Philip Temple White Shadows

Annotation

Mysterious and evocative, tantalising and erotic, this unique novel explores the qualities of love and obsession.Marienbad, the central European spa resort, is immortalised in the romantic imagination for its legendary doomed love affairs - Goethe and Ulrike von Levetzow, Chopin and Marie Wodzinska, Edward VII and Mizzi Pistl, Franz Kafka and Felice Bauer.In a Marienbad winter, within its ambience of history and allusion, theatre and illusion, a modern pair of lovers look for the cure that eluded all their famous precursors. Echoing the deja vu of Alain Resnais' classic movie Last Year at Marienbad, they track the pristine forest snows in pursuit of answers to questions that all lovers have sought throughout history. 'White Shadows is enormously satisfying; a beautiful mood piece perfectly evoking the aimless existence of those who seek but never seem to be satisfied, in a town with ever-present reminders that death and decay lie in wait for the seekers.