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vanessa_issa's review
2.0
Thanks to Bloomsbury Academic for providing an ARC.
Well, I honestly expected something different from this book. I like all the movie references and quotes, but I can't relate to the author's experience.
In several moments, we can see how tired she is. She can't find anything fun about hotels anymore. Maybe I'm too young to understand, but as a Hospitality Professional, it breaks my heart to read things like: "My hotels do not resemble the home I long for, as I do not long for home. They do not resemble anything that can be longed for. They may resemble a longing for home, but they do not satisfy it."
Anything? Really?
That sentence destroys the whole point of my work.
We miss our things. We miss our families. That can never be replaced. Places need love to "become a home". It's normal and totally human to miss the dear ones we left behind. Okay. But you can't blame places for not filling voids caused by people.
To those who feel that way, maybe traveling isn't the key to your happiness. You need to work on your feelings first. You won't feel well anywhere in this world until you feel good with yourself. When that moment finally comes, be thankful that hotels exist to provide you good places to stay, and staff members work like crazy, doing major efforts to give you a pleasant experience.
Maybe you feel like the ghosts, but that's not how we see you.
Well, I honestly expected something different from this book. I like all the movie references and quotes, but I can't relate to the author's experience.
In several moments, we can see how tired she is. She can't find anything fun about hotels anymore. Maybe I'm too young to understand, but as a Hospitality Professional, it breaks my heart to read things like: "My hotels do not resemble the home I long for, as I do not long for home. They do not resemble anything that can be longed for. They may resemble a longing for home, but they do not satisfy it."
Anything? Really?
That sentence destroys the whole point of my work.
We miss our things. We miss our families. That can never be replaced. Places need love to "become a home". It's normal and totally human to miss the dear ones we left behind. Okay. But you can't blame places for not filling voids caused by people.
To those who feel that way, maybe traveling isn't the key to your happiness. You need to work on your feelings first. You won't feel well anywhere in this world until you feel good with yourself. When that moment finally comes, be thankful that hotels exist to provide you good places to stay, and staff members work like crazy, doing major efforts to give you a pleasant experience.
Maybe you feel like the ghosts, but that's not how we see you.
rainbow_reader's review
3.0
I really don't know how to review this book. There were certain elements that were nice, like the reflective sections about "home work" and how hotels offer a unique form of escapism. However, all the Freud stuff I completely did not understand, and I wish we got more specifics about hotels or about the author's life versus the same repetitive flowery vague concepts. And again, I really could have done without all the Freud and Dora sections, but maybe that is just me being stupid lol.
amcloughlin's review
3.0
A fascinating conceit with some interesting ideas that lacked cohesiveness for me.
raejeana's review
4.0
A series of experiments gone very, very well. At times a play, at times memoir, at times a postcard.
I knew I would love this from the scene in which the author is in conversation with the French hotel owner and hears "guest" as "ghost", and continues to use them interchangeably.
This is a fresh prose that draws inspiration from many sources and still maintains its uniqueness in voice. Small language choices like "I thread my clothes on, obedient" went far.
The plays didn't do much for me, I'll admit, as it was incredibly interwoven with Freud's case study of Dora, which I have never acquainted myself with. Haven't had much interest in doing so, quite frankly. This does tell me that there's more that this book wanted to give me. Because I wasn't in a place to receive this, however, they were lost on me and at times easy to gloss over.
I'm impressed with this work. A breath-taking meditation on the concept of home and transition. A little, busy book that moves a lot.
I knew I would love this from the scene in which the author is in conversation with the French hotel owner and hears "guest" as "ghost", and continues to use them interchangeably.
This is a fresh prose that draws inspiration from many sources and still maintains its uniqueness in voice. Small language choices like "I thread my clothes on, obedient" went far.
The plays didn't do much for me, I'll admit, as it was incredibly interwoven with Freud's case study of Dora, which I have never acquainted myself with. Haven't had much interest in doing so, quite frankly. This does tell me that there's more that this book wanted to give me. Because I wasn't in a place to receive this, however, they were lost on me and at times easy to gloss over.
I'm impressed with this work. A breath-taking meditation on the concept of home and transition. A little, busy book that moves a lot.
fallonc's review
4.0
Hotel contemplates what it means to live and what constitutes home: "To 'stay' in a hotel is never like 'living' at home." We live in homes, so if one is not living in something that can be considered home--whether that be an apartment, dorm or trailer--is one living at all?
