The White Hotel

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 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.

I could throw around superlatives and they would not have much impact. Too many reviews are written about mediocre books that one would think them, from the reviewers reaction, modern masterpieces. "Flawlessly-rendered scenes of incomparably lyrical, powerful, acute, seamless, ineffable, gorgeous, unassailable, tender, dynamic, lush, titillating, cerebral, divine, a libidinous, self-revelatory paean to the inexpressible in art and life that packs an emotional wallop!," or some such phrase. Sometimes a person just has to come right out and say "This one grabbed me by the rear," and let it go at that. This is a book that really has to be experienced first-hand. My only word of advice is not to give up on the book too soon. It's absolutely unclear in the first 40 or 50 pages where Thomas is taking you and he doesn't present too promising a train ride at that stage. Settle in for the journey. Look out the window and watch as the landscape starts becoming more recognizable. The landmarks with which you thought you were earlier familiar, start revealing themselves in entirely new patterns. For this is a novel about revelation, more than anything else. Readers just have to trust that "all will be revealed" by novel's end, and it is, magnificently. Thomas performs a near-miraculous feat in this novel. Reading The White Hotel is akin to looking through a an extremely high-powered telescope and what at first looks likes fuzzy, indiscreet blurs, become unbelievably colorful and complex nebulae and galaxies as the instrument's focus is adjusted. The book begins with a long poem, full of erotic imagery and near-incoherent description, that we are startled to learn is written by a woman. Following this is a prose version of the story that we learn is written by a young woman who is a semi-successful Opera-singer who comes to Sigmund Freud for analysis as she suffers from acute psychosomatic pains in her left breast and her womb. She will become the Frau Anna G. of Freud's famous case-study (Freud's "Wolfman" also appears as a peripheral character in the novel). Thomas lets us in on Freud's analysis, as well as his ambiguous feelings towards his patient. At several stages, Freud is ready to throw up his hands and tell her that he won't continue his treatment as he feels she is not forthcoming enough to make any real progress. He always relents, however, because he senses that "Lisa" (the Opera-singers real name) has enough redeeming attributes to warrant his time. As the novel progresses, we learn more and more about Lisa's past and the seminal childhood incident (occurring when she is 3-years-old and vacationing with her parents in Odessa) that estranged her from her mother, and more particularly, from her father. This will be the central motif of the novel as well as Lisa's Cassandra-like ability to see the future through her dreams and her imaginative powers. If this begins to strike you as psychological clap-trap, rest assured it isn't. Th

This is the kind of book you need to read twice, at least. The second time I read it was when I realized that the long, surrealistic dream-poem in the first part was actually a premonition of horrific events to come. Lisa is haunted by this premonition her entire life, seeking psychiatric therapy to explain it. She is also haunted by mysterious "hysterical" pains in the parts of her body that, years later, will be brutalized. I love touches in the poem like the orange trees falling into the lake and vanishing -- a premonition of her brief hope of her and Kolya going to Israel - a hope which is also defeated. Faced with the horrifying premonition of the Holocaust, Lisa's psyche chooses to change the horror into something beautiful and mysterious -- the White Hotel.

Others have written enough that I need not add much. This book is best read knowing as little about it as possible. I will merely add that over the years I have recommended it to five or six friends, all of whom found it as impressive as I did. Simply one of the finest novels of the past twenty years.

The White Hotel is a work of such genius that it deserves to be read by all. The story which connects a nuerotic opera singer in the 1920's who is treated by Sigmund Freud and the holocaust of world war two is both deeply moving and shocking. The first half, through the use of poetry, letters, pschological analysis and dreams gives the reader great insight into the main protagonist's mind and life. The second half sets her life among the many who are trapped in the winds of hell that was the holocaust. Thomas shows us that each life is valuable and by focussing on one who would perish in the murder at Babi Yar he reenforces the truth that terms such as "holocaust" leave us unconnected with the reality of the horror, and thus allows us to forget. By depicting one persons fragility and inner thoughts the reader cannot dissasociate themselves from her death. The novel leaves the reader gasping for breath and led me to stare blankly afterwards lost in the possibilty that such inhumanity towards fellow human beings is possible. This novel, Solzhenitsen's work and others such as Primo Levi ensure that the mass murders of millions this century will never be forgotten. It is a great read, poetical and at times frankly realistic, and most importantly, it is a work which (something so rare nowdays) deserves to be read