Product Description

This new translation of DREAM STORY will allow a fresh generation of readers to enjoy this beautiful, heartless and baffling novella. DREAM STORY tells how through a simple sexual admission a husband and wide ware driven apart into rival world's oferotic revenge.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #68522 in Books
• Published on: 1999-07-01
• Original language: German
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

About the Author
The extraordinary Viennese writer Arthur Schnitzler (1862-19310) was born in Vienna, the son of a prominent Jewish laryngologist, Schnitzler studies medicine at Vienna University but soon abandoned medicine for writing. From 1895 he attracted public attention as a dramatist. Concentrating on sex and death, his work shows a remarkable capacity to create atmosphere and to pursue profound, ruthless and often Freudian analysis of human motives.

Customer Reviews

Are our truths stranger then our fiction???
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...

a brilliant novella
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.
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.