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The White Hotel
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Plot Summary of The White Hotel
"Opera singer Lisa Erdman suffers from hallucinations along with psychosomatic pains in her left breast and left ovary. She is sent to Sigmund Freud for analysis after biological causes of her illness are ruled out.

During her analysis, she recounts to Freud an extended fantasy she had. In this fantasy, which she records both as poetic verses and as a travel journal, she meets Freud's son on a train and travels with him to a white hotel, where the two engage in a prolonged an extremely elicit love affair. At the same time, the white hotel is afflicted with a series of tragedies, including a fire, a landslide, and a flood.

Freud conducts an extended case study on Erdman, naming her "Frau Anna G." Through analysis of the dream and of her life history, he determines that she her issues are very tied up with her childhood discovery of her mother's affair with Lisa's uncle, and her mother's subsequent early death.

After completing her analysis, mostly healed of her ailments but not entirely convinced of the accuracy of Freud's conclusions, Lisa returns to her professional life. In the process of this, she marries again (for she is a divorcee), and becomes mother to a little Jewish boy in Russia, in the years immediately preceding World War II."

Melissa Rachiele, Resident Scholar



Review Analysis of The White Hotel
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Tone of book? - depressed
Time/era of story - 1930's-1950's
Internal struggle/realization? Yes
Struggle over - living in dreamworld
Is this an adult or child's book? - Adult or Young Adult Book
Battle with a psychiatrist Yes
Brain/Body disability? - mental illness

Main Character
Gender - Female
Profession/status: - musician
Age: - 20's-30's
Has magical powers? Yes
Magical/mental powers of main character: - mind reading - can see into the future
Eccentric/Mental Yes
Eccentric: - obsessed - mentally ill - emotionally unstable
Ethnicity/Nationality - Jewish
How sensitive is this character? - soggy whimpering jelly muffin
Sense of humor - Cynical sense of humor
Intelligence - Smarter than most other characters
Physique - physically sick

Main Adversary
Identity: - Male
Age: - 60's-90's
Profession/status: - doctor
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in: - a little/some
How sensitive is this character? - middling sensitive to others' feelings
Intelligence - Very much smarter than other characters
Physique - average physique

Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings? - 7 ()
Europe Yes
European country: - Germany
Asia/Pacific Yes
Asian country: - Russia

Style
Person - mostly 3rd
Accounts of torture and death? - very explicit references to deaths and torture
Sex in book? Yes
What kind of sex: - touching of anatomy - orgies - lesbians! - actual description of hetero sex
Lot of foul language? Yes
Unusual Style: - a lot of stream of consciousness
Amount of dialog - roughly even amounts of descript and dialog
Most similar books to The White Hotel
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Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow
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Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre


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D.M. Thomas Resident Scholar Profiles

TOP SCHOLAR:
  
Melissa Rachiele  

SCHOLARS:


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