Published originally in the PANY Bulletin, summer 2010
I came across a relatively new mystery series, written by a clinical psychologist from London, which takes place in fin de siècle Vienna and has as its primary protagonist a young psychiatrist, Max Lieberman, who is a disciple of Freud. Along with his friend, Oscar Reinhardt, a more conventional detective, Max uses his Freudian attention to detail and meaning in a Holmesian manner to solve crimes.
And there are other pleasures as well. The author, Frank Tallis, researches his subject well, something he documents at the end of each book, so as to allow us to spend some pleasant hours in the Vienna of Freud, listening to music, tasting pastries and generally touring both the middle class and lower class haunts of the city. Sample these excerpts from the opening pages of the first book, Death in Vienna:
“He looked down at the menu again: dobostorte,guglhupf,linzertorte. The Chopinmazurka ended on a loud minor chord, and a ripple of applause passed through the café audience. Encouraged, the pianist played a glittering arpeggio figure on the upper keys, under which he introduced the melody of a
popular waltz.” (p. 6)
Or, a little later, after Max has ordered rehrucken and his father, Mendel has ordered topfenstrudel, “Mendel looked enviously at his son’s gateau, a large glazed chocolate spongecake shaped like a saddle of deer, filled with apricot jam and studded with almonds. His own order was less arresting, being a simple pastry filled with sweet curd cheese.”
In that same opening scene, Freud enters the café, causing Mendel to complain about his shameless writings on sexuality. He had met Freud at his B’nai B’rith lodge.
The music lover will find plenty to enjoy here. Max and Oscar like to spend evenings with Max on the piano and Oscar singing in his strong baritone voice, after which they discuss a case. The musical director at the opera house is Mahler, who makes a cameo appearance in one of the books. The plot of the second book in the series features a well known opera. But the reader with less technical knowledgeableabout music, like myself, will not be frustrated.
Tallis writes about music, pastry or psychoanalysis with an inviting vitality. We even get interesting glimpses into the politics of the time. I found it fascinating, depicted in little references throughout the
books, that the Austro-Hungarian Emperor, Franz Josef takes on the role of a liberal tyrant, forcing his recalcitrant subjects and functionaries to exhibit tolerance to minorities and to maintain liberal principles of education and government. I found it odd reading about the enforcement of liberalism by an absolute tyrant, capable of making and breaking lives.
The plots also concern themselves with the growing brutalities and prejudices of the culture as it begins to move, in some circles, towards Fascism and Nazism.
But at the heart of the stories is psychoanalysis. Again from the first book, Death inVienna, Max tries to teach psychoanalytic principles about hysteria to his young, naïve fiancée, Clara.
“In a way … you’re right,” said Lieberman. His words were almost lost in the din of cutlery, conver-sation and piano music. “She is pretending. But not to us. She’s pretending to herself.” Swallowing quickly, Clara retorted, “Maxim, how can you pretend to yourself—you’d know you were pretending!”
“Well, that depends on how you think about the mind,” Lieberman replied. “What if the mind is not one thing—but two? What if the mind has a conscious region and an unconscious region? Then it might be possible for memories in the unconscious to influence the body without the conscious mind knowing anything about those memories. If this is
how the mind works, then when she says she can’t move her arm, she’s telling the truth. She really can’t.”
“But she can move her arm!” said Clara again, a hint of genuine frustration entering her voice.
“No,” said Lieberman firmly, “she can’t. There is a part of her mind—the unconscious part—that can move her arm. But that is not the part of her mind that corresponds with her daily thoughts, emotions, and perceptions.”(p. 107)
In the second book, Max is invited to a meeting of Freud’s Wednesday Evening group and we with him. He presents a case of a young man with manic depressive disorder who has delusions that he is destined to marry a member of the royal family. Max’s presentation follows one by Stekel.
Reading the books, I found myself humbled by Max’s attention to analytic detail. Having the advantage of being a fictional character, Max can make his Freudian observations with Holmesian certainty and always turn out right.
He is continually amazing Oscar by telling him the nature of the case that Oscar is worried about based upon a parapraxis concerning the music they are playing together. At times, though, Max really did put me to shame as in this dream interpretation from the third book, Fatal Lies. Lieberman asks a young woman, a schoolteacher’s wife, about her dreams and coaxes her to report a dream.
“I dreamed that I went to the theater with my husband. … One side of the stalls was empty. My husband told me Marianne and her fiancé had wanted to go too-“
“Marianne?”
“Afriend.”
“An old friend?”
“Yes, we grew up together. As a matter of fact, I got a letter from her yesterday, which contained some very important news. She has just got engaged to a lieutenant in the uhlans.”
“Go on.”
“Where was I? Oh yes … Marianne and her fiancé had wanted to go too, but only cheap seats—costing eight hellers—were available, so they didn’t take them. But I thought it wouldn’t have been so bad if they had.”(p. 115)
As the dialogue continues, Lieberman asks for her associations to the half empty stalls, getting the response,
“Now that you mention it, yes. Just after Christmas, I wanted to see a play—a comedy—at the Volkstheatre. I had bought tickets for this play very early. So early, in fact, that I had to pay an extra booking fee. When we got to the Volkstheater, it turned out that I needn’t have bothered—one side of the theater was half empty. My husband kept on teasing me for having been in such a hurry.”
“And the sum of eight hellers—is that associated with some memory of a real event?”
“Not eight hellers, but eight kronen. The maid was recently given a present of eight kronen by an admirer. She immediately rushed off to Vienna to buy some jewelry.” (p. 116)
Later, Max gives Oscar his interpretation that she is regretting her marriage, explaining that Freud says dreams are often a reaction to something from the previous day. In this case,
“Frau Becker, who only yesterday received a letter from Marianne, an old friend, containing news of her engagement to an excellent prospective husband—a dashing young officer. Acommon factor linking much of the material that surfaced in her dream—albeit in the form of distortions—was haste. You will recall that Frau Becker purchased her theater tickets far too early, and the maid hurried into town to spend her eight kronen. Taken together, I would suggest that these elements express the following sentiments: It was stupid of me to marry in a hurry. I can now see from Marianne’s example that I could have got a better husband if I had waited.” (pp. 117-118)
I should say that some of my embarrassment at having missed the interpretation was ameliorated when I later learned that Tallis had taken this dream, essentially, from one of Freud’s published lectures.
And, oh yes, there are the mysteries. The first book is a classic locked room mystery with an extra twist. The second involves a series of murders suggesting a pathological serial killer. I found the third plot the most interesting of the three. Book four (Vienna Secrets), which came to the U.S. recently, involves a series of murders harkening to the myth of the golem.
Tallis includes some historical commentary at the end of each book. The commentary at the end of the first book starts with one of Freud’s cases from Studies in Hysteria.
And I have not included Max’s own complicated love life, which evolves from book to book.
The books are delectably long enough so that you can sink into them without fear of having your journey end prematurely. If there is a weakness, there are coincidences that are occasionally too obvious and Max’s certainty defies clinical logic, but who cares! Oh, and keep a dictionary nearby. Tallis seems to revel in the little used word.
Death in Vienna (2007)
Vienna Blood (2007)
Fatal Lies (2008)
Vienna Secrets (2010)
All published by Random House for the United States
(Published in Great Britain under different titles. The fifth book is already out in Europe and should be here in the near future.)