Thoughts on Irvin Yalom’s The Spinoza Problem

Spinoza

In The Spinoza Problem, Irvin Yalom contrasts the courage and confidence of Spinoza with the insecurity and pettiness of Alfred Rosenberg. Spinoza’s curiosity took him beyond his cultural and customs, and even his community when he was ex-communicated. Yet, his freedom to think his own thoughts brought him joy unspeakable. On the other hand, Rosenberg, through he sought to create a ideology of the master race, of which he was a member, his emotions rose and falls through others’ view of him. In particular, he sought the approval and praise of Hitler, but the latter only used him and never respected him. And members of Hitler’s inner circle shunned and scorned Rosenberg. Both Spinoza and Rosenberg left their marks in history, one leading latter generations to rise above superstition and muddled thinking, the other contributing to the death of millions. History can judge them by the fruits they bore. 

The Nuremberg Trial

Knut Hamsun's Hunger: A Psychological Novel

In Knut Hamsun's Hunger, the narrator and protagonist roams the streets of Kristiania (Oslo) and searches for food and later lodging. A writer of questionable success, he submits his writings to a journal but rarely gets the story accepted. Without money, he often doesn't eat for days.

As we read the novel, we dwell into the mind occasionally delusion of a man trying to maintain his dignity in poverty. Though he had no food, he gives money to children and vagrants. And though he fancies a girl, he feels unworthy of her. His unstable state of mind reminds us of Raskolnikov in Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. And indeed, Hunger is as much a psychological novel as Dostoyevsky's classic work but it dwells into the unstable mind in greater details.

Kristiania (Oslo)

Through the novel, Hamsun comments on Oslo's coming of age and on civilization crossing into the twentieth century. The narrator's interactions with others reveal the alienation in a modern city. His plight and despair, and his suffering and struggles are those of modern men and women. In the end, he leaves Kristiania, a symbol of his escaping from the modern life.

Knut Hansum

Hunger is a powerful tale of the currents of history sweeping individuals off their grounds of existence and tossing them into an ocean of despair. Even now, more than a hundred years later, we confront similar challenges and the novel remains relevant. The question was and is: how shall we respond to such challenges?

Dennis Lehane's Shutter Island

Teddy Daniels goes to Shutter Island to locate Rachel Solando, a psychiatric patient in Ashecliffe Hospital who has disappeared from a guarded cell. No one knows how she escaped and no one knows where she could be. Teddy suspects the staff conspired to make her disappear but they wouldn’t let him review the patient list. When he keeps finding cryptic codes, he suspects the hospital is experimenting on the psychotic criminals by operating on their brains. But nothing is what it seems. Soon, he cannot distinguish between reality and illusion. The doctors there begin to imply that he may be insane.

Shutter Island is a page-turner of a novel. Nothing is what it seems and the boundary between reality and illusion blurs. Did Rachel Solando really escaped? Who is leaving the code for Teddy? Is the hospital operating on the patients to eliminate their violence? Is Teddy going insane? The truth is a surprising twist and the reader will enjoy the ride.

Dennis Lehane

Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment Book Review

An idea possesses Raskolnikov. He believes there are supermen, Newton’s and Napoleon’s, who transcend ordinary men and women, who can act without moral constraint to judge evil and levy punishment, and to determine whether he belongs to this superior race, he kills the greedy and usurious pawn-broker. But unlike Napoleon in Austerlitz he doesn't execute his plan coldly and tactically. Rather, he nauseatingly dreams his way into a double murder, the pawnbroker’s sister having returned because he tarried. And, the sight of blood terrifies him to the extend his hands could not stop trembling. He discovers that he isn't upright or courageous, that he could not transcend the law, and that he is just a louse, a member of the inferior class. 

Crime and Punishment showcases Raskolnikov’s contradictory actions and emotions and reveals a split psyche fighting for wholeness. He despises others but dreams about saving the world. After reading his mother’s letter about his sister’s misfortune, he sheds tears but also sneers. He gives the little he has to help the Marmeladovs but then regrets helping them. He kills the pawnbroker to prove an idea but takes her money and valuables. He avoids the head detective Porfiry’s questions in the first interview but in the second falls upon the man. The psychological tensions grasp the reader and move the story forward.

Raskolnikov’s punishment begins not in Siberia after the verdict, but immediately after killing the pawnbroker, his irritability, nervousness, suspicion, delusion, and mania tormenting an already fragile psyche, not allowing him to eat, drink, sleep, work or socialize, and pressing him to hide in his coffin-like apartment trying to curl up under his blanket, feverish and delusional and escape from reality. His conscience torments and implicates him even before the law does so. Only through Sonya’s help and guidance could he find strength to confess his crime.

This novel’s conclusion reveals that Dostoyevsky rejected any social system that tries to replace the jagged path of life with linear reason and save people from their predicament. Although his moral heavy-handedness in Raskolnikov’s repentance and redemption seemed to scar the artistry of the mental battle, Crime and Punishment is psychological novel at its best.