colorful, beautiful, and easy-to-read even though the work is a translation. There are some areas which are slightly choppy which is either due to the editor or a loss in translation.
“Freud’s Sister� isn’t a typical novel following a plot progression and character arc and is instead more of a stream of consciousness which resonates deep within the reader, questioning our own thoughts/emotions. Yet, Smilevski seems to know both the characters and the readers so intimately, that it chillingly feels like we are simply reading a self-diary. This will disappoint those seeking a standard HF novel featuring Freud’s family but will satisfy those who like to be affected by a book that helps consider their own lives.
Due to “Freud’s Sister� being based on Adolfina’s thoughts and memories, some portions of the novel feel repetitive or confusing. On the contrary, Smilevski also introduces wonderful “real� figures such as Kara Klimt (Gustav Klimt’s sister) which encourage further reading and research.
It is worth mentioning that chapter 6 is a long chapter, forming the avant-garde, highly symbolic portion of “Freud’s Sister�. Although it is bouncy; the bounciness is smooth and natural solidifying representation, symbolism, and poetry which make much sense of the novel and of life itself. Strengthening the novel and making it even more unique; Smilevski exemplifies skill and creativity.
The calm, ethereal quality of “Freud’s Sister� contrasts strikingly with the plot depicting madness and depression until the very tip of the conclusion which is simple and yet thought-provoking.
“Freud’s Sister� is not a “happily ever after� novel and is more suited intellectuals or those seeking philosophical empowerment. Smilevski seamlessly conjoins depth with a story and flows with the touch of classical literature. “Freud’s Sister� is a multifaceted work of literature art.
“Freud’s Sister� is a novel work of art and is masterfully written; combining WWII historical fiction, a biography of the Freuds, psychology, character studies, and philosophy. “Freud’s Sister� is a ‘thinking novel� which strips away the bells and whistles of a traditional piece and exposes emotions and thoughts on the real meanings/fears/loves/hates of life and living.
The novel begins with a WWII introduction which is very moving on its own. In fact, it is so powerful, that the simplest of comments induced tears and images which caused me to close the book because the material was difficult to digest. This suggests Smilevski’s talent in bringing the plot and imagery to life. Making the novel even more powerful, is its calm and steady storytelling and characterization of Adolfina which is more memorable than having an agitated or angry environment relating to the subject matter.
Although the characters are not “formally� introduced; the reader will already feel camaraderie and will dive into the story of an “old friend�. Also relatable is Smilevski’s plot. Either he has an abusive mother or is an even more remarkable writer than thought, as the actions of Aldolfina are spot-on and hit on personal level for those with such experiences. These events allow one to understand Adolfina’s psyche and Sigmund in “real life�.
Smilevski’s writing style and language is simple and yet colorful, beautiful, and easy-to-read even though the work is a translation. There are some areas which are slightly choppy which is either due to the editor or a loss in translation.
“Freud’s Sister� isn’t a typical novel following a plot progression and character arc and is instead more of a stream of consciousness which resonates deep within the reader, questioning our own thoughts/emotions. Yet, Smilevski seems to know both the characters and the readers so intimately, that it chillingly feels like we are simply reading a self-diary. This will disappoint those seeking a standard HF novel featuring Freud’s family but will satisfy those who like to be affected by a book that helps consider their own lives.
Due to “Freud’s Sister� being based on Adolfina’s thoughts and memories, some portions of the novel feel repetitive or confusing. On the contrary, Smilevski also introduces wonderful “real� figures such as Kara Klimt (Gustav Klimt’s sister) which encourage further reading and research.
It is worth mentioning that chapter 6 is a long chapter, forming the avant-garde, highly symbolic portion of “Freud’s Sister�. Although it is bouncy; the bounciness is smooth and natural solidifying representation, symbolism, and poetry which make much sense of the novel and of life itself. Strengthening the novel and making it even more unique; Smilevski exemplifies skill and creativity.
The calm, ethereal quality of “Freud’s Sister� contrasts strikingly with the plot depicting madness and depression until the very tip of the conclusion which is simple and yet thought-provoking.
