Here is what he promises.
There’s no simple way to describe it. I could say that in retrospect it seems that all three of our lives, and those of many others, led inevitable and fatefully to that one experience; but then I’d be broaching the subject of psychological determinism and questioning man’s free will -- reopening, in other words, the philosophical conundrum that wove irrepressibly in and out of the nightmarish proceedings, like the only hummable tune in a difficult opera. Or I could say that during the course of those months, Roosevelt, Kreizler, and I, assisted by some of the best people I’ve ever known, set out on the trail of a murderous monster and ended up coming face to face with a frightened child; but that would be deliberately vague, too full of the “ambiguity” that seems to fascinate current novelists and which has kept me, lately, out of the bookstores and in the picture houses. No, there’s only one way to do it, and that’s to tell the whole thing, going back to that first grisly night and that first butchered body; back even further, in fact, to our days with Professor James at Harvard. Yes, to dredge it all up and put it finally before that public -- that’s the way.
That’s your narrator in the opening pages setting the stage for the players to walk out upon. And that stage is an interesting one -- a thriller, centered on the pursuit of a mysterious (almost magical) serial killer, with a psychological theme that dances on the knife’s edge between determinism and free will, and set in the 1890s, with several historical figures included among the dramatis personae.
And initially, that is very much what it appears that Carr is trying to deliver.
The Kreizler mentioned is Laszlo Kreizler, a fictional creation and the alienist of the book’s title -- a scientist turned investigator that studies mental pathologies and the deviant behaviors of those who are alienated from themselves and society. And he, at least for the time that he lives in, has some very odd beliefs about the true nature of man.
Kreizler’s relationship with James was far more complex. Though he greatly respected James’s work and grew to have enormous affection for the man himself (it really was impossible not to), Laszlo was nonetheless unable to accept James’s famous theories on free will, which were the cornerstone of our teacher’s philosophy. James had been a maudlin, unhealthy boy, and as a young man had more than once contemplated suicide; but he overcame this tendency as a result of reading the works of the French philosopher Renouvier, who taught that a man could, by force of will, overcome all psychic (and many physical) ailments. “My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will!” had been James’s early battle cry, an attitude that continued to dominate his thinking in 1877. Such a philosophy was bound to collide with Kreizler’s developing belief in what he called “context”: the theory that every man’s actions are to a very decisive extent influenced by his early experiences, and that no man’s behavior can be analyzed of affected without knowledge of those experiences. In the laboratory rooms at Lawrence Hall, which were filled with devices for testing and dissecting animal nervous systems and human reactions, James and Kreizler battled over how the patterns of people’s lives are formed and whether or not any of us is free to determine what kind of lives we will lead as adults. These encounters became steadily more heated -- not to mention a subject of campus gossip -- until finally, one night early in the second term, they debated in the University Hall the question, “Is Free Will a Psychological Phenomenon?”
Most of the student body attended; and though Kreizler argued well, the crowd was predisposed to dismiss his statements. In addition, James’s sense of humor was far more developed than Kreizler’s at that time, and the boys at Harvard enjoyed their professor’s many jokes at Kreizler’s expense. On the other hand, Laszlo’s references to philosophers of gloom, such as the German Schopenhauer, as well as his reliance on the evolutionist theories of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer in explaining that survival was the goal of man’s mental as much as his physical development, provoked many and prolonged groans of undergraduate disapproval. I confess that even I was torn, between loyalty to a friend whose beliefs had always made me uneasy and enthusiasm for a man and a philosophy that seemed to offer the promise of limitless possibilities for not only my own but every man’s future. Theodore -- who did not yet know Kreizler, and who had, like James, survived many and severe childhood illnesses by dint of what he reasoned to be sheer willpower -- was not troubled by any such qualms: he spiritedly cheered James’s eventual and inevitable victory.
This book sounds like a lot of intellectual fun -- at least in these early pages. Carr seems to be setting up a battle between free will and determinism, with each philosophy epitomized by one of the characters. For determinism, the alienist Laszlo Kriezler. And for free will, yes, that Theodore Roosevelt, serving in the time period of the novel as New York police commissioner.
