The White Hotel

Rating:
Summary: A quarter of a million White Hotels in Babi Yar
Review: A demandingly-structured work whose parts I didn't connect until the second or third time I read it. Frau Anna G. is treated by Freud for hysterical pains in her womb and breast; Freud assumes all this arises from incidents in her childhood and from her repressed sexuality. A point he does not pick up is that Anna G has second sight. As the story unfolds, we discover that her pains are indeed the expression of pain, but pain arising from events in her future.

I read The White Hotel in '82, the paper back emblazoned with the promise "soon to be a major film". 18 years on I gather that major film is finally in hand, again. Frankly I'd say this book was unfilmable. Is it genius? Maybe, if genius can be a one-off occurrence. D. M. Thomas' other fiction (mostly out of print now) is distinctly second-rate compared to this, the only work in which his faux-naif narrative style works properly.

That said, the depiction of Anna G as a symbol for Europe literally buried by barbarism is superbly achieved, and 18 years on I'm still reading it; if this isn't brilliance then it's not far off. Profound, disturbing, extravagantly sexual.

Rating:
Summary: The most astonishing book I have ever read
Review: D. M. Thomas' accomplishment in The White Hotel is unutterably profound. The book's power has stayed with me for more than twenty years and I will take its redemptive force with me to my grave. His prose has the force of the finest classical poetry inflamed with the psyche's deepest passions. The tale he tells of Lisa Erdman through three breath-taking almost musical variations on the seminal events of her life make a novel of unsurpassed humanity and give the reader the effect of having been immolated by the ineffable mystery of existence.

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Summary: The White Hot Hit of the 80's
Review: First of all, I will confess that I have only read this book once, and just finished it moments ago. I had heard that you weren't well read in the 80's unless you had read this book, so I picked it up at a used bookstore expecting a great read. This novel seems to be a myriad of subplots on the one hand, and a story told over and over, chapter after chapter, on the other. The first two or three "chapters" are interesting in a fairy tale sort of way, however, it seems that there is no plot in sight. The latter half of the book is quite confusing at first. At the start of every chapter it is unclear who the author is writing about. He also changes the name of the heroine, which is fine, but he chooses to confuse you first. I greatly agree with the reviewer above who says that the last chapter is an unneccessary add on. Throughout the entire book there (again) is no plot insight until the last two chapters, where the book is very loosely tied together. Basically, as is written above, the first three quarters of the book are an individual account of pyscoanalysis told through different characters, which was intriging on it's own. The last two chapters are a look inside the holocaust through the eyes of the characters involved. As seperate books, all of these chapters would have made a great series about the main character (if expounded on), but as one book, it is all over the place. I will say that I did understand the undertones that the reviewers above mention, however I still find the book to be loosely put together. In a week or two, I may read it again, and who knows? Maybe I will have a better opinion of this book.

One other thing, before I go, is that I think that the book is the author's self exploration into his own neurosis. I think he may have had an Oedipus complex. He is quite obsessed with the mother child bond.

