The Spinoza Problem: A Novel

I find this book interesting in depicting scenes of mental interactions which drives physical actions of individuals who had bold signatures in human history. Spinoza positive, Rosenberg negative. My take is how impactful these personalities have been in opposite directions of human intellect. This book is also a good window in Judaism practices.

Like the shuffling of a deck of cards, chapters of Irv Yalom's The Spinoza Problem alternate between the life stories of the 17th century Jewish philosopher, Spinoza and the anti-Semitic, Alfred Rosenberg - while integrating the intersecting plane of their existence. We begin our journey meeting the young Spinoza, who resides in Amsterdam and works as a simple shopkeeper just blocks from Rembrandt's home. Through his truth-seeking, rationally-focused lens, the introspective, young Bento Spinoza spends his time in contemplation, rotating questions in space to disclose every conceivable angle; of particular interest, the "madness of religion." Early on in the story, Spinoza becomes a teacher to Franco who is allegedly in existential crisis. Spinoza, loving the chance to "express aloud the arguments he had been constructing," spends hours talking with Franco and his cousin Jacob about such things as the use of "metaphor in religion, and challenging the notion that God would have needs." Spinoza explains why " he thinks God is Nature and Nature is God," and points out, one day while speaking to Franco and Jacob about reconciling inconsistencies in religious text, that, "No rational person could imagine that a divine omniscient author deliberately wrote with the object of contradicting himself freely." I loved that line. Unfortunately for Spinoza, there is great deceit. And, subsequently, Spinoza, "accused of insolence and injury," is issued cherem and excommunicated by the Jewish superiors to live out his life in isolation. (Not a terrible turn of events for a philosopher). Throughout the novel, Irv Yalom - a gifted psychotherapist as well as magnificent writer, weaves into the pages' very fiber, a plethora of existential issues common to the human condition such as isolation, meaninglessness, and freedom - drawing the reader in to observe, learn, puzzle, and ponder, and possibly, find deep comfort in the wisdom and sanity of Spinozan Philosophy.The disturbing story of Rosenberg and his Spinoza problem, interspersed between the Spinoza chapters, brings a different type of tension and complexity. The German, Alfred Rosenberg, described while a young man as being "mechanical and remote," was a troubled individual. When the 16 year old Alfred, leaking severely anti-Semitic views in a class speech, is issued a graduation task by his superiors to read, write, and memorize Goethe's references to Spinoza - the great Jewish Philosopher, he is overwhelmed with an irreconcilable conflict that will vex him over the entire course of his life. Despite a less than stellar appreciation of the headmaster's task -to appreciate and understand the brilliant philosophical work of a Jew-and still "thoroughly taken by Chamberlain's racist view...after all, what adolescent would not purr to learn he is of superior stock," Alfred is permitted to graduate, so erroneously pegged as a "man with neither the intelligence nor fortitude to cause mischief by swaying others to his way of thinking" (he goes on to aide Hitler). What stayed with and fueled the seething Jew-hater, Alfred, was the dissonance between Goethe and Spinoza. Alfred, "believing deeply in his races superiority, attributing it to the development of civilization back to ancient times," cannot, for the life of him, accept that a Jew could have written works so greatly revered by the greatest of German thinkers, including his hero, the immortal Goethe. As we cycle through the years with Rosenberg, along with his unending quest to unravel the Spinoza Problem, we watch as he develops into an increasingly "narrow-minded, dangerous, insufferable man" bent on getting the attention and acclamation that only Hitler can provide. As years progress Alfred develops and suffers more and more with depression. Later in Alfred's life, there's a new twist to the story when he encounters a psychiatrist that he knew as a child. A glimpse of hope develops that he may become enlightened, cured and break free of his illness. While I think all of Irv Yalom's works of fiction and non-fiction are either directly or indirectly informed by his psychoanalytic experience and expansive knowledge of the great philosophers, here I think, we clearly encounter Dr. Yalom's presence as the psychiatrist tries to work with Rosenberg.The Spinoza Problem takes you to a place where irony, reconciliation, conflict, paradox, and deceit play out; to a place where we brush up against the greatest thinkers of all time; on a journey of transcendence, as Irv Yalom, arguably the greatest psychological fiction writer of our time explores the fundamental issues of existence we all face.

