The whole time I was reading, I couldn't help but think of Kundera's superior "The Unbearable Lightness of Being." This is an imaginative, alternative, plausible history in which Nietzsche creates Freud's Talking Cure (Freud is a character in this book, but he never meets Nietzsche). The book is written by a psychotherapist, not a professional novelist. And that shows. He's not concerned with creating a work of literature as such. And that's the weakness of the book as a book. In Kundera, Nietzschean ideas are manifest in the very form of the book. They have an affecting role to play in the experience of "Eternal Return" (the most obvious example). This novel is in the realist tradition of the Victorian novel. It's interesting and thought provoking--though I will say the most interesting part to me was the Afterward, but one does have to read the entire novel to get the full effect out of that. Anyone with any interest in Nietzsche's life and thought and the whole, bizarre story, that connects Nietzsche to Freud via Lou Andreas Salome will find this story worth the time it takes to read it. The emphasis in the end is more on the Freudian legacy than the Nietzschean philosophy, which I find disappointing personally, for whatever that's worth. Still very glad I read the book. But if it's a choice between this or Kundera, read Kundera.
