Elusive Love, Loss, and Healing in the Electrifying Story of Psychiatric Treatment
As a writer who suffers from a mental disorder, I was immediately drawn to The Electric Love Song of Fleischl Berger, by David Rocklin, which tells us about the fictionalized life of a Jewish-German psychiatrist born under electrifying circumstances on the shores of the Baltic Sea.
A fascinating reading, The Electric Love Song of Fleischl Berger speaks about a man’s obsession with his own near-death experience, which led him to design the early versions of the Electroencephalogram (EEG). The novel also links EEG to the birth of the motion picture industry at the turn of the century.
Few historical novels can keep the weight of the facts as the backdrop of the story. David Rocklin masterfully develops an intriguing plot that takes place between the Great War and the rise of the Nazi Germany, while presenting the history of psychiatric treatment in an imaginative love story without overwhelming the reader with historical facts. Instead, the historic events depicted in the story function as catalyst for plot development.
The novel grabs the reader with suspense from the opening line,
“The first time Fleischl Berger almost died…”
With the word “almost” David Rocklin sets a tone of anticipation and commits the reader to the entire story, which delves into each stage of this man’s life his historical backdrop.
Fleischl Berger is raised by a grief ridden father and mentored by the men in his community: a rabbi, a merchant, and a psychiatrist all of whom influenced the young man’s devotion to service. Gifted with the power of attentive listening and empathy, Fleischl discovers that he can help others recover from their emotional wounds, if not actually heal them. In his mentor’s words,
“…in the end all men of psychiatry do is tend their wounds. We can’t heal anything.”
Eventually young Fleischl Berger falls in love with the merchant’s daughter, but as circumstances will have it, their love is interrupted by Fleischl’s decision to find his father, who is lost at sea. Shortly after, Fleischl nearly dies in an accident during a military exercise.
Fleischl Berger becomes obsessed with the experience in the aftermath of the explosion that almost killed him. Inspired by the creative spirit of his childhood friend and lover, he designs a machine to capture brain activity to explain what happened to him. Thus he creates a scientific instrument that will eventually revolutionize neurological research.
He carries out these extraordinary experiments as movie productions–and his justification to try to observe the human mind more closely.
“To the addled mind,” he said as the audience watched him closely, “illusions are real. They are the world left to them. To us, such people are lost in a world of their own. We try talking to them, but we can’t get through. We try showing them things they ought to know. Their wives, husbands, children, homes, even their own reflections. It’s as if they see something we can’t. Or else they see nothing at all. Our sounds and visions are no longer theirs. How can we reach them?
“I have a way. We give their minds something else. A piece of them that they’ve lost, only at undeniable levels to pry the window of their mind open. I’ve seen it happen – “
“… But this work will help those we think we’ve lost to injury, infirmity, to psychosis. I believe it with all my heart. And I’m here with your kind permission to show you. The louder and brighter the sounds and visions, the wider the window.”
As Fleischl explains his controversial and dramatic experiments with altruistic arguments, he paves the way to unprecedented progress in neuroscience.
Meanwhile, hidden in Berlin’s theatrical scene of the early 1900s, the elusive lover observes Fleischl growing as a scientist and entering the most influential circles of Berlin’s society. As he finds financial support for his experiments, Fleischl gets entangled in social intrigue and power struggles foreign to his personal search, but that will be crucial in his survival.
First the reader must understand that for Fleischl survival means more than beating death. Fleischl’s actions are driven by a sense of loss: the mother who died at his birth, the father who disappeared at sea, the lover who left after he broke her heart,
“I miss home,” he said, because he wasn’t sure what he felt and had nothing else to say that might explain the hole where surely something ought to be.”
The novel carries this nostalgic tone, a longing for what does not exist anymore.
The setting helps create the nostalgic tone. This is particularly true at the beginning where the laconic landscape of a village on the shores of the Baltic Sea sets the tone with which the young Fleischl will grow. The sea appears first on view, dangerous, dark. It is followed by a row of small, rudimentary buildings, functional for a basic life where the merchants do business near the house where he grows. On top of a hill, sits the asylum that will inspire Fleischl’s vocation for healing. However, the setting also serves as a plot catalyst. Later in the story, the rough sea scenes set the tone for dramatic turns and plot twists. And when Fleischl moves to Berlin, the busy urban landscape of the turn of the century accelerates the action as the social scene moves between small theater venues, ball rooms, mansions, and academic lecture halls.
In The Electric Love Song of Fleischl Berger, David Rocklin gifts us with simple phrases filled with wisdom, like aphorisms,
“You will fail and fail, and with luck one day succeed. Go fail, Fleischl Berger.”
With these phrases, Rocklin offers the reader an opportunity for reflection, enriching the reading experience.
Fleischl Berger’s journey is the story of an extraordinary man, the history of the ECG, and historical fiction of a crucial moment in German history. But ultimately, what held me turning pages is David Rocklin’s ability to weave in the historical facts in fictional narrative using a love story as a thread. In his own words,
“Do you want to know a secret I learned, Ava? All stories are woven with love. Maybe when all the stories come to have their silences broken, when they come to be heard, they come to those who love them. Who listens just for them.”
Perhaps what I love more about The Electric Love Song of Fleischl Berger is the way this historical novel drew me to learn more about the man, and what is not in the story: the scientific research behind contemporary psychiatric treatment, and the creation of the instrument widely used today in the diagnosis of neurological conditions. By far, The Electric Love Song of Fleischl Berger is one of the best stories I have read in 2024.
The Electric Love Song of Fleischl Berger by David Rocklin is available now through Thane & Prose
Lisbeth Coiman is a bilingual author and an avid reader. Her debut book, I Asked the Blue Heron: A Memoir (2017) explores the intersection between immigration and mental health. Her poetry collection, Uprising / Alzamiento (Finishing Line Press, 2021) raises awareness of the humanitarian crisis in her homeland. Her book reviews have been published in the New York Journal of Books, in Citron Review and The Compulsive Reader, LibroMobile, and Cultural Daily to name a few. She lives in Los Angeles, where she works and hikes.