As the author notes in his preface, it is hard to write a book about Baruch Spinoza, because most of his life was dedicated to philosophical thought, so that there isn't much of a narrative. The solution came to him when he discovered that the entire private library of Spinoza was stolen by the Nazis in 1942 under orders of Alfred Rosenberg, in many ways the ideological leader of national socialism. The result is an intriguing novel with two narrative threads that alternate between 17th century Holland and 20th century Germany. You get more than a glimpse of Spinoza's brilliant mind, so ahead of his time, but not entirely free of prejudice especially when it came to the rights of women. And you gain some insight into the troubled mind of one of the architects of the Third Reich, even though he was shunned by Hitler's inner circle for most of his life.I enjoyed learning about one of our great philosophers without having to read his actual works, which are said to be hard to understand. The author tried to pack as much as possible of Spinoza's own words into some of the passages discussing philosophy, to keep this novel from being too fictionalized (much of the story is invented, even the connection itself between Rosenberg and Spinoza). But as a result, the language in large parts of the book is very stilted. It's hard to imagine how people might have spoken in the 1600s, but there are many historical novels that do a better job of it. The many discussions between Rosenberg and his fictional psychoanalyst also appeared stilted to me. Psychoanalysis might sound like that, for all I know, but overall I didn't enjoy the dialogue in the book as much as I thought I would. It wasn't a back and forth, more a succession of very long monologues that weren't altogether convincing.Still, I found The Spinoza Problem to be an enjoyable and fairly easy read which offered new historical insights.

In the Prologue of his novel, Yalom tells us that, while the events in Spinoza’ life are well known (though I have learnt from the book details about it that I had not known), virtually nothing is known of his inner and emotional life. As a psychotherapist, Yalom set himself the task of imagining what this inner life may have been. That is one aspect of his Spinoza problem. The other aspect of it lies in his discovery that the Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg had, during the German occupation of Holland, confiscated, but not destroyed, Spinoza’s library, and it survived the war almost intact. It had been spared because, Rosenberg, too, apparently had a Spinoza problem to which he tried to find a solution. To explore these two problems, Yalom has written this novel. The short chapters alternate between the two.I have no problem with his chapters on Spinoza. They give a clear, if a somewhat repetitive account of his career, of his biblical criticism, and of his attacks on the superstitions and practices of Judaism, and of his own philosophical and religious ideas. I find Yalom’s imagined account of Spinoza’s inner life and inner conflicts credible. I am not unduly disturbed by the fact that he has created fictitious person, Franco Benitez, who agrees with Spinoza’s biblical criticisms and with his views on superstitious ritual, but who is nevertheless a rabbi, and who, in the dialogues between them, maintained that man cannot live by reason alone, and that there is a value in the Jewish religious traditions which he could follow even while accepting Spinoza’s criticisms of them. Franco is a relatively minor figure and does not distort the story of Spinoza.I have many more problems with Yalom’s chapters on Rosenberg. We do get a factual account of his career in the Nazi Party, but he tells us that the account of his time as a sixteen-year old schoolboy is fictional. The boy was already a racist antisemite. He admired Goethe, and then found out that Goethe was the “most decided worshipper” of the Jew Spinoza. How could that be? This becomes a life-long problem for Rosenberg – yet there is only one single and unilluminating mention in the historical record linking Rosenberg with “the Spinoza problem”.More seriously Yalom introduces a fictional psychoanalyst, Friedrich Pfister, who plays a far more crucial role in Rosenberg’s life than Franco does in Spinoza’s. Rosenberg was drawn to Pfister although he regarded psychoanalysis as tainted by its Jewish founder and Jewish followers, and his relationship with Pfister broke down twice (in 1918 and in 1922) times before being resumed in 1936.Rosenberg had suffered all his life from being unpopular and a loner, and even though he was fanatically devoted to Hitler and Hitler had rewarded his loyalty by promoting him to influential positions in the Nazi party, he suffered dreadfully from the fact that Hitler never acknowledged that Rosenberg was the source of many of his ideas and actions (including, according to Yalom, the Munich Putsch of 1923); did not appreciate Rosenberg’s 1930 magnum opus, “The Myth of the 20th century”; never brought him into his inner circle; often belittled him, and kept a cold distance from him. In 1936 Rosenberg suffered from a nervous breakdown, was admitted to a clinic for top Nazis, and turned to Pfister again. Pfister hoped to liberate him from his dependence on Hitler’s esteem by showing him how reading Spinoza had calmed Goethe’s restlessness. Again they were getting nowhere - when Hitler turned up at the clinic, and, in an affable mood, told Rosenberg that he had nominated him to be the first recipient of the new National German Prize, the German equivalent to the Nobel Prize. Rosenberg’s depression lifted immediately, and he curtly dismissed Pfitzner for the last time.In 1940 Rosenberg was put in charge of seizing Jewish art and books in occupied Europe, and so he came to confiscate the Spinoza Library in Rijnsburg. As none of the books were in German or in Russian, he could not read any of them.When Germany collapsed in 1945, he was arrested, tried at Nuremberg and was executed as a war criminal. as a war criminal, and condemned to death.Both the Spinoza and the Rosenberg chapters make excellent reading, but, as a historian, I am too troubled by the unhistoricity of the Rosenberg chapters to give the book five stars.

