The White Hotel

by D.M. Thomas

It is a dream of electrifying eroticism and inexplicable violence, recounted by a young woman to her analyst, Sigmund Freud. It is a horrifying yet restrained narrative of the Holocaust. It is a searing vision of the wounds of our century, and an attempt to heal them. Interweaving poetry and case history, fantasy and historical truth-telling, The White Hotel is a modern classic of enduring emotional power that attempts nothing less than to reconcile the notion of individual destiny with that of historical fate.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Classics, Literature, Fantasy, Novels, Holocaust

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

D.M. Thomas was born in Cornwall in 1935. After reading English at New College, Oxford, he became a teacher and was Head of the English Department at Hereford College of Education until he became a full-time writer. His first novel The Flute-Player won the Gollancz Pan/Picador Fantasy Competition. He is also known for his collections of verse and his translation from the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova.

He was awarded the Los Angeles Fiction prize for his novel The White Hotel, an international bestseller, translated into 30 languages; a Cholmondeley award for poetry; and the Orwell Prize for his biography of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. He lives in his native Cornwall, England.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

The novel is as dark as the history itself and it is laden with alarmingly disturbing thoughts.
The White Hotel begins with an exquisite Freudian poem…

…I have started an affair
with your son, on a train somewhere
in a dark tunnel, his hand was underneath
my dress between my thighs I could not breathe
he took me to a white lakeside hotel…

The destiny of the heroine was decided long before her birth and it was interconnected with the destiny of the entire world…
The darkness without and within grows thicker and thicker…

At my first hearing of a dream, I became alarmed, for it told me that the dreamer is quite capable of ending her troubles by taking her life. Train journeys are themselves dreams of death.

Our secret wishes hide in our dreams.

[Ian "Marvin" Graye · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anagnorisis

Structurally, "The White Hotel" resembles Nabokov's "Pale Fire", while stylistically it has more in common with Thomas Mann's "The Magic Mountain".

There are two main differences from Nabokov’s novel: the relative lack of metafictional self-reflexiveness in "The White Hotel", and D. M. Thomas' respect for Freud, whereas Nabokov says he detests him:

"I think he's crude, I think he's medieval, and I don't want an elderly gentleman from Vienna with an umbrella inflicting his dreams upon me. I don't have the dreams that he discusses in his books. I don't see umbrellas in my dreams. Or balloons.

"I think that the creative artist is an exile in his study, in his bedroom, in the circle of his lamplight. He's quite alone there; he's the lone wolf. As soon as he's together with somebody else he shares his secret, he shares his mystery, he shares his God with somebody else."

From Bad Gastein to Babi Yar, and Onwards to Heaven

If you count the prologue, "The White Hotel" is divided into seven sections:

* the prologue - an exchange of letters to, by and about Freud;

* an exuberant twelve page poem (what Freud describes as "pornographic and nonsensical...doggerel verse") ostensibly written by the Jewish opera singer Lisa Erdman;

* a journal supposedly written by Lisa about her stay in the spa Bad Gastein ("If I'm not thinking about sex, I'm thinking about death. Sometimes both at the same time.");

* a Freudian case study about the analysis of the pseudonymous Frau Anna G. (actually Lisa) - the style is that of Freud, and shows what an exceptional literary writer Freud was (whether or not you agree with the foundations of psychoanalysis);

* a third person narrative about Lisa;

* another narrative about Lisa’s adopted son, Kolya, which describes the Holocaustic events at Babi Yar in Kiev in 1941; and

* an hallucinatory, almost magic realist account of Lisa’s apparent arrival in Palestine/Heaven ("The Camp").



From Eros to Thanatos

In a later article, D.M. Thomas describes the novel in overtly Freudian terms:

"I had chosen to encompass the extremes of pleasure and pain, Eros and Thanatos. A young opera singer, Lisa, is analysed by Freud in Vienna, and writes for him what he calls an 'inundation' of violent sexual fantasy. The centrepiece of the novel is his analysis of her. Naturally he traces her hysterical illness back to her childhood; later, it appears that, being half-Jewish, her illness stems from a premonition of the 'real hysteria' of the Holocaust."

A Far Country

Thomas is much more accepting of psychoanalysis than is Nabokov, though he does have Freud write:

"I call to mind a saying of Heraclitus: 'The soul of man is a far country, which cannot be approached or explored.'

"It is not altogether true, I think; but success must depend on a fair harbour opening in the cliffs…

"...the physician has to trust his patient, quite as much as the patient must trust the physician."

Both Freud and Lisa realise that much of the fictional Freud’s psychoanalysis of Frau Anna G. is misguided by Lisa’s dishonesty and evasiveness in session. A fair harbour did not always open in her cliffs. In Nabokovian terms, she did not always reliably share her secrets or her mystery with her analyst (though she does share them with her readers via her sections of the novel, assuming she can be trusted).

"An Erogenous Flood"

The fictitious Freud describes Lisa's writings as "an erogenous flood, an inundation of the irrational and the libidinous...it is as if Venus looked in her mirror and saw the face of Medusa." He regards them and her sessions as of dubious honesty.

The different sections of the novel are not merely juxtaposed, but feed off each other as the truth apparently coheres over time. The truth seems to emerge from Lisa’s hallucination and fantasy.

In the meantime, Thomas has a lot of Nabokovian fun and games with identical twins, dreams, secrets, memories, labyrinths of the heart, trains, umbrellas, childlessness, incest, fear of pregnancy, homosexuality, honeymoons, psychosomatic symptoms, anti-semitism, black cats, crucifixes, fir trees, fires, floods, landslides, storms, mirrors, premonitions, opera, swans, wombs, and wild irrationality.

All Compact

Thomas’ Freud quotes Shakespeare in a context that can equally be applied to the structure of the novel:

"The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,
Are of imagination all compact…"

D. M. Thomas achieves this compact in an equally compact and enjoyable 240 pages that deserve to be exhumed and recognised as a superior work of British post-modernism, even though it’s superficially dressed in the garb of late modernism.


SOUNDTRACK:

Ian McCulloch - "The White Hotel"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-s_a...

The Chills - "The Male Monster from the Id"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO95i...

[Teresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's so much I could say about this book, but I haven't strayed into spoiler territory in a review before and I don't want to start now. More than with any novel I can think of that I've read, this is more than a sum of each part. For example, the fictional case history 'written' by the novel's Freud would mean nothing without the previous two sections 'written' by his patient; the same is true of the following sections relating her later life and that of the world at large, each with a Freudian trope of train journeys.

A traumatic incident from the patient's youth is glossed over by the patient herself and then by the fictional Freud, who thinks an earlier event is the key. Nothing is heard of it again and to the reader this seems, glaringly and obviously, wrong. As later events spool out, we realize Freud does not know all about this woman (that would be impossible, especially in this rendering). Her case is compared to that of the real-life Freud's Wolf-Man, which the author of this novel has to know was ultimately not the success Freud thought it to be.

Of course, I knew much about the novel's time period before reading it, yet this literary experience of it has left me helplessly angry, knowing the world was capable of and is still full of this kind of senseless violence. But, even with this residual anger, there is a catharsis to be had due to the author's mystical ending of (Jungian?) individuation.

When we encounter war or crime statistics, we remind ourselves, or I think we should, there was a living, dreaming, thinking, complicated individual behind each and every one of those numbers, but do we really comprehend that fact? This novel helps us to do that in all its horror and glory.

[Jennie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really scandalous book that blends eroticism with violence and psychology to portray the horrors of the Holocaust. My English major roommate recommended it to me as his favorite book when I was working on my undergrad. After the first few chapters I was a little disturbed for him, haha. But when I reached the end I realized the powerful effect of the White Hotel. Entrancing, hypnotic, outrageous and multi-layered, this is a book you will not soon forget.

