Diana Quick
I had high hopes of The White Hotel by D. M. Thomas before reading it, having been completely engrossed by The Flute Player two years ago. The earlier work came back to haunt my dreams most of all because in his central character, Elena, the author created someone who was uniquely alive as an individual. She was both a victim and a heroine, and never judged by her creator. In The White Hotel's central character, Lisa Erdman, D. M. Thomas has honed and elaborated his powers of characterisation. I read the book through twice without being able to put it down and gave copies to numbers of my friends.
Both the books set forth epic events through the particular and the personal. Apart from this Thomas has the craft and the imagination to make his work full of vivid images, sensual and many faceted, so that for me his stories have the resonance of the best myth and the best poetry, aside from their claim to be among the best of novels.
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