03/03/2006 4:29 PM
Posted by T-Rex

The White Hotel by D. M. Thomas

D.M. Thomas’ The White Hotel attempts in a blend of genres and philosophies to create not so much a holocaust narrative, but to the render the experience of it palpable to every sense.

Thomas begins with Freud, in Vienna at the height of his practice in the early 1920’s. Freud, who is developed only slightly, serves more as an iconic foil than a real character in the novel, and it is in the reflected light of the great psychologists theories that we glimpse the true protagonist, a patient, a case, known as “Anna”.

Anna‘s story is told three times. Once, as a long letter of erotic ramblings by a psychotic, once in image steeped poetry, and finally, as narrative prose, in the dry tone of a doctor discussing a case, complete with musings and asides. By the end of the third rendition, the reader begins to understand something the eminent psychologist never will. That Anna is not only a product of, but a metaphor for the collective fall of European consciousness into madness that still scars the entire century.

The remainder of the text evolves as pure narrative, spiraling toward a shattering climax, and then drifting softly away. The effect on the reader is one of horror, resignation, and a lingering melancholy that will hang in the air for days to come.

Samuel Barber--Adagio for Strings