[Daisy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do not read this book sat in the hairdresser’s chair as I attempted to do on a Saturday afternoon. The opening sections are very sexually graphic, in fact they comprise of nothing but sexually graphic scenes. It’s the literary equivalent of a YouPorn best bits compilation and like the website it got repetitive and became draining to read. Sex is after all more of a participant than spectator sport.
We have the opening poem and then a journal that the poem is based on. Both written by Anna G (a pseudonym given his patient by Freud) they tell of a woman nearing 30 who meets a young man on a train has sex with him and then find a hotel (the titular White Hotel) together where they spend several days having sex in all permutations often in public. Despite it being labelled a journal one can tell it is purely the stuff of dreams and fantasy as it recounts numerous incidents that are beyond the realms of possibility; the frequent and varied disasters that kill of the guests and the mass breast-feeding event that happens in the dining room.
In the following section the strangeness is explained as Anna G is a patient of Freud who seeks help because of her recurrent pain in her left breast and pelvis and her breathlessness. Of course being Freud he suspects hysteria and encourages her to share her dreams which she does in the form of the poem and journal. Freud’s diagnosis is of course around her relationship with her father and her repressed sexuality and, whether or not one believes it is little more than hooey, Anna recovers her health and goes on to marry have a successful career and be as happy as anyone can expect to reasonably be – though the aches and breathlessness never fully disappear.
We then have a section which is more of a traditional novel style telling of Anna’s life and an epistolatory section of her correspondence with Freud. These sections are at odd with their predecessors as they are calm, lightly humorous and more straight-forward storytelling and if it wasn’t for Anna’s sharing that she had a premonition or feeling that Freud’s grandson would die (something she reveals to him on hearing that he has) and Freud’s response that if he had his time over again he would have devoted his life to the study of telepathy.
These seemingly innocuous comments take on momentous proportions when we read the final section. Harrowing and violent and completely unexpected all of the issues Anna takes to Freud are explained. One of the most poignant passages, and one which moved me immeasurably was the description of how even in the midst of the most atrocious horrors some things remain unaware and can even retain their beauty.

The scene became tinted with mauve. She watched cumulus gather on the horizon; saw it break into three, and with continuous changes of shape and colour the clouds started their journey across the sky. They were not aware of what was happening. They thought it was an ordinary day They would have been astonished. The tiny spider running up the blade of grass thought it was a simple, ordinary blade of grass in a field.

A beautiful, brave book that amazed me with the stylistic variation, poetry, journal, report, epistolatory. Read it and lament that writers today lack the vision and bravery of writers of the previous decades (if you want to quibble compare this Booker shortlisted work with the predictable and pedestrian winners of late).

[Paul Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's a moment in Ernest Hemingway's novel To Have and Have Not which I thought was a real zinger at the time - we have been following Harry and his wife and their relationship intimately - they have some big financial problems but he loves her, and that's always good when a middle aged guy loves his wife don't you think, so you see her from his point of view. Then later you have a different narrator, some other guy, and he's driving along, maybe on his way to see Harry, and he sees this random woman crossing the road and thinks what an ugly old bag she is, you know, in that gracious way that men think at times, and then suddenly we see that the old broke down woman is Harry's wife, who we had, through Harry's eyes, been thinking of as a beautiful, warm, loving irreplaceable human being - which she was.

The zooming round of perspective is what I loved about that. And the double aspect of reality. It made me dizzy.

In The White Hotel we are blathering away with this boring Freudian stuff about this boring young woman and her sexual neuroses (and roses and roses) and all this maudlin sex fantasty dream crap and then ka-splat she's in the middle of one of the most gruesome Holocaust incidents.

The perspective switch from the intimate, delicate human concern for this young woman expressed in the psychoanalytical part of the book to the terminally disgusting people-as-vermin-to-be-eradicated part was beyond shocking when I read this. It was a literary sucker punch. I didn't see it coming.

Whether big effects is what novels should be aiming for is another matter. But this book certainly delivers its big effect.

[Sally · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, that was weird.
It went from intensely sexual, to clinical, to narrative, to horrific, to just plain bizarre.

Spoiler: I think this might be a spoiler, but I wasn't exactly sure what was going on for the last 20 pages, so it might not be. It seemed like everyone was in heaven, or some kind of after-world, and the protagonist (I use that term veeeeeeeeeeery loosely) and her mother were taking a walk while reuniting and talking about a threesome witnessed by the child protagonist of her mother, mother's twin sister, and mother's sister's husband. The protagonist gets tired, dizzy, and so she and her mother decide to take a sit down to rest. The mother whips out her mammary and offers daughter a suckle "to revive" herself. This goes on for about 3/4 a page, and then the mother leans over to suckle from the daughter's breast. Then, both refreshed, they get up and continue with their walk.

This is only one of maybe 8 adult breast-suckling scenes in this book.

And I give it three stars why?
Not for all the breast milk drinking, that's for sure.

Well, there were some really intense passages detailing the confusion of the initial days of the Jewish "relocation" that happened when Germany invaded Kiev. The reader is just as uncertain as the protagonist as the scene unfurls. She wakes early, feeds her son, and heads out with her suitcase full of all her worldly possessions believing they can catch a good seat on the train that will take them to Palestine. Instead they are ... well, I won't go into that.

There was another entire section about the Viennese Opera which seemed to be too brief once it had past. The protagonist is hired from afar to replace Vera, who had fallen and broken her arm (but was also pregnant and couldn't continue through the run of the performance)she receives lukewarm reviews from the Viennese critics, but goes through with the run. This turns out, in retrospect, to be the highlight of her late-started career. Earlier she had been a ballerina, but got pregnant, quit the ballet, and then lost the baby.

Before this section Lisa, in a section confusingly titled "Frau Anna G." relates her dreams and fantasies to Sigmund Freud, who, despite her resistance, analyzes the heck out of her psyche. This goes on and on, and was mostly interesting to me because of last year's lit theory class. Without that background I might have been tempted to skim this section.

Now that I'm finished I would say the entire book reads with the confusion and blur of an old woman looking back on her life. Yet as I passed through each section things appear as though it happening at the time - the young, sexual, passion-filled pages depict the consciousness of that person at that time, for instance. Only later, through psychoanalysis with Freud himself does Anna/Lisa see her lies, her self-betrayals, and what was real vs. what was imagined.

Where in the world did I hear about this book? Well, it has always stuck in my head the scene in Prelude to a Kiss where guy and girl are first meeting one another, and he tells her he's "been reading" The White Hotel and she gets it, gets him, and they fall more in love. I wondered why, what about that book could so clearly define a person's preferences and personal tastes? That movie itself was disconcerting, but elements like that tend to stick in my mind.
So when I found it at a flea market (along with a pristine Michael Jackson Off the Wall LP and Madonna True Blue LP and a VHS copy of A Beautiful Mind) I wanted to give it a go. It took me nearly 9 months to pick it up.

I'm not sorry I read it, but I might not go around talking about it to just anyone either. I feel kind of dirty now.