“Freud’s Sister� is not a “happily ever after� novel and is more suited intellectuals or those seeking philosophical empowerment. Smilevski seamlessly conjoins depth with a story and flows with the touch of classical literature. “Freud’s Sister� is a multifaceted work of literature art.
December 21, 2013
Ayrıntılı İnceleme ve Yorum:
Kitap çıktığında merak etmiştim; Sigmund Freud gibi ünlü bir psikoloğun pek de bilinmeyen ailevi hikayesini ele alıyordu. Sigmund Freud, Nazilerden kaçarken neden kızkardeşlerini ardında bırakmıştı? Ya da bunun bir nedeni var mıydı?
Adlofina Freud'un ağzından yazılmış kitap. Adolfina hiç evlenmemiş ve ağabeyi Sigmund ile aralarında garip bir bağ varmış yazılana göre. Öyle ki bu bağın birbirlerinin ruhlarını çözümlemeye çalışan ve birbirlerinde garip bir huzur bulan iki kişinin arasındaki bağ gibi bir bağ olduğu izlenimini edindim. Tüm kitap aslında bir nevi inancın ve inançsızlığın, ölüm ile yaşamın, mutluluk ile mutsuzluğun, sevgi ile nefretin ve daha bir sürü karşıt olgunun etrafında şekilleniyor gibiydi: Adolfina, Akıl Hastanesinde kalırken (aslında kalmamış, sadece evinde duran yalnız ve evlenmemiş bir kadın olarak dört duvarın verdiği hissiyat okuyucuya geçirilmek istenmiş) Doktor Goethe'nin o ve feminist arkadaşı Clara Klimt'e dediği gibi, "Siz aslında burada eğleniyorsunuz. Ne delisiniz, ne akıllı. Bir nevi ikisinin ortasındasınız." Bir yandan Adolfina'nın deli olabileceğini düşünürken bir yandan da deliliği sorguluyorsunuz. Ya da rüyaları, imgeleri, gerçekleri... Kitapta dikkatimi çeken sözlerden birisi de şuydu: "Normallik hep aynıdır, ama delilerin delilikleri hep farklıdır." Doğru olduğunu düşünüyorum. Normallik belli bir çerçevenin içinde olmak demektir, oysa delilik o çerçevenin dışındaki tüm alandır.
Sigmund Freud'a gelecek olursam eğer (kendisi Tanrısız Yahudi olarak anılıyor ve Alman sistemine ve insanlarına olan hayranlığı ile biliniyormuş), kitapta onunla ilgili pek fazla açık bilgi yok gibi. Sadece Freud'un saplantılı bir şekilde inandığı şeyleri savunduğunu görebildim. Ve Freud gibi karakterleri mesleği ve yaptıklarıyla özdeşleştirdiğimizi. Sonuçta o da insandı, öyle değil mi?
Kitabı cidden sevdim. Altı çizilesi cümleler vardı içinde. En sevdiğim karakter ise Klara oldu. Kadın hareketine verdiğim önem ile doğru orantılı bu beğeni. Bir de Franz Kafka'nın kız kardeşi Ottla Kafka'yı da kitapta okumak ayrı bir sürpriz oldu zaten.
Kısacası Goce Smilevski'nin, çok sürükleyici olmayan ama bir o kadar merak ettiren, çözümlemeye zorlayan, incelikli, sağlam bir kurgu ile gerçeği birleştirerek bir meraktan yola çıkarak yazdığı romanını oldukça başarılı buldum. Sadece Nazi kamplarındaki çarpıcı sahneler ile birlikte Adolfina'nın sonunun kampta gelmesini de okusaydık kitabın ruhu daha da perçinlenmiş olurdu diye düşündüm. Zira ölüm doğal olduğu gibi zorlayıcıdır da, kimi zaman doğa alır sizleri bu dünyadan kimi zaman da insanlar kendi zalimlikleri ve ölümcül güçleriyle sizin sonunuzu hazırlar.
