Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.

Title: Belle Vue

Subtitle: Sigmund Freud, Minna Bernays, and the Meaning of Dreams

Author: Barry G. Gale

Narrator: Thomas B. Hackett

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-08-13

Publisher: Barry G. Gale

Genres: Fiction, Historical

Publisher's Summary:

It is July 24, 1895. Sigmund Freud and his family are staying for the summer at the Belle Vue resort in the Alpine foothills overlooking Vienna. His marriage to his wife Martha is swiftly deteriorating, he is in the midst of a love affair with his brilliant but unpredictable sister-in-law, Minna, his mother-in-law, Mrs. Bernays, despises him, and he has just that morning completed his first full interpretation of a dream, marking a revolution in our understanding of the human mind.

Belle Vue is a novel of that day. It is the story of four people desperately pursuing their own special dreams. Mrs. Bernays is seeking a happy denouement to a life of struggle and hardship and is looking to her son-in-law, Sigmund Freud, to help her achieve that goal, yet he seems more interested in pursuing research on what she considers wild-eyed ideas which have only resulted in ridicule from his medical colleagues. Martha Freud is pregnant with their sixth child.

Unable to appreciate her husband's pioneering research and lacking self-confidence, she is desperate to save her marriage. Sigmund Freud, gifted but prickly and emotionally inaccessible, is hell bent on achieving success. His ideas, however, are rejected by his peers, primarily because of their revolutionary nature, which includes a conviction that dreams have meaning and can serve as a window into the unconscious mind.

Freud finds refuge for his battered self-esteem in the arms of his alluring and intellectually talented sister-in-law, Minna Bernays, a 20th Century "New Woman" who is as different from his Victorian wife as day is from night. Yet Freud has a dilemma. He is caught between two powerful desires - his love for Minna and his quest for fame, and he does not know if he can have both.

Members Reviews:

Review of Belle Vue: Sigmund Freud, Minna Bernays, and the Meaning of Dreams

Definitely a good read. The story narrates the events in one day in the lives of Sigmund Freud, his sister-in-law, his wife, and his mother in-law, with flashbacks to past events, the crescendo building as the day progresses. I loved the book. It was hard to put it down even though I was squirming a lot of the time, anticipating the train wreck in these peoples' lives. The author did a good job taking us back in time to another century, another way of life, with detailed descriptions of customs, dress, household décor. Well done the way the author conveyed the limited opportunities for women to break away from convention, the rigidity of the characters (men and women), Freud's struggle to gain recognition for his theories. The dream analysis that the author weaves into the story is very entertaining. The character development is beautifully done. In all, a very good read. Review by Hélène Déramond Totman

Not recommended

The writing was sophomoric with improbable dialogue and characterizations. I struggled, but had to but it down after about 80 pages.

Review of Belle Vue

Belle Vue is a novel that would be of interest to those who are interested in the history of psychoanalysis, the biography of Freud, life in Vienna at the end of the 19th century, and especially to those who enjoy intense family dramas.