Dr. Neruda's Cure For Evil (1998) - Plot & Excerpts
Keep in mind that this rating only applies to me - I don't recommend it to everyone. Now having mentioned the obvious disclaimer, I can say that this one of the few books I have earmarked for re-reading. If you are interested in psycho-analysis, then there's plenty of stuff here. The book has three main parts, which correspond to three main stories, but embedded in each part are numerous other stories touching on the issues of child abuse, the prescribing of Ritalin for children, and the banal evil of people who manage to make getting ahead in life their main priority. That's what makes the book so rich, that and the perceptive psychological insights.One element that made me uneasy was the narrator's incestuous relationship with his mother. Because the narrator has the same name as the author, and the characters that are the narrator's parents correspond almost exactly to the author's real parents, it made me feel a bit voyeuristic and embarrassed.Again, I stress that this is not a novel with a simple plot that goes from beginning to end, but a collection of experiences that surround the life of the protagonist. For me this was a rich reading experience.
I couldn't help but think that Dr. Neruda was a psychopath himself, with his abusive childhood, inability to separate his professional and private lives, and frankly creepy methods of "curing evil." Although I really enjoyed the first part of the book, which dealt with early adolescent development, I felt a pervasive sense of foreboding as Rafe slowly but surely slipped back toward his disturbed early childhood ideation as he went deeper into the rabbit hole, losing himself in the process of "curing" two people vital to the story of his previous client. I felt the book went heavy into the psycho-jargon, but was overall an interesting premise. Although you end by loving none of the characters, perhaps the point is to force us all to think about the latent evil inside of us all? Overall impression: great beginning, slow in the middle, disturbing throughout but definitely by the end.
What do You think about Dr. Neruda's Cure For Evil (1998)?
This big book has sat on my shelf for years. Time to tackle it.May 17th: I tackled the massive book. What an uneven book. Yglesias is a sly writer. At a point where the reader is ready to quit, he adds spice in the form of a sudden childhood recollection, violence, or other conceits so odd they made me wonder when the book took a comic turn.I'm fine with ambiguous endings. I don't need everything tied in a tidy bow but limp dick endings are always unwelcome.This book missed the last gas station and sputtered to a stop in the middle of the road. The story fell over, broke an axle and gave up in a massive steam cloud.I often laugh when folks claim they threw the book across the room in disgust. If I threw this monster I'd dent the wall. Perhaps the author will release the 400 page version and cut out the meandering passages. I might recommend that version.
—S.A.
I waver between 3 and 4 stars. I'm settling with 3 because I think many people will be baffled by this book. If you define yourself as a person who "likes to know what makes people tick" then I'd definitely recommend it. I am fascinated by psychology and the analyses of the human psyche. Be prepared for what may seem like countless sidebars--the narrator analyses himself and his characters from beginning to end. Objectively the novel feels like two stories--the protagonist's (Raphael Neruda) astonishing childhood and then his adult life as a psychotherapist who treats a "neurotic" individual who commits murder/suicide, and then a sadistic father and his narcissistic daughter. How much of Dr. Neruda's effectiveness as a therapist is due to his own shocking childhood? Are his unconventional treatment methods admirable or deplorable? Evil, he comes to realize, is a psychological disorder that must be addressed through treatment.
—Shane Vanoosterhout
