One of these writings, named “Don Giovanni” because it is written on the score for Mozart’s opera of that name, forms the second section of the novel. Gradually, these letters focus on a particular patient (Lisa), who has produced two “pornographic writings” during the course of her treatment. The novel opens with an exchange of letters between Sigmund Freud and members of his circle, including Sandor Ferenczi and Hanns Sachs. The novel ultimately suggests that Lisa’s pain is not, as Freud believes, caused by trauma in her past but by the trauma that awaits her in the future: she will ultimately be killed in the Holocaust. Lisa has uncanny foresight, and she gives Freud written accounts of her erotic hallucinations, which have a dreamlike, prophetic quality. Although Lisa is a fictional character, her treatment is loosely based on some of Freud’s real case studies. Thomas, imagines the life of Lisa Erdman, an Austrian opera singer being treated by Sigmund Freud for psychosomatic pain. The White Hotel (1981), a novel by the British poet and novelist D.M.
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