[Uroš Đurković · Rating 4 out of 5]

To što je ovo zaista izuzetno delo ne menja činjenicu da je i jedno od najmučnijih koje sam čitao. Mrtva trka sa Sarom Kejn. (Zaista mrtva .) I začuđujuće retko je istaknuto da je ovo postmodernističko remek-delo – štaviše ono je paradigmatično za postmodernu. Fascinantno je sa kojom lakoćom je ostvarena krajnje kompleksna forma – dnevničke beleške, prepiska, pronađeni rukopisi, poezija, beleške na notnim zapisima, Frojdova studija slučaja, seksualne fantazije, uspomene, opis pokolja. Tu su suptilne i manje suptilne reference, citati, sukob fakcije i fikcije i set ontoloških pitanja – šta je pripovedanje, šta stvarnost, ko govori umesto mene (ono Lakanovo – mi ne govorimo jezik, jezik govori nas). Slobodanka Glišić, koja je izvanredno vešto prevela ovo delo (uz, ni manje ni više nego Ivana V. Lalića, koji je briljantno preveo stihove), primetila je u pogovoru kako je najveća vrednost ovog dela u prepletu različitih nivoa – koji se istovremeno potvrđuju i opovrgavaju – to je majstorsko iskušavanje očekivanja i naše težnje da u onome što čitamo pronađemo koherenciju. Ali Tomasovo delo, iako entropično, nikad nije haotično ili nasumično – i to je ono što pravi razliku. U žiži svih mogućih tokova, beli hotel se javlja kao ne-mesto, karantin od užasa, koji je i užas sam.

Retko kome bih ovaj roman mogao da preporučim. Međutim, vredi. I veoma je zanimljiva istorija pregovora D. M. Tomasa sa poznatim rediteljima oko ekranizacije dela. Tomasu bi se uvek nešto izjalovilo – ili se ispostavi da je delo nepredstavljivo (?) na filmu, ili se dogodi neka spoljnja okolnost, koja stopira ceo poduhvat. I pazite sad – za pravljenje filma na osnovu romana interesovali su se – Bertoluči, Linč, Hektor Babenko, Almodavar, i, za mene najzabavnije – Emir Kusturica. I to je još trebalo da Dušan Kovačević uradi dramatizaciju! Kusturica je Tomasu obećao da će obezbediti sve što je potrebno, uključujući vojsku JNA kao statiste i Žilijet Binoš sa Entonijem Hopkinsom (kao Frojdom) u glavnim ulogama. Međutim, došlo je bombardovanje i od ideje se odustalo. A u tekstu o pokušajima za filmsku adaptaciju, Tomas pominje čak i Vudija Alena i Terensa Malika. Imajući u vidu koliko je osoben svako od spomenutih reditelja, ali i još više, koliko je „Beli hotel” potresna i mučna knjiga, mogu samo pretpostaviti kakav bi bio ishod njihove saradnje. Ali siguran sam, da je film snimljen, ne bismo knjigu čitali onako kako je čitamo bez filma. Što se mene tiče, neka tako i ostane.

[Tessa Nadir · Rating 1 out of 5]

Inainte de toate, mai in gluma mai in serios, permiteti-mi sa asez patratelul rosu si sa rog minorii sa iasa din camera. :)
Am decis sa ascund recenzia, nu din cauza spoilerelor, ci pentru ca va contine detalii sexuale pe care poate nu toata lumea doreste sa le citeasca.
Recenzia va fi doar despre primele 150 de pagini ale cartii, deoarece mai departe am considerat ca nu merita sa investesc timp si pentru ca deja aveam 3 ciorne de nemultumiri adunate.
In ceea ce priveste subiectul, cantareata de opera Lisa Erdman este nevoita sa-si intrerupa promitatoarea cariera muzicala cand devine suferinda de isterie sexuala. Ea este pacienta lui Freud si prima parte a cartii prezinta fanteziile ei sexuale pe care le noteaza intre portativele unei partituri a operei Don Giovanni. Acestea sunt deopotriva erotice si morbide iar metafora "hotel alb" este recurenta.
Freud o diagnosticheaza cu 'fantezie libidinala extrema combinata cu extrema morbiditate': "E ca si cand Venus s-ar privi in oglinda si ar vedea chipul Meduzei."
Asa cum am precizat, romanul debuteaza cu un poem sexual destul de vulgar, avand cuvinte licentioase si care continua apoi cu o relatare la persoana intai ale acelorasi fantezii, putin mai imbogatite. Aflam astfel ca in drum spre casa o tanara intalneste in tren un soldat care se vrea a fi fiul lui Freud si care o "abordeaza" in diferite feluri erotice. Cei doi ajung mai apoi la Hotelul alb unde au loc tot felul de halucinatii morbide si sexuale.
In partea a treia avem un studiu de caz patologic al unei paciente numite Frau Anna, din care intelegem ce evenimente din viata ei au dus la delirul sexual din primele doua parti.
Freud face tot felul de interpretari ale viselor ei, unele mai fortate ca altele si care, trebuie sa recunosc, m-au plictisit. Freud tot interpreteaza la nesfarsit visele, fanteziile, jurnalul ei cu tatal ei, cu sotul, cu fostul amant, cu soldatul, cu unchiul, cu matusa (ei bine da, apar si ei in aceasta ecuatie), cu prietena ei si pana la urma totul devine anost. Foarte anost.
In final se ajunge si la o concluzie, destul de aberanta, anume ca ea dorea sa-i faca un copil tatalui ei, ca o ura pe mama ei si ca cele mai bune relatii ale ei au fost cu femeile, fiind astfel lesbiana. Atunci cand ea nu-si mai reprima orientarea sexuala se vindeca.
Cititorul nu mai stie la un moment dat ce e fantezie, ce e minciuna, ce e psihanaliza si ce e prostie!
Din pacate aici trebuie sa ma aliez celor care considera ca psihanaliza este o pseudo-stiinta, acest roman venind in sprijinul acestei pareri prin tot acest talmes-balmes psihologic care culmineaza cu un diagnostic foarte neverosimil.
Si deabia acum sa trecem la lucrurile despre sex pe care le putem afla din carte:
- asa cum am inteles eu, la un moment dat, soldatul o atinge cu degetele. Ea mai apoi il intreaba... daca e posibil sa fi ramas gravida. El o linisteste ca nu... (asta mi-a adus aminte de anii mei din adolescenta, cand bunica "m-a instruit" ca doar uitandu-te la un baiat ai si ramas insarcinata!) :)
- trio-ul in pat (doua femei si un barbat) nu distruge iubirea ci o intareste, amantii ajungand sa se iubeasca mai mult.
- la un moment dat ei ii curge lapte din sani, desi nu este nici macar insarcinata.
- protagonistii considera ca trebuie sa faci sex oral (si sa inghiti) ca sa-i demonstrezi partenerului ca-l iubesti. Altfel nu.
- la un moment dat ei ii vine ciclul si neavand nimic la indemana foloseste un prosop. Culmea este ca imediat dupa aceea se duce la dans. Si eu ma intreb oare cum poti face fata unei asemenea situatii cu un prosop. Mereu am considerat, ca autor, ca este necesar sa scrii numai despre lucruri pe care le stapanesti foarte bine sau despre care te-ai documentat temeinic.
In concluzie, romanul nu exceleaza nici la capitolul psihanaliza, caci iata e in stare sa-i transforme si pe cei interesati de asa ceva in sceptici si nici in fantezii sexuale, caci acestea sunt destul de comune si uzate. Din pacate nu am reusit sa remarc ceva de care sa ma agat pentru a aduce si cateva laude cartii. Insa, sper eu, poate recenzia mea va produce cateva zambete si astfel timpul cu aceasta carte nu va fi in totalitate pierdut.

