Very hard book to find, I found it in a collection of Schnitzer's short stories Night Games and Other Stories which is the easiest way to access it. It's tragic that the novel is so obscure despite the well known movie that is based on it Eyes Wide Shut, the last film Stanley Kubrick directed.
The obscurity of the source of what is known to us (Eyes Wide Shut) is the theme of Dream Story, or Traum Novelle. The real world exists deep in our unconscious unknown to reason, but which manifests itself in our actions, like dreams. This sounds Freudian because it essentially is. Freud wrote to Schnitzer saying that he in fiction had discovered what had taken him, Freud, years of psychological research.
The book pretty much follows the film except some minor alterations, like time period location and character names and totally different endings. But in both the theme is dissatisfaction as the ruler of life. It is the striving toward pleasure that animates us, its never being achieved is what keeps us going. It is the insatiable will to live which left unchecked leaves us to destruction. We have to learn to live with it. The protagonist learns this after trying to regain his lost passion from a passionless marriage getting involved in sexual escapades which only deepen his desires. He through his judgement, ego, and through the prodding of the secret society after him, the superego, in unison restrain his id and return him to a balance of desire and stability with his family.
I loved this book because it expressed why I read books. I wish to gain what I don't have in life by getting it through others. But I don't quite get it, whatever that longing is, and keep on reading.
Very Promethean. The drive toward self knowledge is what destroys motivates and torments us.
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