The White Hotel
ISBN 0-575-02889-0 | | |
The White Hotel is a novel written by the British (
The narrative is told principally in the form of an erotic journal and letters between the female narrator and a fictionalized Sigmund Freud as well as Freud's case history analysis of the narrator.
The White Hotel won the 1981 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction, the 1981 Cheltenham Prize for Literature and was shortlisted for the same year's Booker Prize.
Development
Thomas wrote some of it in Hereford, where he was living, and at New College, Oxford, where he was on a sabbatical, and used two typewriters, one in each city.[2]
Summary
Set in 1919, the book's first three movements consist of the
Following inconclusive treatment, Frau Anna G – revealed to be Elisabeth (Lisa) Erdman of Vienna – pursues a moderately successful musical career and marries a Russian Jewish opera singer, with whom she moves to Kiev in the 1920s. When he disappears in a Communist purge, she falls upon hard times and the third movement is set in 1941, when German troops capture Kiev. Lisa and her young son are ordered, along with the city's Jews, to Babi Yar.
An other-worldly ("in Palestine or Purgatory", according to the author) epilogue ends the narrative.
Awards and nominations
- 1981 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction[4]
- 1981 Cheltenham Prize[5]
- 1981 Booker Prize (shortlist)[6]
Legacy
A number of efforts have been made to make the novel into a film, which some have described as unfilmable[7] or unadaptable. These have included attempts by Bernardo Bertolucci with Barbra Streisand, by David Lynch with Isabella Rossellini, by Simon Monjack with Brittany Murphy, and by Emir Kusturica with Nicole Kidman.[8]
In 1992, London artist Maty Grunberg created a portfolio titled "Don Giovanni" (woodcuts, limited edition); text - "Don Giovanni", the opening poem of the book.
In August 2018, BBC Radio 4 broadcast an adaptation of Dennis Potter's screenplay, produced by Jon Amiel, producer of Potter's earlier The Singing Detective, with author Thomas's reminiscences about the book's publication and various film proposals.[9][10] The BBC production starred Anne-Marie Duff as Lisa and Bill Paterson as Dr Probst.[11]
The Irish Times published a piece on the book in April 2020.[12]
See also
References
- Notes
- ^ "Personal History".
I'm Cornish, and very proud of it. It's where I live now.
- ^ "Celluloid dreams". The Guardian. 28 August 2004.
- ^ Clute and Grant 1997, p. 943.
- ^ "1981 Los Angeles Times Book Prize – Fiction Winner and Nominees". Awards Archive. 25 March 2020. Retrieved 10 March 2022.
- ^ "Book awards: Cheltenham Prize". www.librarything.com. LibraryThing. Retrieved 30 June 2011.
- ^ "Prize archive: 1981". Archived from the original on 2 December 2010. Retrieved 21 January 2011.
- ^ Greatest Films Never Made
- ^ Vanity Fair The White Hotel, Brittany Murphy's Cursed, Unmade Project DECEMBER 21, 2009
- ^ Brown, Mark (3 August 2018). "Dennis Potter's adaptation of The White Hotel to premiere on Radio 4". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 September 2018.
- ^ BBC The six weirdest movies which almost got made "Despite numerous attempts, D.M. Thomas’s harrowing novel “The White Hotel” has never been filmed, earning itself a reputation as “one of the great unadaptable works of modern literature”. Due to a staggeringly unlucky sequence of lawsuits, creative differences, bankruptcy, bombings and untimely deaths, the film has remained in pre-production for decades, attracting – and then losing – stars such as Meryl Streep, Isabella Rossellini, Juliette Binoche and Nicole Kidman along the way. Undeterred, the BBC has brought Dennis Potter’s 30-year-old screenplay to life as a Radio 4 drama."
- ^ "Radio 4 presents the world premiere dramatisation of The White Hotel". BBC. 4 August 2018. Retrieved 15 September 2018.
- ^ Sweeney Byrne, Lucy (25 April 2020). "The White Hotel by DM Thomas: A funny, disgusting, essential work". The Irish Times. Archived from the original on 7 November 2022.
- Bibliography
- ISBN 0-312-15897-1.
- Clute, John and ISBN 0-312-13486-X.
External links
- The White Hotel title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database