Pictures at an Exhibition

Thomas's new novel is a return to the fascination with the horrors of war and the labyrinths of psychoanalysis that informed his bestselling The White Hotel , and has some of that novel's mesmerizing power. It begins with a young Jewish Czech inmate of Auschwitz, Galewski, who has some rudimentary knowledge of psychotherapy, trying it on one of the camp's Nazi doctors, Dr. Lorenz, who is tormented by headaches; the countless deaths and unending human agonies that surround them both come to seem like a mundane background to their hauntingly strange relationship. Most of the rest of the book takes place in Britain 40 years later during Margaret Thatcher's tenure, centering around the relationships of a celebrated elderly analyst (can it be Galewski?) with some of his patients and pupils who, as a group, tellingly represent the contemporary English intelligentsia. As is often the case in Thomas's work, art and music play an important role-- here, the paintings of Edvard Munch and the music of Gustav Mahler are prominent. There is an enigmatic visitor from Syria (can it be Dr. Lorenz?), a hideous but offstage act of terrorism, a fascinating interweave of lives, memories and motives. There is sometimes confusion about who is speaking, and the machinery of monologues and letters that moves the narrative forward (and, often, sideways and backwards) sometimes clanks a little. But there is no mistaking the stark compassion of Thomas's world, his mastery of the modern psyche and his ability to draw the reader into the darker corners of the human heart. (Oct.)