Magnificent experience

Irvin Shalom is a consummate humanist. I benefit from his intelligence and humanity. Enjoy this rate sharing of honesty.

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Excellent author, but be warned

This book made my stomach churn. The first few hours were cringeworthy, hard to get through. The lack of a solid perspective made me feel powerless, frustrated, and at times, bored, as a reader. If that was the point, chapeau. In any case, at least to me, it's missing the empathy and heart of therapy that made me fall in love Yalom's work in the first place.

The characters are expertly crafted, and I'd expect no less from a guy like Irvin Yalom, but their delivery lacks something for me. Nuanced and complex as they may be, they don't seem to have enough charm nor chemistry to make for dynamic reading. Listening to them feels dry, like we're told of these people instead of them coming alive.

You could argue that it gets better, but I'm 6 hours in and I'm neither hooked, entertained, nor invested, which is honestly a shame. The book's first five hours are essentially the first act, and everything feels bloated and/or stuffed with detours. The minute I get inticed by some kind of developpment, the pace screeches to a halt and I lose interest. The only reason I kept reading/listening in the first few hours was just because there was more book, never out of curiosity or excitement.

The novel is psychologically compelling, that's for sure, but it's bit of a narrative mess filled with "and then" plot points. We're not given the opportunity to be distracted by a set of interesting threads; I didn't get the impression that Dr.Yalom wrote this novel with the reader's pondering in mind. It's all tell, no show, and you end up bored and taskless thanks to an omniscient writting perspective that insists on covering every possibly interesting detail of everything before letting it play out in the narrative. Thus, the depth feels superficial; you never have to work for any information and the impact of character decisions lack the flair you'd need to wonder what they'll do next. There's no room for mystery.

Maybe it's just not for me; it's getting lots of praise, so I might just be approaching it with the wrong mindset. Maybe, since it's fiction, I expected much more flavour, a faster pace, a story that hid its cards instead of spelling out everything for you. Or, maybe I have a negative bias towards overt sexualization. Then again, I don't think anyone's ready to hear things like: "while her doctor cupped her buttocks with his frosty hands and, with joyless, putrid grunts, thrust into her the sexual affirmation he insisted she needed".

I'll still recommend it, though. It's a good book, sometimes funny, sometimes insightful, but sometimes a little pompous if we're being honest, and maybe not my cup of tea. I just wish it were different, edited and harshly trimmed, but I'm not the author, and I'm sure he'd stand by his work. I recommend you dip your toes in and see how you like it yourself (maybe skip the Seymour story and come back to it later). Good luck!

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