[Roger Brunyate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Freud and the Final Solution

[2005] An extraordinary book, historical in its way, yet put together like the movements of a musical composition. Introduced by Sigmund Freud, the book's first three movements consist of the erotic fantasies and case-history of one of his female patients, overlapping, expanding, and gradually turning into almost normal narrative. But then the story takes a different course with the convulsions of the century, and becomes a testament of the Holocaust, harrowing and chillingly authentic. Only at the end does the fantasy element return, pulling together the earlier themes into a kind of benediction. I originally questioned whether the book cohered as a whole, but as it has lingered in my memory I have become aware of structural unities that are entirely satisfying.

I am submitting this review after also reading W. G. Sebald's Austerlitz, another Holocaust novel that stalks its subject from an unexpected angle. It makes me wonder whether, with this subject, the frontal approach of straight narrative is possible any more, but here are two masterpieces that not only succeed brilliantly in their own genre but chart new directions for the modern novel as a whole. Both writers recognize that some events are so powerful as to warp the consciousness of entire generations. While Sebald looks for traces of this trauma like an archaeologist studying past artifacts, Thomas moves in the opposite direction, starting at the beginning of the century, when Freudian psychology made it possible for the first time to trace the rifts in the human psyche that would ultimately lead to such inhumanity.

======

[2017] This was one of the very first reviews I wrote, when I was just beginning on Amazon. Despite many, many other Holocaust-related books I have read since, with a particular interest in what I called "stalking its subject from an unexpected angle," this one still sticks with me as utterly sui generis, and it has remained among the very top of my best books ever. I looked back just now to see if I had done it justice. I certainly conveyed my enthusiasm, but I am surprised too by all I left out that I would have included if writing today: the fact that an entire section of the book is written in verse; the extreme use of pornography in the erotic sections; the wonderful writing about an opera singer; and (looking at it again just now) the proportions, whereby the parts packing the greatest punch (the first and last) are also the shortest.

On the other hand, I now wonder if it is a book that can be reviewed at all without spoilers. Even to put it on my Holocaust shelf is to give away something that Thomas (as I recall) keeps as a complete surprise until the very end. And yet nothing of what I have written above, especially the discussion in the second paragraph, could have been said without it. Perhaps this is a case for hiding the entire review?

[Dajana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Čula sam da je ovo potresan roman, težak roman, ovakav i onakav. Pročitala sam prvu polovinu, koja je bila u vezi sa različitim seksualnim radnjama i fantazijama, ponekad nasilnim, i nije mi baš bilo jasno šta je TOLIKO strašno.
E. Onda sam pročitala drugu polovinu. I otišla da povraćam. I razumela zašto je jedan kritičar rekao da nije mogao da govori celog dana posle poslednjih trideset strana ovog romana.

Ovo NIJE roman za svakog, i nemojte ga čitati ako ste osetljivi (ja jesam i grdno sam se prevarila). Ma koliko ovo bilo vredno književno delo, a uverena sam da jeste, nisam sigurna da je pametno prirediti sebi takav emotivni i psihološki užas.
Ali trenutak u kojem čitalac shvata zašto junakinju boli leva dojka, levi kuk i zašto ima odnose u toku menstruacije je vrhunska manipulacija strahom, gađenjem i užasom. Mislim da nikad nisam čitala nešto što mi je baš ovoliko strašno.

Volela bih da znam u kakvom je mentalnom stanju D. M. Tomas ovo pisao.

Užas.

[K.D. Absolutely · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strange book.

Or maybe I am just not equipped to understand everything.

It is composed of a prologue and 6 chapters in almost different forms and themes: (1) epistolary introducing the main characters; (2) erotic fantasies told in poems; (3) erotic journal in first-person narrative; (4) case history in third-person plain storytelling; (5) clinical psychoanalysis; (6) holocaust; (7) outright bizarre conclusion.

I hate some parts of it not because it is boring but it is hard to understand. I had a 3-unit course in Basic Psychology in college and all I can remember now about Sigmund Freud, which is a fictional character here and who narrated #5 above, is his interpretation of dreams: that dreams are repressed emotions and that if you dream of a snake or anything elongated it means you are longing for a penis and if you dream of a box or anything that resembles a container, is that you want to fuck a pussy. I also remember hearing about Oedipus complex which means any emotions or ideas that we keep in our subconscious. I am sure, there are other brilliant things that Sigmund Freud said but I just forgot or actually did not understand them.

So, if you are a psychology graduate, practitioner or interested on it, this book is for you.

Anyway, I still liked this book basically for D. M. Thomas' strange imagination which is similar to Elias Canetti in his opus Auto-da-Fe especially in #3 and #4. Then the clinical psychoanalysis, being full of medical terms, reminded me of a recent read: Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. For a while, I thought that I was reading the real life Sigmund Freud (the scientist) only to find out in Wiki that this is 100% fiction and Sigmund Freud (the character here), did not have a similar patient during his life time. Of course, I would be a hypocrite if I say that I did not enjoy #2 and #3 that have all these erotic tales beautifully narrated in prose and poetry. See, it is better, i.e., healthier, to express myself in the open than to hide it in my subconscious thereby adding something to my oedipus complex.

This tells a story of a 29-y/o woman, Anna G./Lisa suffering from acute psychosomatic pain in her left breast and womb and so she consults Sigmund Freud. So, during the course of the treatment, D. M. Thomas gives the background of the woman, her family history, part of which is that burning White Hotel where her adulterous mother got burned while having sex with her uncle. Then of course the harrowing inclusion of her experience during the Holocaust provides a pivotal point later in the story.

Overall, I liked this book but I wish I knew more about Sigmund Freud to appreciate everything so I did not get fixated on the yummy erotic parts ha ha.

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Theodor Adorno, in an oft-misappropriated quote, wrote that to compose poetry after Auschwitz is barbarism. Adorno did not, as it may initially seem, intend the Holocaust to signify the end of cultural creativity. Rather, it’s a remark that – against the broader critical landscape – inquires about reconciling a culture that produced Kant and Beethoven with the largest, most extensive, systematized killing in humanity’s history. There is a “tension between ethics and aesthetics inherent in an act of artistic production that reproduces the cultural values of the society that generated the Holocaust”; a tension that must be navigated by any writer or artist broaching the subject (“The Ethical Limitations of Holocaust Literary Representation,” A. Richardson, eSharp Issue 5 – Borders and Boundaries. D.M. Thomas, as author of The White Hotel (and instigator of the voluminous ensuing literary discussion) sensitively and adroitly writes a ‘Holocaust novel’ without falling prey to the compulsion to make the novel a parable or story of redemption.

(And it is this, the avoidance of ‘the redemptive power of suffering’ or ‘suffering as purpose’ that makes The White Hotel an essentially Jewish novel: it avoids the Christian teleology present in so much Holocaust literature).

To suppose the Holocaust should only be approached as abstraction is not a new idea. Direct literary narrative can’t examine the ‘silence of God,’ the vicious anti-human violence; non-fiction accounts, too often, reduce the subject to little more than tally marks and quotes about ‘The Jewish Problem.’ The literary world is rife with Holocaust narratives: they have been turned into commodities, the shock and horror (and sturm und drang!) has long given way to cautionary tales about hatred and brutality. The White Hotel subverts the common conception of Holocaust literature: it is, in parts, erotic poetry, epistolary exchange, narrative, historical document, and hallucination.

The psychotherapy sessions between Freud and the protagonist, Lisa Erdman, are used as infrastructure for Lisa’s third-person narrative. Freud is an enabling device and mouthpiece – certainly anyone, with even a modicum of experience with Freudian thought and analysis, would recognize Lisa’s symptoms (pains in her breast and pelvis, sexual hysteria and hallucination, and the transformative role of her mother’s sexuality) as Freudian in nature. Lisa authors a stream-of-consciousness poem, and further clarifies it (at the urging of Dr. Freud) into a fantastical, sexual, violent vignette.