But that is not really the novel that winds up unfolding. This theme will occasionally get a spotlight shone upon it, but not in the form of a battle between character motivations, but only in an occasional explanation for Kreizler’s methods in pursuing the serial killer.
From that moment on, he said, we must make every possible effort to rid ourselves of preconceptions about human behavior. We must try not to see the world through our own eyes, nor to judge it by our own values, but through and by those of our killer. His experience, the context of his life, was all that mattered. Any aspect of his behavior that puzzled us, from the most trivial to the most horrendous, we must try to explain by postulating childhood events that could lead to such eventualities. This process of cause and effect -- what we would soon learn was called “psychological determinism” -- might not always seem entirely logical to us, but it would be consistent.
Kreizler emphasized that no good would come of conceiving of this person as a monster, because he was most assuredly a man (or woman); and that man or woman had once been a child. First and foremost, we must get to know that child, and to know his parents, his siblings, his complete world. It was pointless to talk about evil and barbarity and madness; none of these concepts would lead us any closer to him. But if we could capture the human child in our imaginations -- then we could capture the man in fact.
It’s almost as if Carr falls victim to the same clouded thinking he has Kreizler caution the other characters in the play about. Free will -- men choosing to do good or evil -- is such a suffocating psychological frame, that even an author trying to write a novel about determinism is unable to creep out from under its blanketing effects.
Most of his characters in fact rebel against rather than embrace Kreizler’s odd beliefs.
Kreizler sighed heavily, but did go on: “The theory of individual psychological context that I have developed---”
“Rank determinism!” Comstock declared, unable to contain himself. “The idea that every man’s behavior is decisively patterned in infancy and youth -- it speaks against freedom, against responsibility! Yes, I say it is un-American!”
At another annoyed glance from Morgan, Bishop Potter laid a calming hand on Comstock’s arm, and the postal censor relapsed into disgruntled silence.
“I have never,” Kreizler went on, keeping his eyes on Morgan, “argued against the idea that every man is responsible before the law for his actions, save in cases involving the truly mentally diseased. And if you consult my colleagues, Mr. Morgan, I believe you will discover that my definition of mental disease is rather more conservative than most. As for what Mr. Comstock somewhat blithely calls freedom, I have no argument with it as a political or legal concept. The psychological debate surrounding the concept of free will, however, is a far more complex issue.”
Is it frustrating in the extreme for Kreizler to meet emotional assertion with reasoned argument like this. It’s never a fair fight, and only satisfying to those who already assume to hold the high ground. The Comstocks of the novel never change. What greater crime is there, after all, than being un-American?
And worse, frequently Carr seems to forget that his characters are living in the 1890s.
“And would be transmitted through the act of sex,” Marcus added. “So you’re right, Doctor -- sex is not something he values or enjoys. It’s the violence that’s his goal.”
“Isn’t it possible that he isn’t even capable of sex?” Sara asked. “Given the kind of background we’re supposing, that is. In one of the treatises you gave us, Doctor, there’s a discussion of sexual stimulation and anxiety reactions---”
“Dr. Peyer, at the University of Zurich,” Kreizler said. “The observations grew out of his larger study of coitus interruptus.”
“That’s right,” Sara continued. “The implications seemed strongest for men who had emerged from difficult home lives. Persistent anxiety could result in a pronounced suppression of the libido, creating impotence.”
“Our boy’s pretty tender on that subject,” Marcus said, going to the note and reading from it. ‘I never fucked him, though I could have.’”
“Indeed,” Kreizler said, writing IMPOTENCE in the center of the board without hesitation. “The effect would only be to magnify his frustration and rage, producing ever more carnage.”
Seriously. Is this 1896 or an episode of Special Victims Unit? I eventually gave up and read it for what it clearly was -- a modern thriller only wearing period costumes. Only Roosevelt seems to talk in the idiom of the day, probably because he’s a historical figure with well-defined and recognizable patterns of speech. Dee-lighted!
+ + +
This post first appeared on Eric Lanke's blog, an association executive and author. You can contact him at eric.lanke@gmail.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment