After settling into my Couchsurf in Mosgiel, I finally ventured to the Mosgiel Public Library in early September. I was slightly dismayed that I couldn’t find any book on my list of 36 recommendations until I came to #28. But God has an interesting way of making things clear to us, and this book helped to clarify that I would be going to grad school next fall for counseling in marriage and family therapy.
Recommendation #28 from Ryan Gage
The Alienist by Caleb Carr
From Wikipedia – The Alienist takes place in New York City in 1896, and includes appearances by many famous figures of New York society in that era, including Theodore Roosevelt and J. P. Morgan. The story follows Roosevelt, then New York City police commissioner, and Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, as their investigative team attempts to solve gruesome murders through new methods including fingerprinting and psychology.
This book drew me in from the start, and it was uncanny that the only book I could find on my recommendations list in the Mosgiel Public Library dealt with issues of faith, family/primary relationship dynamics, and sexuality. Here are a couple of passages that really spoke to me, which I’ve previously included in other posts on my blog.
“There were many causes of his unhappiness, but at heart I believe now, as I believed then, that is was essentially the result of growing up in a household, and a world, where emotional expression of any kind was at best frowned upon and at worst strangled.”
” ‘And you only do that kind of learning once,’ I added, ‘It’s the same thing as the violence: he saw it, he didn’t like it, but he learned it. The law of habit and interest, just like Professor James says – our minds work on the basis of self-interest, the survival of the organism, and our habitual ways of pursuing that interest become defined when we’re children and adolescents’ “
“Does he mention desire? No – he tells us that he “must.” He must because those are the laws by which is world, disagreeable as it may be, has always functioned. He has become what Professor James calls a ‘mere walking bundle of habits,’ and to abandon those habits would, he fears, mean abandoning himself. You remember what we once said about Georgio Santorelli – that he came to associate his psychic survival with the activities that caused his father to beat him? Our man is not so very different.”
And so I thank Ryan Gage for recommending this book to me and I highly recommend it to you, my readers. While the subject material is definitely adult in nature, it is a fascinating look into life during that era, as well as how important primary relationships can be in forming our adult lives and activities. I’m also pleased to report that there is a sequel out there. I’ll have to check it out soon.
And like every good post on this blog, you get a song. This song actually debuted in my Hom3town playlist for May 2018.