by Frank Tallis
Bloch recalled visiting Freud and, when left alone, taking the opportunity to examine the great man’s books. What he saw was quite remarkable. In Freud’s library was a large collection of Judaica, now absent from official collections and registers. Among these books were several volumes on kabbalah and a French translation of the Zohar (perhaps the most important work of Jewish mysticism).
In subsequent editions of Bakan’s book, he introduced a new preface, and a paragraph that explains the significance of his discovery with particular reference to the Zohar:
It is without question the most important work in the Jewish mystical tradition. A number of features in the Zohar strongly suggest relationship to the psychoanalytic movement—among them the concept of man’s bisexuality, and concepts of sexuality in general. There is also in the Zohar the notion that man can be studied by the exegetical techniques associated with the study of Torah; and a theory of the nature of anti-Semitism almost identical with that contained in Freud’s Moses and Monotheism. Perhaps even more important, there is an atmospheric similarity—one which cannot indeed, be conveyed in any brief description.
Freud was anxious to be seen as a scientist and spent most his life distancing himself from religion. It is the greatest of ironies then that this supposedly rational, irreligious man might have been influenced by not just spiritual texts but spiritual texts of a mystical nature. If we accept Bloch’s testimony, and with it Bakan’s thesis, then psychoanalysis might be described as a late kabbalistic school of thought, which makes Freud not a scientist but a closet kabbalist: the last great mage of the Jewish mystical tradition.
I like the idea of Freud poring over his secret collection of magic books. It is a romantic and fitting image. One is reminded of the Talmudic legend of the lamed vavniks, the righteous men. At any given time there are thirty-six righteous men living in the world whose good deeds stop the world from ending. They accomplish their work in secret and are never rewarded. When one dies, another is born. And so it goes on from generation to generation: thirty-six anonymous Jews, standing—thanklessly—between civilization and ruin.
Frank Tallis
London, 2009
Sources
Bakan, David. Sigmund Freud and the Jewish Mystical Tradition (with a new preface by the author). New York: Schocken Books, 1965.
Freud, Martin. Glory Reflected: Sigmund Freud—Man and Father. London: Angus and Robertson, 1957.
Klein, Dennis B. Jewish Origins of the Psychoanalytic Movement. New York: Praeger, 1981.
FRANK TALLIS is a practicing clinical psychologist and an expert in obsessional states. He is the author of A Death in Vienna, Vienna Blood, and Fatal Lies, as well as seven nonfiction books on psychology and two previous novels, Killing Time and Sensing Others. He is the recipient of a Writers’ Award from the Arts Council England and the New London Writers Award from the London Arts Board. A Death in Vienna was short-listed for the 2005 Crime Writers’ Association Historical Dagger Award. Tallis lives in London.
Vienna Secrets is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblence to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Random House Trade Paperback Original
Copyright © 2009 by Frank Tallis
Dossier copyright © 2010 by Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Random House Trade Paperbacks, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
RANDOM HOUSE TRADE PAPERBACKS and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc. MORTALIS and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Originally published in the United Kingdom by Arrow Books, an imprint of The Random House Group, Ltd., in 2009.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Tallis, Frank.
Vienna Secrets : a Max Liebermann mystery / Frank Tallis.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-1-58836-944-4
1. Liebermann, Max (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Psychoanalysts—Fiction.
3. Police—Austria—Vienna—Fiction. 4. Vienna (Austria)—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6120.A44F38 2009
823′.92—dc22 2008023474
www.mortalis-books.com
v3.0
Table of Contents
Cover
Other Books by this Author
Title Page
Dedication
Part One - The Breaking of the Vessels
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Part Two - The Tree of Life
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Part Three - Prague
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Part Four - The Vienna Golden
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Acknowledgment and Sources
Freud’s Secret Books
Sources
About the Author
Copyright