Walsh is a hotel reviewer looking for a place to spend her time other than home. "Hotel" recounts some of her experiences in hotels and what she learned about living during her time in the rooms that have revolving inhabitants. Interrupted by interludes of her failing marriage and the complicated feeling that come with the beginning of the end, Walsh's addition to Object Lessons is part memoir, part creative nonfiction. Her control over language, creating dual meaning from her hotel experiences and the state of her marriage, leaves the reader reading and rereading lines such as:
"On the screen, I keep checking the time: where I am, where you are, the thickness of house between I cannot wait any longer. The thick white hotel towels are restless. They want me to get into the water. They are the white pills. Usually you snap them in half, which makes a satisfactory sound--no, the echo of a sound, no noise."
and create meaning even when her audience changes from the reader, to her husband to herself:
"The square white bath has a crack across its corner...A pool pools underneath. I call room service. It is not my fault, but I must leave the room and walk through the white streets under the white sun until it is fixed. It is "not" my fault. The thing is: What am I allowed? If I don't "need" anything in particular, what am I allowed to want?...When you're not here, sometimes the problem doesn't seem to be you. It doesn't seem to be you at all."
I rate this book 4 because of Walsh's peculiar perspective, way of integrating hotels and separation and impeccable writing. However, Walsh spends much of her book discussing Freud, and a reader should be aware of before reading "Hotel." Without knowledge of his work, one has trouble making sense of many of the connections in "Hotel." As one who knows little to nothing about Freud other than his slip, I was left stranded during this sometimes page long musings. Likewise, Walsh cities the "Grand Hotel" film to describe her experiences and it is difficult to get through that part as well without prior knowledge. I cannot speak to these parts nor their relevance in the text; yet it should be noted that, even without completely understanding nearly half of it, the book is one that can still be considered very good.
Walsh is a hotel reviewer looking for a place to spend her time other than home. "Hotel" recounts some of her experiences in hotels and what she learned about living during her time in the rooms that have revolving inhabitants. Interrupted by interludes of her failing marriage and the complicated feeling that come with the beginning of the end, Walsh's addition to Object Lessons is part memoir, part creative nonfiction. Her control over language, creating dual meaning from her hotel experiences and the state of her marriage, leaves the reader reading and rereading lines such as:
"On the screen, I keep checking the time: where I am, where you are, the thickness of house between I cannot wait any longer. The thick white hotel towels are restless. They want me to get into the water. They are the white pills. Usually you snap them in half, which makes a satisfactory sound--no, the echo of a sound, no noise."
and create meaning even when her audience changes from the reader, to her husband to herself:
"The square white bath has a crack across its corner...A pool pools underneath. I call room service. It is not my fault, but I must leave the room and walk through the white streets under the white sun until it is fixed. It is "not" my fault. The thing is: What am I allowed? If I don't "need" anything in particular, what am I allowed to want?...When you're not here, sometimes the problem doesn't seem to be you. It doesn't seem to be you at all."
I rate this book 4 because of Walsh's peculiar perspective, way of integrating hotels and separation and impeccable writing. However, Walsh spends much of her book discussing Freud, and a reader should be aware of before reading "Hotel." Without knowledge of his work, one has trouble making sense of many of the connections in "Hotel." As one who knows little to nothing about Freud other than his slip, I was left stranded during this sometimes page long musings. Likewise, Walsh cities the "Grand Hotel" film to describe her experiences and it is difficult to get through that part as well without prior knowledge. I cannot speak to these parts nor their relevance in the text; yet it should be noted that, even without completely understanding nearly half of it, the book is one that can still be considered very good.
sdbecque's review
3.0
I discovered the Object Lessons series, got this one from the library and was really excited to read it. I figured it would be a mini-cultural history of the hotel (something about Route 66, motels, and Howard Johnson) and this was not that. It's lovely. But it's more of thought experiment, complete with a possible "constructed I" narrator, and I wasn't in the right place to read it and take it in. Honestly, I was looking for Hotel like cultural history information for my dissertation, so on this point your mileage may vary.
mei's review against another edition
4.0
Interesting format, fragmentary thoughts on use of space and emotional impact of hotel life & disrupted home life
tomwootton's review against another edition
4.0
the hotel room as a space for the unhomely, feelings of abjection and of desire. the break-up of a marriage. words as junctions, as jokes, sly references, as having something within. mae west, freud, marx brothers appearances.
helenmcclory's review against another edition
4.0
A book of essays that spark about, making connections at high speed - like someone playing a game I was often unsure I knew the rules of (my failing, not the book - or the failing brought on by my head cold). It was lively and engaging and wry and very clever. My favourite essay was no. 9., on the Grand Hotel, a film I watched just as I was starting the book, because of a reference to it. Wonderfully insightful piece on it.
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