Reviews

Splendide-Hôtel by Gilbert Sorrentino

george_salis's review

A kind of compressed Mulligan Stew but less microcosm than vague SparkNotes. Elements are there, such as the propensity for lists, the metafiction of the author, etc., but with little to none of the passion and delight to be found in the heartier recipe of the Stew. As the author admits, the construction is loose. Ostensibly located at a hotel mentioned in a Rimbaud work, each section of this brief book is a—again, ostensibly—meditation on a letter from the alphabet. I had intimations of William Gass’ On Being Blue only to see it mentioned in the marketing material. Yes, both works start with a thesis that is quickly abandoned if there ever was one in the first place. On Being Blue isn’t about blue as much as this book isn’t about the alphabet. One fun moment was seeing Leopold Bloom’s cucker Blazes Boylan mentioned in a list of games. There are also names that are featured more prominently in Mulligan Stew, making me wonder if they were added in for this new edition (new being 1984 as opposed to the first edition being 1973, originally 6 years before the publication of the Stew). What names? That of the character Antony Lamont (in a hotel guest list) and, earlier, his novel Rayon Violet.

I’d only recommend this little volume to Sorrentino completionists or those who are curious about the first book of fiction Dalkey Archive ever published.