The White Hotel

THE WHITE HOTEL                                                D M THOMAS

Below you have a few questions to start thinking about before our next reading group meeting on Monday December 2nd.

Before our session could you re-read “The Gastein Journal”? With the knowledge we now have about Lisa’s fate- does it change the way we read that section?

1. The narrative structure of The White Hotel consists of letters, lyrical poetry, a case study, historical fiction, and redemptive fantasy. Was it difficult to see how all the sections fit together? What sections of the book did you find most challenging...or most compelling?

2. Some readers find the lyrical section pornographic and disturbing. What do you think? 

3. In a 1983 Mademoiselle magazine interview, Thomas said he wanted to combine a story about one of Freud's cases and he had read about with the horror at Babi Yar. It struck him that "these were the poles of experience in our century: love and death, Eros and Thanatos." The book, then, is concerned with the the universal struggle between the life instinct and death instinct. Look up Freud's concept of the "death instinct"—and how it plays out in the novel. Consider, also, this passage from the The White Hotel section:
It was so sweet I screamed but no one heard me for the other screams as body after body fell or leapt ... Charred bodies hung from trees, he grew erect again.

4. Why might Thomas have named his novel "The White Hotel"? Why not ..."Babi Yar"? Or some other title?

5. Freud peels off the layers of repression in Lisa's mind and diagnoses her as a latent homosexual. Is that a credible diagnosis?

6. Why is Lisa frustrated with the progress of her treatment? Does Freud cure her? Who (or what) does cure her—and how?

7. What do you think of Freud's comment to Lisa—"much will be gained if we succeed in turning your hysterical misery into common unhappiness"? (This, by the way, is an actual comment once made by Freud.) Freud then tells Lisa that she is "cured of everything but life." What do you think about that comment?

8. In what ways does this work challenge the value of psychoanalytic therapy? Is it possible to dissect and explain the totality of a human life—using logic and causality? Consider this passage which follows the mass murder at Babi Yar:
The soul of man is a far country, which cannot be approached or explored. Most of the dead were poor or illiterate. But every single one of them had dreamed dreams, seen visions, and had amazing experiences, even the babes in arms (perhaps especially the babes in arms). Though most of them had never lived outside the Podol slum, their lives and histories were as rich and complex as Lisa Erdman-Berenstein's. If a Sigmund Freud had been listening and taking notes from the time of Adam, he would still not fully have explored even a single group, even a single person. (p. 220)
The first sentence, a quotation from the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, appears twice in the book...45 pages apart. What does it mean? 

9. One critic feels the ending is weak. Were you pleased with the way the book ended? Did you find it weak? Does it redeem the suffering of those at Babi Yar? Does a vision of afterlife redeem all suffering, everywhere? Is that what Thomas means at the end?

10. What did you like, dislike, find difficult, brilliant, funny, or compassionate...? Choose a favourite passage. 

Thanks to LitLovers Book Club Resources

DMThomas: My Hollywood hell The Guardian