98 Reasons for Being

by Clare Dudman

Book Overview

Novelist Clare Dudman, whose work has earned comparisons to Andrea Barrett and Barry Lopez, is that rare kind of author who can bring history dramatically to life. Here she conjures up the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 067003424X
• ISBN13: 9780670034246
• Release Date: July 2005
• Publisher: Viking Books
• Length: 342 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.8" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

A moving and richly human novel of depth and understanding

A moving and richly human novel of depth and understanding, at once a psychological and a historical novel. Claire Dudman offers an original and offbeat perspective of life in a Frankfurt assylum in the 1850s. A Jewish girl, Hannah Meyer, labelled as a nymphomaniac, is admitted to a Frankfurt insane assylum , in a deep and extremely debilitating state of melancholia. Dr Heinrich Hoffman, a Frankfurt physician who runs the sanatorium, and also the well known author of the book of children's poems known as Sturmwetpeter, undertakes to treat her, all treatments fail until Dr Hoffman patiently talks to her about his own life and patiently coaxes, slowly coaxes her out of her crippling melancholic state and teaches her to talk and respond again. Her own inner thoughts and recounting of her own inner thoughts are recounted in italics, used in an intelligent and pertinent way. Deeply in love with a German gentile who woos her and secretly marries her, and then cruelly spurns her, with strong anti-Semitic words, this incident has brought on her depressive state. The novel also focuses on the staff and other inmates of the asylum. The novel also focuses on the staff and other inamtes of the assylum. It is at once a window into 19th century Germany, the progressive thinking of Dr Hoffman, the inner world of the mentally ill and the anti-Semitism of the time. An evocative novel despair and hope, love and cruelty, and ultimately the search for purpose and the reason for being, hence the name 98 reasons for being.

Intricate & intelligent

This novel is not quick to read, and not a book that you can't put down. The story is intelligent and intricate, the details are not laid out simply, but sometimes need to be processed, through the reading. The intricacy and the multiple first person narratives reminded me of Faulkner. I think the author did a great job of bringing a time period, subject matter, and characters to life.

Complex and satisfying

After the first several pages, I almost gave up. Reading italics seems so gimicky and needless. But no - it's a sly and clever way to make you see the story from two points of view, the doctor's and the patient's. The time period is interesting, the characters are interesting, the plot, while simple enough, has a true feeling. I would slow down, savor this, enjoy.