Kitap benden 4 YILDIZ aldı. Okumanızı tavsiye ediyorum.
Kitap çıktığında merak etmiştim; Sigmund Freud gibi ünlü bir psikoloğun pek de bilinmeyen ailevi hikayesini ele alıyordu. Sigmund Freud, Nazilerden kaçarken neden kızkardeşlerini ardında bırakmıştı? Ya da bunun bir nedeni var mıydı?
Adlofina Freud'un ağzından yazılmış kitap. Adolfina hiç evlenmemiş ve ağabeyi Sigmund ile aralarında garip bir bağ varmış yazılana göre. Öyle ki bu bağın birbirlerinin ruhlarını çözümlemeye çalışan ve birbirlerinde garip bir huzur bulan iki kişinin arasındaki bağ gibi bir bağ olduğu izlenimini edindim. Tüm kitap aslında bir nevi inancın ve inançsızlığın, ölüm ile yaşamın, mutluluk ile mutsuzluğun, sevgi ile nefretin ve daha bir sürü karşıt olgunun etrafında şekilleniyor gibiydi: Adolfina, Akıl Hastanesinde kalırken (aslında kalmamış, sadece evinde duran yalnız ve evlenmemiş bir kadın olarak dört duvarın verdiği hissiyat okuyucuya geçirilmek istenmiş) Doktor Goethe'nin o ve feminist arkadaşı Clara Klimt'e dediği gibi, "Siz aslında burada eğleniyorsunuz. Ne delisiniz, ne akıllı. Bir nevi ikisinin ortasındasınız." Bir yandan Adolfina'nın deli olabileceğini düşünürken bir yandan da deliliği sorguluyorsunuz. Ya da rüyaları, imgeleri, gerçekleri... Kitapta dikkatimi çeken sözlerden birisi de şuydu: "Normallik hep aynıdır, ama delilerin delilikleri hep farklıdır." Doğru olduğunu düşünüyorum. Normallik belli bir çerçevenin içinde olmak demektir, oysa delilik o çerçevenin dışındaki tüm alandır.
Sigmund Freud'a gelecek olursam eğer (kendisi Tanrısız Yahudi olarak anılıyor ve Alman sistemine ve insanlarına olan hayranlığı ile biliniyormuş), kitapta onunla ilgili pek fazla açık bilgi yok gibi. Sadece Freud'un saplantılı bir şekilde inandığı şeyleri savunduğunu görebildim. Ve Freud gibi karakterleri mesleği ve yaptıklarıyla özdeşleştirdiğimizi. Sonuçta o da insandı, öyle değil mi?
Kitabı cidden sevdim. Altı çizilesi cümleler vardı içinde. En sevdiğim karakter ise Klara oldu. Kadın hareketine verdiğim önem ile doğru orantılı bu beğeni. Bir de Franz Kafka'nın kız kardeşi Ottla Kafka'yı da kitapta okumak ayrı bir sürpriz oldu zaten.
Kısacası Goce Smilevski'nin, çok sürükleyici olmayan ama bir o kadar merak ettiren, çözümlemeye zorlayan, incelikli, sağlam bir kurgu ile gerçeği birleştirerek bir meraktan yola çıkarak yazdığı romanını oldukça başarılı buldum. Sadece Nazi kamplarındaki çarpıcı sahneler ile birlikte Adolfina'nın sonunun kampta gelmesini de okusaydık kitabın ruhu daha da perçinlenmiş olurdu diye düşündüm. Zira ölüm doğal olduğu gibi zorlayıcıdır da, kimi zaman doğa alır sizleri bu dünyadan kimi zaman da insanlar kendi zalimlikleri ve ölümcül güçleriyle sizin sonunuzu hazırlar.
Kitap benden 4 YILDIZ aldı. Okumanızı tavsiye ediyorum.