From the 21st century, we know the inevitability of Eastern European Jewry in the 1930s and 40s; the herding of Jews to destruction in Poland, Ukraine, Czechoslovakia. The infernal drumming of the Holocaust is in the distance, with oblique reference to political and social unrest at different periods throughout the novel.

The novel abruptly drops us from Lisa’s dreamlike, comfortable (though frequently anguished) quotidian life to life during the war – bereft of the luxury she had prior – living in Kiev, Ukraine, poor and raising her son, Kolya. They are summoned – with the rest of the city’s Jewish population – to the riverside ravine, told they will be boarding trains (to camps, to Palestine, the furor of rumors overtake and transfix the evacuated Jews.

Of course, Sigmund Freud’s theories cast a long shadow over the twentieth century: the emergence of psychoanalysis, in conjunction with his extensive writing on behavior and nature, make him a prime lens and focusing agent on the events of the Holocaust and World Wars. He also, at times, cheapens the novel (though Thomas is good at keeping Freud as a device, rather than as a character); surely, the narratives and experiences would work as well without him, and Lisa’s ‘hysteria’ and psychosexual pain would be just as meaningful without the Freudian framing. (Indeed, her symptoms manifest obliquely – and directly – enough to draw the careful reader into the presumption of some kind of Freudian situation). The Freudian life and death instinct are two oppositional, harmonic forces that bookend the novel and the experiences of Lisa, the protagonist.

With Lisa’s ongoing breast and pelvic pain, her hallucinations and emotional preoccupations, her unreliable narration is assumed. How much can we trust her recollections? At what juncture, if any, do her preoccupations become surrogates for ‘real’ (as in, historically documented, agreed-upon) events? Leslie Epstein’s review, “A Novel of Neurosis and History” (New York Times, March 15, 1981), notes that Lisa is bereft of intellectual vigor and depth: she exists in a time, and circumstance, that would seem to court cultural exploration. And yet, in her narratives (both epistolary and third-person), she remains without intellectual identity and interaction.

At Babi Yar, Lisa – wearing her crucifix – is shot at, yet still alive in the mass burial pit. A German soldier spies her jewelry and pulls it off her neck, realizing she is still breathing: he smashes her breast and pelvis beneath his boots. Two soldiers, later discovering a flicker of life, subsequently rape her with a bayonet: a grisly, spare, and barbaric scene that finally frees her from life. And then, her experiences – her pains, her hysteria – acutely, rapidly focus: Lisa’s “Cassandra-like” premonitions and foresight, referenced throughout the novel, also predict her fate. Her ‘hysteria,’ then, isn’t manifested from past experiences – but the result of her future encounter with brutal soldiers, committing brutal violence, in a catastrophically brutal time. (Surely, too, with Freud and Lisa’s acknowledgement of foresight, this would explain the number of women experiencing hysteria some years prior to the Holocaust).

Extensive literary scholarship and criticism exists on The White Hotel, and with good reason: it is an unusual, phenomenal, profoundly moving piece of fiction, alone in its form and presentation. One of the most common criticisms leveraged against the novel addresses Lisa’s competing identities, her femininity and her Jewishness. There are protracted commentaries about which identity – the feminine or Jewish – subsumes the other. We are forced to confront, then, the nature of Jewish identity: Lisa is hardly living a remote, rural life on the shtetl in the Pale, she is a secular, cosmopolitan woman – the product of an interfaith marriage and a trained opera performer. Her Jewish identity hinges on her encounters with anti-Semitism; her Judaism is an abstraction, not a theological or cultural touchstone, and one she is forced to confront at Babi Yar.

Like many Jews, she exhibits a complicated (and even denialist) relationship to Judaism: she wears a crucifix, and – upon showing her gentile surname and paperwork to a German soldier -- is given the opportunity to escape the murdering. She remains, though, as Kolya (her son) cannot leave – and she is, ultimately, subsumed into the inevitable, inescapable fate of European Jews. She has internalized anti-Semitism, from her father, from a group of harassing sailors in her youth, from her estranged husband.

Discourse on The White Hotel means accepting a non-binary version of identity, motivation, and experience; that differences in ‘truth’ and ‘reality’ exist, and the distinctions between the two aren’t particularly important – especially not within the abstract narrative. A compulsion to reconcile the ambiguities and fluidity of the novel – with all varieties of reality into one, holistic experience, denies the novel’s very nature. The expectation of realism to succeed abstraction is short-sighted and contradicts the essential nature of conceptual fiction.

[eme · Rating 5 out of 5]

Posztmodern remeklés, amiről alig-alig tudunk, és ebből következően csak elvétve olvasunk. Csak ezért próbálok meg valamit írni róla, mert egyébként azok közé a könyvek közé tartozik, amelyekről sokkal könnyebb hallgatni. A szavak kevesek, a gondolatok nehezen állnak össze, hiszen a történet csak árad és gomolyog az emberben, képei fel-felbukkannak a mélyből, néha kísértenek, néha egy-egy pillanatra megvilágosítnak, hogy ismét alábukjanak és homályban meg bizonytalanságban hagyjanak minket. Valami nyugtalanító, borzongató megérzéssel, ami csak megérzés marad, de nem tágít mellőlünk.

Adott egy több részből álló, több írásmód mozaikjából, több műfaj jegyeit viselő darabokból álló regény, amelyből Lisa Erdmann (Anna G.) operaénekesnő élettörténete rajzolódik ki. Vers és próza, levél, napló és esszé, dokumnetumszerű passzusok, tudományos szöveg, esettanulmány, első személyben írt vallomás, nézőpont és idősíkváltások, néha –összemosások, szöveginterpretációk – igazi káosz, meg mögötte remek megkomponáltság, és egyben állandó figyelemre, nyomozásra késztető kápráztatóan sokszínű játék. Ráadásul mindez úgy, hogy egyik központi szereplőnk nem más, mint Sigmund Freud, ergo a regény elsősorban a mélylélektan felől közelíti meg az egyéni (és tömeg)sorsot, a huszadik századi történelmet, megpróbálva egy élet, egy tüneteggyüttes értelmezési kísérlete révén választ adni súlyos, mindmáig feldolgozatlan kérdésekre.