How often can a novel inspire you to return to the very dense work of one of the most elusive, difficult and fascinating philosophers that ever lived?I found the book unputdownable. How Yalom managed to bring to life Spinoza's mind from the very little that we know about this reclusive philosopher is nothing short of miraculous. I found the Rosenberg chapters less interesting, but then Rosenberg was a despicable, hateful, small minded human being, so it's much more difficult to relate to him than to the large souled Spinoza.The book works like a study into good and evil. I'll probably read it again, but this time I'll skip the Rosenberg chapters and enjoy the insights into Spinoza's mind. Of course, it is a novel and no one can really know what Spinoza was thinking or feeling, and that is how he would have loved it to be. But it feels like it could have been very much like it happens in this book.I'm very curious regarding other books by Irvin Yalom, I anticipate a new author to love. But first I'm going back to Spinoza, to the Tractatus and to The Ethics. Thank you Mr Yalom!

Reviewing The Spinoza Problem is more than a little challenging, it is not quite successful as a novel, but is a far better way of educating the reader into grasping facets of Spinoza’s philosophy than any of the ‘Dummies’ type guides might be, because the information is woven in a more dramatic, narrative, human wayIrvin Yalom is a much revered humanistic psychotherapist. He is also a marvellous writer/communicator about these matters, and his non-fiction writings are rich, meaningful and informative, to practitioners and to those interested in our very human nature, and all the ethical and philosophical ideas which might arise from consciousness, and self-consciousness. He has written other novels, using a semi fictional framework to explore ideas.In ‘The Spinoza Problem’ there are two parallel journeys happening, separated by nearly 300 years, and both stories, of real people with a strange, cross-time connection, are explored using a similar device, that of presenting the central character in each time, with a kind of analyst figure, a wise, self-reflective listener who can be trusted to explore how who we are and our formative experiences, often determines how we thinkBaruch, later Bento Spinoza was a Portuguese Jew of extraordinary intellect and a rigorously independent, questioning nature. The Netherlands, where he lived and died was, in the 1660’s, a markedly tolerant society, where religious freedom, and different religions, were able to live side by side. Great things were expected of Spinoza within his community, where his understanding of religious texts and analytical mind seemed to indicate he would become a highly influential rabbi. This was not to be, however, as he began to question religion itself, and dismissed the forms as created by man, not God. Extraordinary thinking in those times, and brave to voice those thoughts : religious intolerance and fundamental beliefs were rather more the bedrock of the times, and dissent, in some cases, led to death. He had an extraordinary certainty in his own belief system, but also a tolerance towards others of different beliefs. He was, however, uncompromising in his insistence that he could not live untruthful to those beliefs. The result was that he was cursed, excommunicated by his community, for the rest of his life. This was a man who hugely valued his community, but valued adherence to his own understanding of ‘truth’ Where I found his uncompromising adherence to that to be even more laudable, is that he did not feel the need to force others into his thinking. A rather unusual combination of uncompromising adherence and toleration. Often, those who hold most fiercely to their own ‘right’ seek to deny others theirs – where we are talking the systems of beliefsThe shadow side of belief lies in the second figure, the one who searches for the solution to ‘The Spinoza Problem’ : Nazi Alfred Rosenberg, who was chief ‘theorist’ of the Party. Rosenberg, committed Anti-Semite, had