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December 15, 2021Bu romana not vermemin doğru olmayacağını düşündüm; sebebi puan verilemeyecek/vermeye değmeyecek kadar kötü bir kitap olduğunu düşündüğümden değil, biyografik özellikteki bu romanın (roman kurgu olmasına rağmen, yazarın Freud ailesiyle ilgili mutlaka bazı gerçekleri kitapta yansıtacak kadar araştırma yapmış olduğunu varsayıyorum) odağına zorlu/engebeli bir yaşamı almış olmasındandı. Okuduğum bazı yerleri düşündükçe hala "Böyle bir kitabı nasıl beğendiğimi söyleyebilirdim ki?!" veya "Nasıl güzel diyebilirim ki?!" derken buluyorum kendimi. Öte yandan "inanılmaz" da değildi okuduklarım, aksine önceden izlemiş/öğrenmiş olduğum şeyleri de, doğal bir anlatımla barındırıyordu içinde. İşte bunlardı benim gerçekten "ilgiyle" okuduğum bu kitaba puan vermeme sebeplerim. Yoksa oldukça akıcı ve güzel bir dil kullanıldığını inkar edemem kitapta. Sayfaların su olup aktığını ve akarken de bana "farklı hayatları" gösterdiğini söyleyebilirim. 3. bölüme kadar akıcı olduğu kadar oldukça da zor ve yorucu bir okuma gerçekleştirmiş olmam, bunun ve buna bağlı olarak neden "Beğendim." diyemememin sebebi de kitap okunduğunda net bir şekilde anlaşılacaktır zaten.
November 29, 2015
After reading this book, I had to look up Adolfina's real history and found that there isn't one. She's briefly mentioned in Sigmund Freud's Wiki bio and a picture shows a dreamy, weak looking young lady. Not much to go on when writing a book. The author had his work cut out for him.
All in all, this is a depressing book telling a story of a very depressing life. I can only hope that Adolfina's real life was happier than this.
It's almost as if the author has made Adolfina a female Freud, living through the concepts and arguments of Freud's psychological beliefs. I can't say that for certain, not knowing a lot about Freud's beliefs. Throughout the book, the two debate and philosophise about life, meaning and purpose.
There's no joy or happiness in this book. Life is bleak. Yikes!
All in all, this is a depressing book telling a story of a very depressing life. I can only hope that Adolfina's real life was happier than this.
It's almost as if the author has made Adolfina a female Freud, living through the concepts and arguments of Freud's psychological beliefs. I can't say that for certain, not knowing a lot about Freud's beliefs. Throughout the book, the two debate and philosophise about life, meaning and purpose.
There's no joy or happiness in this book. Life is bleak. Yikes!
November 19, 2017
Freud'un kız kardeşi, Freud ve 4 kız kardeşi arasındaki çarpıcı bir hikayeyi anlatıyor. rivayete göre ailesiyle birlikte Hitlerin zulmünden kaçarken bakıcıları, doktorlarını, köpeğini, baldızını, dıdısının dıdısı uzak akrabalarını bile yanına alan Freud kız kardeşlerini Nazi işkencesinin ortasında bırakmış. hikayeyi Freud'a en yakın olan kız kardeş Adolfina küçüklüklerinden itibaren anlatıyor. çocukluk travmalarını ve sancılarını, bunların hayata etkilerini, yaşlılığı, hayatı ve vicdanı çarpıcı bir şekilde anlatan çok gerçekçi bir eser.
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June 19, 2012The author came to Brussels last week and was asked questions on why he choose for this topic. He was intrigued he said by the question : why Freud did not put his four sisters on the list of people he could take with him to London. To write this book he took seven years to read many letters Freud wrote to his family and colleagues and went through lots of archives to get a picture of the time and on psychoanalysis as well.
February 12, 2022
عندي كلام كتير عايز اقوله عن الكتاب دة .. بس معتقدش انه هيوفي حقه.
أنا سعيد اني قريته .. وممتن للصدفة اللي خلتني أختاره عشوائياً في معرض الكتاب .. وباعتبره من أفضل ما قرأت ف حياتي
أنا سعيد اني قريته .. وممتن للصدفة اللي خلتني أختاره عشوائياً في معرض الكتاب .. وباعتبره من أفضل ما قرأت ف حياتي
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