A regény első része néhány levél révén betekintést nyújt Freud, Jung és Ferenczi Sándor levelezésébe, életébe, tudományos tevékenységébe, számos életrajzi utalással, nyilvánvaló hitelesítési szándékkal. Freud itt számol be egy érdekes esetről és szándékáról, hogy a páciens személyes írásait és az ezekkel foglalkozó esettanulmányt nyomtatásban is megjelentesse. A regény a továbbiakban Lisa Erdmann, a hisztérikus, testi tüneteket is produkáló, félzsidó énekesnő gasteini kúrája után keletkezett írásaival – egy látomás versbe, majd prózába öntött megrajzolásával -, illetve a Freud által, első személyben írt esettanulmánnyal folytatódik. Mindkettő(három) igazi stílusbravúr.
A vers olyan mint egy pszichedelikus álom (nem mintha tapasztaltam volna valaha ilyent :)). Lisa naplójával pedig Thomas valami fantasztikusan megfogó atmoszférájú, szabad(nak tűnő) asszociációkban, bizarr képekben, történésekben, erotikus részekben tobzodó szürreális prózát hoz létre. Az ember szinte alig kap levegőt olvasás közben.
A Lisa látomásának középpontjában álló fehér hotel egyféle bizarr paradicsomnak tűnik, amely mindenek katasztófák, egyéni és tömeghalálok, tűzesetek, áradások, légi szerencsétlenségek stb. ellenére nem ismeri a bánatot és szomorúságot, legalábbis könnyedén átlép rajta, hisz megelégelte az erőszak és terrorizmus témáját. Feltétel nélküli, önzetlen (vagy épp önző) világ, amelyben semmi nem gátolja meg a felhőtlen létezés örömét, a testi élvezetek végletekig való fokozását, az életöröm- és ösztön gátlástalan érvényesülését.
Freud írása az Anna G.-vé átkeresztelt Lisa vallomásáról szabályos esettanulmány, amely módszeresen, a pszichoanalízis minden arzenálját bevetve, rendkívül olvasmányosan, de tudományos stílusban értelmezi a nő látomását, keresi a mozgatórugókat, próbálja feltárni egy élet sebeit, a lelki sérüléseket, még akkor is, ha a "pornográf és érthetetlen", irracionális képek áradata, bevallása szerint, feldogozhatatlannak tűnik. Álom és valóság, irracionális és racionális összemosott világában kell rendet teremteni, a gyerekkora vonatkozó (és nem a gyerekkorból származó) emlékeket analizálni, értelemet adni a látszólag kusza értelmetlenségnek.
Hol vannak a határok? Meddig lehet elmenni az értelmezésben? Mennyire lehet megközelíteni a tünetek gyökereit, az ember lelkét, valóját? Meddig lehet, kell visszamenni? Csak a múlt okozhat tüneteket? Vagy benne van már a jövő is, amelyet pont úgy bele kell kalkulálni a képletbe? Hiszen az emberben egyszerre lakozik múlt jelen és jövő, még ha nincs is eszközünk, módszerünk arra, hogy utóbbit feltérképezzük.

Thomas, bár nem utasítja el teljesen Freud módszerét, egyértelműen rávilágít annak korlátaira is. Freud értelmezése - a maga (részben egy megbízhatatlan narrátor által indukált) hibáival és tévedéseivel -, mint minden értelmezés, egy lehetséges olvasat (nem véletlenül lesz a tanulmány egy írott szöveg elemzése) – lehet profi, lehet aprólékos és sok mozzanatra kiterjedő, szolgáltathat magyarázattal és ezáltal gyógyulással ideig-óráig, de a „minden” számára is éppúgy megközelíthetetlen és felderíthetetlen, mint mindenki más számára. Főként, ha maga a mesélő-elbeszélő állandóan visszavonja és újraírja saját történeteit.
A regény további, sokkal realisztikusabb, és sok szempontból sokkoló részei kiegészítik, újra és újra felülírják a kezdeti értelmezéseket, új megvilágításba helyezik a motívumokat, szimbólumokat, összekötnek távoli vagy annak tűnő mozzanatokat, miközben egy kegyetlen és megrázó világot tárnak elénk. Megismerjük Lisa múltjának traumáit, miközben az életút nemcsak visszafele, hanem időben előrehaladva is kiterjedést kap, sőt egyéni sorsból tömegsorssá válik. Az egyéni életút és tragédia mesokszorozódik, negyedmillió fehér hotel fekszik, akár a kőzetrétegek Babij Jar gödreiben. Ismét felderítendő múlttá válik, mintegy körkörös ismétlés és őrületig való fokozódás révén.
A fehér hotel holokausztregény (is). Regény arról, hogyan teljesíti be a közös sors az egyénit, a kielemzett, a gyógyulásra, értelemre vágyó személyes sorsot, hogyan járul hozzá annak megértéséhez, elfogadásához.
Regény arról, hogy tüneteink gyökerének felismerésében és a gyógyulásban (ha egyáltalán van esély rá) nem csak a múltbeli gyökerekhez való visszanyúlás szükséges ahhoz, hogy kezdeni tudjál valami azzal, ami volt, számítanod kell azzal is, ami lesz. Mert ami lesz, az már itt van, bennünk, fizikai és lelki tüneteinkben, látomásainkban. Képesek vagyunk-e ezt felismerni?

A fehér hotel a lét és sors regénye, a gyönyör és fájdalom szélsőségei közt megtett úté. Szerelem és halál, Erósz és Thanatosz egymásra rímelő tobzódása, kezdet és vég egymást kiegészítő, álmot és valóságot összemosó egysége. Fátum és ananké. Meg misztikus előérzetek. Minden csupa titok és rejtély, megtévesztés és tükröződés, meg irracionális ismétlődés.
Persze nem lehet elmenni a regény önreflexivitása mellett sem, a történetírásnak és –olvasásnak, a
megértés csapdáinak tematizálódása mellett, ami mesterien simul be Lisa történetébe. Erre viszont most nem térnék ki részletesebben, meghagyom a következő értékelőknek. Remélem lesznek, sokan.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I attempted to read The White Hotel when it first came out, I was 14 and unable to get through it. I knew there was something much bigger at work but I couldn’t grasp the apparent profundity of the work. Now, at 45 years of age, I have read it from beginning to end and it is a truly spectacular piece of writing! I read for two hours before bed last night, unable to put the book down until I finished the last chapter, crying quietly. This book moved me as few others have and I am a voracious reader.

I have so many questions, thoughts and feelings concerning the book but it’s going to take me a while to formulate them and a while to digest the book fully. It’s a book I can see myself reading again and again and getting something different, something more, out of it each time I take it up.

I just read about the synchronicities Mr. Thomas observed during the writing of The White Hotel and during my reading of his masterpiece, I couldn’t help but see the book as an exploration of the interconnectedness of everything. I love how he writes about the scent of pine (and quite synchronistically, when I opened the book to look for a passage about the pine trees, the book opened to the exact page for which I was looking!) and how Lisa finds comfort when she is able to see herself as having a continued existence. There is no past, present or future but a continuum on which we, as human beings, exist. Even death and the afterlife are blips on this continuum.

In certain parts of the book, I had an almost palpable sense of horror, fear, terror, and nausea. My pulse beat wildly but I still continued to savor every word, knowing that I would go into my 10 year-old son’s room where he was already asleep and check on him and give him an extra goodnight kiss before turning off the light to go to sleep. I couldn’t help but think of Kurtz in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and his final exclamation: The horror! The horror!

Thank you, Mr. Thomas, for writing such a life-changing, eye-opening novel— a novel that perhaps existed before it was written and published and a novel that will continue to exist ever after. I am also reminded of a couple of lines from Wordsworth:
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.

[Boris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Една неочаквано добра литературна среща с Д. М. Томас. С потенциала да и вдигна оценката на цели пет звезди с времето :)

Няма да говоря в детайли, защото аз самият не знам защо ми харесва. Вероятно точно тази малка искрица ирационалност в харесването ѝ е главната причина да съм толкова увлечен по нея.

Основни моменти от повествованието са психоанализата на Фройд и “превръщането на големите трагедии в живота в обикновени нещастия”.

Чувството от прочетеното не наподобява чувството да прочетеш обикновена история с начало, среда и край, а по-скоро се доближава до серия от смущаващи и обсебващи изображения и визии, които карат мисълта да тече по ирационален и нов начин.

Определено бих нарекъл тази книга експеримент и при това интересен.

[Speranza · Rating 2 out of 5]

RECIPE FOR THE SUCCESSFUL NOVEL:

Ingredients:

Take 30% sex
Take 20% Holocaust
Take 20% Freud
Take 10% death
Take 10% violence
Take 10% epistolarity

Spices: Add erotic poetry to spice up the meal and classical music to boost the price.

Be careful not to stir the ingredients together, each flavor should stand out on its own.

! Please be sure not to include any good writing, plot or an underlying message, as they will make the meal heavy and indigestible.

Happy reating!

