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Title: Lying on the Couch : A Novel by Irvin D. Yalom ISBN: 0-06-092851-4 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 27 August, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.35 (26 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: YOU COULD FINISH THIS BOOK IN ONE COUCH SESSION!
Comment: I really enjoyed the dynamics of this book and appreciated the easy writting style! It was a great change of pace from the literature and classics that I usually read with out being overly soap-operish. I thought that the book intuitvley explored relationships at many dimensions and in many situations. It was an interesting point that the best of the best can so easily decieved. I have often wondered if a therapist would know if a patient was lying or not. I thought the book was well written and easy to get into. I don't think there was anyone that could not relate to one of the many characters at some level. I liked how, in every person, the good and bad sides of that character were revealed. The book was pretty rivoting and susspenceful, though I thought that one of the characters we had grown to know and love would somehow come out to be the villan- and that was a little dissapointing- but overall- I really enjoyed this book. It was great to bring the revered 'doctors' down to our level to realize that they really aren't too much different from the people that come to them for help!
Rating: 5
Summary: Truly a masterpiece!
Comment: This book is awesome. If you have ever wondered what it feels like to be in therapy, here is your answer. This book gives you the inside information about the problems that faces both the therapeut and the pasient. Besides that it is written in a manner that intertwines the characters involved. We hear about his patients, and the next you know he is the husband of another of his patients, or the wife of the therapists advisor. The complications that this causes makes it into a humoristic book unlike anything I have ever read.
And the title alone, lying on the couch, is exceptional. It is the first clue into this naive therapist that truly believes that no one could lie to him. He is a good therapist, but he can't see this. So the conclusion is that the therapist, who thinks he can see what's going on, isn't much closer to the truth than the rest of his patients. And that's what makes this book so amusing.
This is a must read for anyone that has been in therapy, or are thinking about going there. And for everyone else that wants to know what it is like. If you're in for a laugh, run to the store and add this book to your collection. I promise you it will be worth it!
Rating: 3
Summary: Flawed Sleight of Hand
Comment: As an aspiring novelist (with three novels waiting in the wings for publication) I always read contemporary works mindful of what elements are evident that may have factored into getting them published. With Yalome's opus, Lying on the Couch, one element is its slick style. The sentence structures are efficient, and the progression within each chapter impeccable, with a feel of rightness and authorial confidence.
Aside from these positive aspects of the author's style, I have to as well admire his skill in weaving the characters and plots with an almost Dostyevskian genius.
Yet, a few things trouble me, and they all relate to the positive criticisms above. Though Yalome writes with great efficiency within sentence structures and individual chapters, the progression among the chapters (especially involving the Carolyn/Ernest and Marshall/Macando plots) drudge along at a dreary pace, despite the whole book being a mere 370 pps.--a novella by Dostoyevski's measure. Many times, while reading these plots, my mind broiled into an insane froth: "Get to the bloody point, man!" This makes the rather forced and unlikely ending that much more unsatisfying. (I mean, really, why would an avaricious psychiatrist who just DAYS BEFORE had his ego thoroughly bruised by a swindler agree to send money to someone he hasn't even met? And why would this same arrogant psychoanalyst then suddenly condescend to seeking psychotherapy from a lawyer, especially after the innumerable passages that established him as a rather shallow, extremely predictable, by-the-book, orthodox Freudian? These questions never get satisfactorially answered.)
I recognize how Yalome probes into some deep issues involving truth and compassion (as it pertains to the questionable "science" of psychoanalysis), but there's never an attempt at the universal; instead we have a cop-out ending, and a mundane one at that. In the end, while I respect many elements of his writing style (eg - his daring in using the word "pusillanimous"), and envy the fact that he has been published, I can't help the feeling that I have used the finest, polished silverware to consume a Snicker bar.
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Title: When Nietzsche Wept: A Novel of Obsession by Irvin D. Yalom ISBN: 0060975504 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 04 August, 1993 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Love's Executioner : & Other Tales of Psychotherapy by Irvin D. Yalom ISBN: 0060958340 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 05 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Momma and the Meaning of Life : Tales of Psychotherapy by Irvin D. Yalom ISBN: 0060958383 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 October, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Gift of Therapy : An Open Letter to a New Generation of Therapists and Their Patients by Irvin Yalom ISBN: 0060938110 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 07 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Every Day Gets a Little Closer: A Twice-Told Therapy by Irvin D. Yalom, Ginny Elkin ISBN: 0465021182 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: November, 1990 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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