a major problem with Spinoza – that he was a Jew, and was admired, hugely by the ‘good German’ Goethe, whom Rosenberg venerated. Here is a clear mark between mature and immature thinking, feeling, being – the inability to hold any kind of nuance or conflict between ‘this’ and ‘that’Where the book particularly fascinated me is through Yalom’s own background as a psychotherapist, and one with a view which is both ‘narrow focus’ – this person, this story of theirs, and ‘broad focus’ – the overview, the wider issues. So, our own beliefs, which we generally believe are rationally driven, whilst the beliefs of others, with different opinions, we are more likely to believe spring from ‘personality and individual psychology’ that fact, are always driven more by ‘who we are’ than by rationality.Yalom teases out, in the ‘invented’ encounters, giving Spinoza and Rosenberg people whom they can trust to have meaningful dialogue with, of the kind that happens in the best-run psychotherapeutic encounters, known history and personality traits. Obviously, more is known of the man Rosenberg through his writings, sayings, deeds as his is a more recent history – Rosenberg was one of those brought to trial, at Nuremberg, and executed as for his war crimes, and his crimes against humanity. Yalom traces this aberrant personality and psychology, which the wider events of the times fitted so horribly well – when external political/economic systems hurt ‘the common man’ the easiest, and most terrible solution is to make some massed ‘other’ the cause.This is what we are of course seeing, nascent, in the rise of what is being improperly named – ‘the alt right’ Let us name it – certainly there is proto Fascism as a driver : leaders are using the terrible, dangerous language, and the terrible, dangerous, ‘feeling thought’ is gaining credence.To return (and how we need to) to Spinoza. There is a wealth of quite complex writing – which Yalom has clearly studied at depth – which can be used, with historical background about his life, and what has been said about him by others, whether at the time, or later students/researchers into his life an writing – to create an idea of who this man might have been. Certainly there is an enormous intellectual and emotional intelligence at work here, a visionary, positively inspirational individual. He may not have been an easy man to be around in some ways – those who are ‘greater’ in a kind of moral, ethical way than most of us, those who serve as ‘inspirers’ to our feebler selves to orientate towards, can easily inspire our fear and our dislike – through no fault of their own, but because they make us uncomfortable and uneasy with our own shortcomings. ‘Dead heroes’ of history may be easier to read about and be with, than the person better, more humane, more morally fine, who lives next door!So, not quite fully satisfying as ‘novel’ Yalom, as ever, invites the reader to engage with themselves, and with ethical ideas, educating without standing dryly outside what is being explained

I have read this book before so my repeat purchase and rereading says something about it. Yalom I believe wrote his 3 novels, this, The Schopenhauer Cure and When Nietzche Wept as teaching material for his students to discover the philosophical underpinning for what became Freud's gift to the 20th century. Much of this philosophical material is second nature to central European university entrants but missing from the curriculum of English speaking countries. This book is an enjoyable way to begin to discover what we have missed, this one beginning with the dawn of the Enlightenment.

A readable romp on philosophy for the idle, me. I didn't know that. As said, "history is fiction that happened, fiction is history that might have happened." All the Spinosa ideas and Nazi bluff down to Nuremberg clothed in a believable and readable story. Couldn't put it down. Thanks to my philosopher friend, Bambos Voutourides for recommending it to me. And I've not been able to finish any book for so long. Glad it was short.