[Богиня Книдска · Rating 5 out of 5]

Безсрамно добра творба. Зашеметяващи обрати, невероятни хитросплетения, сочен авторов език, без да е разточителен на думи. Цялата тази богата интертекстуалност те държи в плен до последната страница.

[Anastasia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Είναι ένα από τα λίγα βιβλία που με παίδεψε τόσο η βαθμολογία, όσο και η κριτική τους! Βέβαια κάτι τέτοιο το καθιστά και εξαιρετικά ενδιαφέρον.

Ένα στοιχείο που αρχικά με προβλημάτισε αλλά τελικά κατέληξα να το διασκεδάζω, ήταν οι εναλλαγές στις αφηγηματικές μεθόδους. Μέσα σε αυτές τις 270 σελίδες θα βρεις τα πάντα...από εσωτερικούς μονολόγους, μέχρι παράθεση γραμμάτων, διαλόγους, εξιστόρηση γεγονότων και αναδρομές στο παρελθόν. Η επιλογή της χρονολογικής αλληλουχίας των γεγονότων με κέντρισε ευχάριστα και παραμένει μία από τις θετικές εντυπώσεις που έχω κρατήσει. (δεν θα αναφερθώ παραπάνω για να αποφύγω πιθανά spoiler)

Πηγαίνοντας τώρα στην πλοκή, αφού διάβασα τα πρώτα κεφάλαια και έχοντας αποκτήσει ήδη μία κάποια αρνητική στάση, γύρισα να διαβάσω το οπισθόφυλλο για να σιγουρευτώ ότι πρόκειται για το ίδιο βιβλίο που είχα επιλέξει. Αφού το εξακρίβωσα του έδωσα μία δεύτερη ευκαιρία και φυσικά δεν το μετάνιωσα. Ο συγγραφέας προσπαθεί να μπλέξει αρκετά στοιχεία, όπως ψυχολογία, ιστορία (ολοκαύτωμα), ερωτικό στοιχείο, φτάνοντας αρκετές φορές στην υπερβολή και κατά τη γνώμη μου κάπου το χάνει. Ωστόσο καταφέρνει να θίξει αρκετά θέματα και σίγουρα να κεντρίσει τον αναγνώστη, του οποίου μόνο αδιάφορο δεν μπορεί να του περάσει το βιβλίο. Αν είχε λοιπόν σκοπό να προκαλέσει, σίγουρα τα καταφέρνει περίφημα!

Δεν αποκλείω το ενδεχόμενο να γυρίσω και ν' αλλάξω τη βαθμολογία. Μέχρι τότε περιμένω να διαμορφώσω μία πιο εμπεριστατωμένη άποψη, μέσα από κριτικές, συζητήσεις ή ίσως και μέσα από μία ακόμη ανάγνωση.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Be careful picking this one up is not for the feint of heart, but if you need a "sense of proportion" in your life and a paradigm shift in thinking would do you good, give it a go. Read other peoples nicely crafted reviews if you want but I think its best to pick it up without a clue what its about.

[Jonfaith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Harold at Twice-Told raved about this novel, but it was Emir Kusturica's interest in bringing it to the screen which inspired my reading. I felt the novel contrived and flat, though the premise is engaging: the very prescience of Freudian hysteria.

The bits that Thomas stole are the best in the book: shame on you, Donald.

[Shane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A frightening sexual odyssey

This book swings between sex and death, sometimes regenerative, sometimes utterly destructive.
 
The novel begins as a libidinous poem and then moves to a prose rendition with the same imagery: a white hotel between a volcanic mountain and a stormy lake where a young woman and a soldier she picks up in a train engage in non-stop sex while guests encourage them on, some even participating in the act; meanwhile people are dying outside the hotel, either drowned in a capsized boat on the lake, or via an earthquake on the mountain, or in a cable car breaking off and falling to its doom. Despite the deaths, guests are not in short supply at the hotel, with daily arrivals replacing the dead or departed.

We come to realize soon enough that the young woman, Anna, is a patient of Dr. Sigmund Freud and has developed neuroses based on an incident she witnessed between the Polish Catholic side of her family and the Russian Jewish one: her mother’s twin sister, her uncle, and Anna’s mother engaged in a tryst on the family yacht when Anna was three years old, while her emotionally distant father was busy at work. Freud’s conclusion: “Anna possessed a craving to satisfy the demand of her libido; at the same time, an imperious demand on the part of some force I did not comprehend, poisoned the well of her pleasure at its source.”

The story moves forward ten years to Vienna in 1929, and we meet Lisa Erdmann, aging opera singer. We discover that she is the real Anna, and that Freud was fictionalizing names to publish her case for his medical archives. Lisa corrects some aspects of the case history, confessing that there were still things she hadn’t told Freud. She meets opera diva, Vera, and partner Victor, both Jewish. Circumstances lead to Lisa ultimately marrying Victor and adopting his son Kolya, and moving to Kiev to live with them.

Then we fast forward to 1941; the Holocaust is underway. Lisa and Kolya are involved in the tragic Babi Yar massacre (where 30,000 Jews were beaten, shot and dumped into a mass grave, after being lured out of their houses on the ruse that they were being sent into exile in the Promised Land). What is shocking is the imagery that once dogged Lisa/Anna in her youth plays out in diabolic fashion at Babi Yar. I was trying to figure out whether this woman had been prescient all the time, and whether Freud’s passing statement that she was telepathic had more depth than even the learned psychoanalyst had given it. I was left to puzzle out whether it was the past incident on the family yacht or the future one to come in Babi Yar that had bottled up Lisa into a neurotic state, manifesting itself in pains in her left breast and pelvis for most of her life.

Anna/Lisa arrives at her Promised Land, and the unresolved issue in her life has a chance of resolution in this place where the milk of human kindness flows freely, like it once did at the white hotel in her youthful dream. And where the refugees arrive daily, suitcases in hand, just as the guests did at the hotel. Yet, her journey to this state has been one of terrible anxiety and suffering.   

This was a hard book to get through, although it was thoroughly engaging. The lack of dialogue, until the last chapter, made it a very told story, but I couldn’t have had it any different, for I needed to be caught by the scruff of my neck by the author and pushed toward the startling conclusion.

[J.S.A. Lowe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why do I keep reading books that utterly destroy me? I don't know. It starts off tacky and eye-rolly, like REALLY, FREUD, WE'RE GOING THERE, REALLY, and then transition via pomo surrealist folderol to unexpected gutpunch. Anyway somehow I didn't expect it, I lost track of history in all those orgy breastmilk scenes. NB that the train is not really going to Palestine. Gutted. Weeping for the last 40 pages. Share and enjoy!

[Kristen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm still not even sure if I like this book, but it gets five stars because after six years I'm still thinking about it, struggling to resolve it, admiring it for the kind of permission it gives other writers, wincing at how some passages could be so erotic while still enveloping the horror of genocide.

[Jovana Kuzmanović · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jedna od onih što te posle prate kroz ceo život, što zbog pripovedačkog postupka, što po hipnotizmu priče, što po čistom, surovom i sirovom intenzitetu kraja. Teško ju je pročitati, još teže pisati o njoj, ali jedna od najjačih pet zvezdica koje dadoh.

[Haley Bracken · Rating 1 out of 5]

Freudian, masculine. Poignant only in its final moments. Feat. violent erotic fantasies that serve no apparent purpose. Missed the mark.

[David Crumm · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Power of Words on a Page

How do you tell a story as big as the Holocaust, the century that produced it and the lives that were caught up in it? One way is through architecture and design as in Yad Vashem’s overwhelming Hall of Names or the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s humbling environment of photographs of The Jews of Ejszyski. Standing silently in these environments, we feel the enormity of life and loss.

