Dream Story (Green Integer) - Softcover

Schnitzler, Arthur

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1931243484 ISBN 13: 9781931243483

Publisher: Green Integer, 2021

Synopsis

A married couple, Fridolin and Albertina, are troubled by events and jealous of each other’s attentions the night before at a masquerade ball. Suddenly, Fridolin, a doctor, is summoned to the bedside of a dying man, an elderly councilor, whose daughter he finds attractive and vaguely sensual. So begins a series of involvements throughout the night in increasingly dangerous and deviant sexual adventures for Fridolin, who, taken by a friend to a “secret” party, is forced to make more choices that seemingly are beyond his control. The dream-like events are rendered more frighteningly real through Schnitzler’s powerfully detailed descriptions, as little by little Fridolin gives in to the demands of the secret celebrants. Do these represent real acts, or is the very fact that he imagines them enough to symbolize his moral decay? Schnitzler gives no answer, but Fridolin himself comes to realize that “No dream is entirely a dream.”

Dream Story, first published in 1926, was adapted into a film by Stanley Kubrick called Eyes Wide Shut (1999), starring Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise. In this superb translation, we recognize the full force of Arthur Schnitzler’s masterwork.

About this title

About the Author:

The extraordinary Viennese writer Arthur Schnitzler (1862-19310) was born in Vienna, the son of a prominent Jewish laryngologist, Schnitzler studies medicine at Vienna University but soon abandoned medicine for writing. From 1895 he attracted public attention as a dramatist. Concentrating on sex and death, his work shows a remarkable capacity to create atmosphere and to pursue profound, ruthless and often Freudian analysis of human motives.

From Publishers Weekly:

This reprint of a 1927 American edition gives a new generation of English-speaking readers the opportunity to discover the Viennese novelist and dramatist's (1862-1931) haunting erotic fantasy, which blends dreams and reality. Summoned to a patient's bedside, Fridolin, a physician, begins a night-long journey through events in which he is merely an ineffectual observer. Finding his patient dead, Fridolin wanders the streets, is insulted by a student and responds aggressively--in his imagination. He meekly follows a prostitute to her rooms, but is frozen by fear. Entering a bizarre costume party uninvited and arrogantly challenging a guest to a duel, he is saved by an anonymous woman who buys his freedom with her life. Returning home, Fridolin wakes his wife, Albertina, who describes her own adventure, a dream in which the ever-faithful Fridolin is crucified while she laughs at his horrible death. Schnitzler's characters ultimately return from these sleeping and waking "dreams," but the daily routine in which they take refuge is shown to be a veneer, pasted over the unresolved, unsettling problems that color this portrait of the soul's double
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Green Integer
• Publication date: 2021
• ISBN 10: 1931243484
• ISBN 13: 9781931243483
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 131