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

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. 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. Belle Vue: Sigmund Freud, Minna Bernays, and the Meaning of Dreams is a novel of that day. It is the story of four people desperately pursuing their own special dreams. The strident and sometimes humorous interactions among the four, as they seek greater meaning in their lives, provide the dynamic tension that propels the novel forward to an unusual but very "psychoanalytic" conclusion. It is also the story of a brilliant man being torn apart at the most critical moment of his young career. For decades controversy has surrounded the exact nature of Freud's relationship with his sister-in-law. The idea that they had a 20-years affair was first mentioned by Carl Gustav Jung, an early supporter of Freud's and later a critic. He said Minna had revealed the affair in private conversations with him. Freudians denied the allegations, but recently a German scholar found evidence to support the contention. In a Swiss hotel registration book from the late 19th Century he found the notation, Dr Sigm. Freud u Frau, written in Freud's handwriting. This was a holiday that Freud and Minna took alone.