That’s the closest comparison I can make with my 42 years of experiences with D.M. Thomas’ “The White Hotel.” Like those photographs surrounding us on all sides in the Washington D.C. gallery, this novel surrounds us with words that are artifacts of the lives of a fictional version of Sigmund Freud and a fascinating woman whose life, loves, artistry and traumas cross Europe in the first half of the 20th Century. The words Thomas has collected on these pages fall around us from letters, prose, poetry and other text. The events he describes rearrange themselves in the course of the novel, moving backward and forward in time, as if Thomas was turning this way and that way to look for fresh aspects of Frau Anna G’s life.

For me, the experience is like a kaleidoscope aimed at what unfolded in those decades leading to the Holocaust. In my experience, it’s a lot like looking around the Ejszyski hall in Washington D.C. In that hall, we see a vast jumble of faces, families, friends and beloved milestones of all those who perished in a horrific mass murder in one town conducted by Nazis with some Lithuanian police in 1941. In the hall of photos, we turn this way, then that way, always seeing something new. Who are these people? How do they relate to one another? How were they caught up in something so devastating? Couldn’t they see what was happening? How do we remember an entire community that was erased?

In “The White Hotel,” Thomas focuses our eyes on the life of Frau Anna G. and builds a world around us of images, emotions and events she experienced before her death in 1941 at yet another massacre site: the infamous Babi Yar in Ukraine.

Thomas builds this world so carefully, choosing one word at a time, that when I reopen the book now, I feel intense emotion as I read the lines I now know so well, like:

“I give you a warm bear-hug from the new world!”

“I dreamt of falling trees in a wild storm.”

“She stumbled over a root, picked herself up and ran on blindly.”

“In the autumn of 1919, I was asked by a doctor of my acquaintance to examine a young lady who had been suffering for the past four years from severe pains …”

“But all this had nothing to do with the guest, the soul, the lovesick bride, the daughter of Jerusalem.”

And the book’s last line: “She smelt the scent of a pine tree. She couldn’t place it. It troubled her in some mysterious way, yet also made her happy.”

In an earlier review of Vicki Baum’s “Grand Hotel,” I wrote about how the MGM movie was playing in my mind as I read Baum’s prose. Similarly, perhaps, because of my 40 years of re-reading Thomas’s masterwork, I picked up a fresh edition of his book this week with what I can only describe as reverence because of the images I knew would spring from his pages. And, in Thomas’s case, this novel has so many complex refractions in what amounts to the broken glass of Frau Anna G’s life that it has been judged unfilmable, despite failed attempts by several directors including Bernardo Bertolucci and David Lynch. So, no movie was playing in my mind this time.

This time, I was feeling just the power of the ink on the page, the words Thomas chose, one by one. I think the reason “The White Hotel” can’t be filmed is that it is an artwork that is perfect as words—as impossible to transform into another medium as it would be to make a movie to capture Picasso’s Guernica.

Clearly, there’s real emotion in this review, as I try to convey the power of this book in my own life over the past four decades. I’m taking the time to write these notes in the hopes that perhaps someone else will see this and may feel moved to lift the cover on this deeply moving kaleidoscope.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

From BBC Radio 4 - Drama:
Dennis Potter's unproduced screenplay of DM Thomas's award-winning novel, starring Anne-Marie Duff and Bill Paterson. With strong language and sexual scenes.

Circus performer Lisa visits Dr Probst, a celebrated Berlin psychoanalyst, to discover the cause of the mysterious pains she is experiencing in her in her left breast and pelvis. As Probst attempts to unravel the true cause of her pains, he is sure that the answer to Lisa's condition lies in her past and her realisation, after her mother and uncle are killed in a hotel fire, that the two of them were having an affair.

When Lisa allows Probst to read her secret journal, he is stunned by her erotic fantasies and sexually charged description of an imaginary relationship with a lover at a white hotel, a grand baroque Spa.

Their passionate lovemaking seems to provoke strange disasters - premonitions of the catastrophe that will soon overwhelm Lisa and Kolya.

Lisa initially plays along with Probst's investigations of her past, but eventually reveals that she also experiences unsettling premonitions. "I see what is going to happen. And what is going to happen cannot be endured."

Is her trauma really the result of childhood memories, or could it be a dark premonition of the future?

The drama is preceded by a short documentary, The Long Road to the White Hotel, telling the story of the many failed attempts to bring DM Thomas's novel to the screen and the making of the Radio 4 drama of Dennis Potter's screenplay.

Written by DM Thomas
Original Screenplay by Denis Potter under licence from Briarpatch Limited L.P
Directed by Jon Amiel

The Long Road to the White Hotel feature by Overtone Productions.

Producers: Laurence Bowen and Peter Ettedgui
A Dancing Ledge production for BBC Radio 4.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bg...

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A formidable journey through the pathological psyche of twentieth century Europe

This brilliant and sometimes brutal book combines fragments of narratives to give us a compelling tale that spans twentieth century Europe. Building on Freud's theories of dreams, eros and thanatos, and the practice of psychoanalysis, it expands outwards from the individual to a whole culture, from an excavation of the past to a glimpse of the future, and from dream to prophecy.

Based on Freud's case studies, and the historical documentation of the massacre at Babi Yar, this draws a disturbing picture of Lisa Erdman from her life in 1920s Vienna when she is a patient of Freud's, to her presence in Kiev in 1941 when the Nazis tried to exterminate all Jews from the city.

The link between Lisa/Anna's story and the holocaust is a muted one which creeps up on us as the book progresses, and that Freud himself, of course, was forced to flee Vienna for sanctuary in London in 1939 is kept in the background.

To Thomas's credit he manages to find a kind of catharsis with which to end this book, though that doesn't - and shouldn't - make parts of it almost unbearable reading.

So this isn't light or easy reading though it is very accessible. I first read this as a rather precocious teenager and don't think I had the maturity or knowledge then to really appreciate it. This is haunting, difficult and brilliantly audacious

[Fedor Marjanović · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kao piscu, "Beli hotel" mi predstavlja neku vrstu spisateljskog svetog grala. Svaki dio ovog romana je vrlo precizno isplaniran, tekst se često poigrava sam sa sobom, stvara čitaocu nova očekivanja koja već u sljedećem trenutku ruši, ali opet ništa od toga ne djeluje kao arhitektonski projekt, već kao živi svijet koji vas poziva da budete njegov dio (iako ponekad želite da pobjegnete iz njega). Ništa u ovom romanu nije slučajno, ali ništa ne djeluje izvještačeno. Erotski / pornografski pasaži s početka romana ustupaju mjesto opisima izuzetnog nasilja na kraju. Erotske scene uvijek su povezane sa scenama smrti (što jeste jedna od teza ovog djela), a intimna priča Frojdove pacijentkinje prerasta u priču o tragediji holokausta. Svaka stavka ima svoju protivstavku - intimno i kolektivno, ljubav i smrt. Čak su i scene nasilja iz pretposljednjeg poglavlja ublažene metafizičkom utjehom posljednjeg.
Jedna od velikih kvaliteta romana jeste što neprestano iznenađuje. Iako svako poglavlje djeluje kao jedan zaokružen roman, a početak svakog djeluje kao da ste počeli čitati novu knjigu sa istim likovima, ona se nadopunjuju, uvijek daju jednu informaciju više i pobijaju neko saznanje iz prethodnih poglavlja. Ovakav koncept traži od čitalaca potpunu koncentraciju, ali Tomasov stil i sjajan prevod tu žrtvu maksimalno olakšavaju.