Rating:
Summary: Not Quite What I Had Expected
Review: Having read reviews on "The White Hotel," by D.M. Thomas, I am comforted to know that I am not alone in being completely confused by the shuffled storyline and what seemed to be a never-ending dream sequence. I find it odd that the author decided to use Freud, himself, as a character, and had trouble in the beginning imagining such impossible occurrences that take place in the white hotel, in a book. With Freud as a character, the book was obviously fictional, but the author's fantasy scenarios didn't necessarily compliment Freud's theories, for he is trying to convince the reader of certain theories based upon fictional incidents. Perhaps I would have been more convinced of these concepts if the author had taken a real woman and reflected upon real experiences. I went through the book thinking this way, and was relieved to find out in the second half that this story that had been told as if it were truth was merely symbolism. Then the tables turned, and I was able to put the pieces together.
Although the flow is random and unsteady, Thomas does a good job drawing the reader into the story. He uses Anna, one of Freud's patients, to open the story with a poem about a strange dream she had. Completely confused as to the poems relevance to the story, I was interested to find out where this poem would take me, and did not find out, until the second half of the book, about the role this dream plays in contribution to the story. As I read on, Freud takes this dream and connects it to her severe physical problems that he claims are provoked by sexual repression and childhood memories. And, the author also goes into clips from Anna's experience in the Holocaust and brings the patient back to her memories that were, according to Freud's diagnosis, significant in the physical problems she now suffered. Despite the many interesting memories Anna had to tell, it was frustrating to read her story of the white hotel in both a poem and story form, and I constantly questioned when this seemingly never-ending cycle would conclude. Furthermore, hearing about her constant reminiscing followed by a long Freudian analysis became a pattern, and Thomas spent too many pages carrying out this cycle.
It was interesting, however, to read about the sessions they had together, and walk through all of Freud's thought processes as he asked Anna about her memories and past life. I am not used to studying the idea that ones mentality can have such an affect upon their physical being, for in school I study Biology and the physical roots of body reactions. Freud's character states that " ...whenever a man dreams of a place or country and says to himself, while he is still dreaming: 'This place is familiar to me, I've been here before,' we may interpret the place as being his mother's genitals or her body." (115) Thus he refers to The White Hotel, as Anna sees it, as her mother's body. " It is a place without sin, without our load of remorse"(115) and Freud symbolizes such objects as the staircase to the oesophagus and the balcony to the bosom. Never would I have been able to make these connections between such random objects. Freud also discussed in the book that Anna's symptoms would never go away until they got to the root of her hysteria, and they practically did, which could possibly be seen as the conflict in the story.
In order to enjoy this book, one must be patient and motivated to continue reading the story, for had I not been so myself, I would have quit during the 2nd chapter. Perhaps reading the book for a second time will help me to pick up whatever concepts I missed the first time and will help me understand the many levels that Thomas' mind stands on. There's no doubt that the book is well written, yet reads as an unsteady fusion between four different books written by four different authors.

Rating:
Summary: What the ....????
Review: I found this book an indulgent male fantasy and was disturbed by the graphic language and lurid images Thomas created. I do not understand the need to shock a reader by using the most hideous language you can find. I would have been more interested in this book if it had not started so badly. I found the case study more interesting to laugh at the Freudian interpretation. And to not have to skip over the cursing! I didn't even want this book in my house after I had finished reading it in case someone ever picked it up to have a look!

Rating:
Summary: One of the best books ever written
Review: I had a warning before reading this book, it was that nothing would ever seem the same and my awareness of my own femimine sexuality would escalate. Well he was right on both parts.

This book is so beautiful and so hard to explain. It's one story told in three ways: Poetic, symbolic and narrative. Some people do find it confusing, but it is absolutely necessary to re-read the book many times, only then will you see how each part is intertwined with the other, how the devastating end is actually told in each of the first two parts, told in those different ways. It makes you look at yourself in different ways too.

I read this book on holiday (in Israel!). I didn't put it down, reading it from cover to cover 8 times. I dreamt the story for many nights over the next two months. My heart and soul soar just thinking about it. I changed after reading this book. If you understand it, if you let your soul be touched by it, you will change too. Luxuriate in its warmth, and wrap yourself in its imaginary.

Finally, The White Hotel is one of only a handful of books I could not imagine living without.

Rating:
Summary: An Unforgettable Novel
Review: If you are under the age of 18, do not read this book. If you are easily offended by mature subject matter, do not read this book.
For all other readers, you MUST read this book.
When you first begin reading this novel, you will not understand exactly what is happening. Just relax and enjoy the beautiful imagery. Things that are initially confusing will be cleared up by the author at the appropriate time. The history and destiny of the main character is a mystery that must slowly be unraveled.
D.M. Thomas has carefully studied the work of Freud and the history of 20th Century Europe, and he has placed his entirely fictitious main character in a historically accurate environment. Unless you are a history professor, this book will expand your historical knowledge.
I must provide no other plot details because even the middle of the book contains surprises you should not know about before you begin the first chapter.
To borrow the words of professional reviewers, I agree that this novel is "imaginatively daring," "beautifully written," and "heart-stunning." The story will shake the core of your soul.


