Dream Story |
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Arthur Schnitzler
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Pages: 128 (Paperback)
ISBN: 0141182245
Pub: Penguin Classics
Pub date: 1999-07-01
Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 206220
Reader Reviews:
Are our truths stranger then our fiction??? (11/15 people found this helpful)
I have to say that, having read this after watching Eyes Wide Shut, I wasn't expecting to like this as I hadn't loved the movie. Yet on reading this beautiful novella, I wonder what Stanly Krubrik was doing mucking about with it. The story may have been set in the past, and therefore I can understand the idea of bringing it into modern times to make it more accessable to this generation, but this original story is absolutely beautiful. The original imagery of turn of the century Vienna adds to the underlying romance of the story, and Krubrick edited out a vital part of the story - that the Wife was not the only one to have nearly been tempted to stray from the realationship - the husband (or shall we say Tom Cruise!!!) also admits to having been tempted to - which puts a whole new spin on the story and adds another dimension, as you can understand why both are suffering frustrations. Instead of a Tom Cruise type moping around New York imaging what his wife might have done, you see why the husband has to deal with such inner torment - because HE as much as his wife has been tempted to stray, and therefore that brings into question the strength of their union, which causes the doubt. Like real marriage, this isn't just a one sided story - their are other undertones, some sininster, some not so. While SK made a good film in itself with EYES WIDE SHUT, I would like to meet a director brave enough to film DREAM STORY in its entirity as it was originally written set in Vienna. That would be truly something !!! Truly magical!!! Truly beautiful...
Truly A Dream Story... (2/3 people found this helpful)
»Traumnovelle« is the book on which the fantastic film »Eyes Wide Shut« is based. It is written as early as in 1926, and it does not take place in New York but in Vienna.
A VERY beautifully written short story which is much more a poetic dream journey than an erotic story. Very interesting book!
Schnitzler, you're no Kubrick (3/19 people found this helpful)
Anyone who claims to have heard of this book other than through Kubrick's film "Eyes Wide Shut" is most likely lying. It's an unremarkable novella (it's really short - a page shy of 100 pages) and its author, Schnitzler, was a member of Freud's circle in Vienna in the early part of last century. That, so far as I can tell, would be his only claim to fame. Were it not for Kubrick's film, there almost certainly would not be a penguin edition (i.e. "first published 1926, this edition 1999"). The plot of "Eyes Wide Shut" is a very close lift, but the film works in subtexts, rationales, themes and dramatic tension which Schnitzler completely fails to exploit. What is remarkable is that Kubrick can have been so perspicacious to see as clever a film as "Eyes Wide Shut" is such an ordinary book. The characterisation is wafer thin and the plot makes unreasonable demands of credulity. Well, it does of mine, anyway. Plus points: the Penguin translation's pretty good, and it'll be all over an hour after you've started. But if you're looking for something to curl up with on the Orient Express, think again.
a brilliant novella (5/7 people found this helpful)
I really enjoyed this book (unfortunately a translation, but quite a good one). It's a good story, exploring a variety of themes from rejection to fidelity. It is set in turn of the century Vienna, and one definitely feels the atmosphere of decline that Austro-Hungary was experiencing. I thought the movie Eyes Wide Shut was fantastic, but it seems even better now that I have read this book, which Kubrick transposed very accurately into turn of the century New York.
Excellent, let down by translation. (5/7 people found this helpful)
Dream Story is a delicate and tender book, although not quite as erotic as some have suggested. The translation is at times poor, with some rather awkward and cack-handed prose.
It is a fascinating work, exploring deeply a lifetime's insecurities, fantasies and desires over a hundred pages.
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Categories
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