Rating:
Summary: Author Seems Un-Focused...Or is it me?
Review: It's true that fiction can amaze as well as inform. This was extremely well written (it was a National Bestseller way back in the early 1980s--after all), but it seemed like an outline for four different books. One part seems like a staging for a woman who is on sexual overdrive and needs to attend a sexaholic seminar. Another part intertwines the interesting correspondence between a patient and her Dr. Sigmund Freud. The third potential book deals a lot with grief and dealing with the loss of loved ones. Lastly, there are explicit glimpses of the trials, tribulations and horror of the Holocaust. I'd be lying to say I didn't get something out of the book because I most certainly did. It's just that it would have been a better 4-volume book with 4 different stories/novels. A few lines that captured me in the book were:
-Seeing the fresh grief of others had had the effect of putting distance between her and her bereavement.
-Generosity always rewards the giver.
-Our childhood memories show us our earliest years not as they were but as they appeared at the later period when the memories were aroused.
-...much will be gained if we succeed in turning your histerical misery into common happiness.
-Freud wrote (regarding the death of his own mother): With...a feeling of liberation, of release, which I think I can understand. I was not allowed to die as long as she was alive, and now I may. Somehow the values of life have notably changed in the deeper levels.

-Sometimes I crave more stimulating company.
-She was homesick, as only the very young and the very old can be.
-There are worse fates than to be lonely.

Rating:
Summary: A remarkable novel
Review: This is the story of Elizabeth Erdman, a professional singer, from the time she was a young woman in the 1920s to her death on 29 September 1941 in Kiev where she was killed like many other Jews by the Nazis. The tale is a subtle maze of poetry and case history, dreams, fantasy and historical facts. The novel opens with a letter written by Sigmund Freud about one of his patients, a young woman singer whose career was interrupted and who wrote "verses" between the staves of a score of "Don Giovanni" showing that she suffers from a severe sexual hysteria.
Indeed, in the first chapter, the reader is confronted with Lisa's "verse", a mixture of pornographic material and hallucinatory dreams of horrible events that took place at a white hotel set in the Austrian Alps. Then follows an account in prose of how the patient allegedly met Freud's son who took her to the white hotel where she experienced a nearly constant sado-masochistic love making. There she also "witnessed" several tragedies: the hotel catching fire, people perishing in a landslide or in a cable-car accident.
Following this account, a fictional Freudian case study partly explains Lisa's hallucinations through a careful analysis of her youth. After Freud's psychotherapy, Lisa appears to have regained her sanity because as of the spring of 1929, she resumes her career as a singer and becomes quite a renown artist. The reader follows her from Milan to Vienna where she marries Victor. Her voice gradually fades in quality and her final move is to Odessa before World War II and before the Nazis manage to occupy this Russian city.
A book to experience rather than simply to read, a haunting and strange novel, its plot woven like a tapestry, full of beautiful and sad characters.

Rating:
Summary: Disturbing, yet Beautiful...
Review: This novel on the surface seems to be a shocking exploitation of human sexuality and historical violence. However, the reader takes more away from this novel than an uncomfortable silence; this book beautifully weaves Virgin-Christ and Freudian imagery into a deeply introspective look into the mind -- the place where desires, memories, and even the capacity for the future lay. The heroine, Lisa Ergman, is treated by Freud and is the basis for his notorious "Anna G." case study. Thomas delves more deeply into this woman's life, illuminating the discrepancies and the events which lead up to her debilitating condition. Then he ties her suffering in the mind into the suffering of all humanity in the Holocaust. This is a book from which the more concerned and deeper reader can take away a valuable lesson in the human roots of psychoanalysis and the inner workings of humanity -- the torture and ecstasy from within and without. "The White Hotel" raises serious concerns about the validity of our own memories and the value of dissecting it. I would have given it five stars, but the last section of the novel seems tacked on and inappropriate.