I've got a thing for Hotel Theory. There's no point in hiding it. I didn't think I would. Its spine has been peeking out from my TBR pile for weeks now. Maybe months. After tackling Only Revolutions at some point in the past twelve months (more on this later today, do stay tuned), the mere thought of more than one column of text on a page made me queasy. Unsure of myself. Hadn't I already tackled the un-tackle-able? Must I commit to doing it again?
I packed it to read on my honeymoon, thinking that there would be a synergy between staying in hotels and reading about staying in hotels. You know. Hotel. Theory. Get it? I didn't even crack the cover -- not once in two weeks of lugging it from County Dublin to County Clare to County Kerry and back.
And what an ass I've been. It is delightful. It is funny and fun and nerdy - nerdy in the best way, what else could extrapolating Heidegger be than nerdy with all the lights on? I thought it would be stuffy and academic. It is accessible and light-hearted. It is a play on words, on hotels on theories. It is all of these things and more. I'm only at Chapter Three.
How do I know I like it? When trying to sort out what passages to quote, I find I'm in danger of quoting everything I've read so far. Surely a sign of excitement, no? My cheeks are flush, my fingers tingling. I fear there is not one passage or two that can really capture the delight this book holds for me (is it just me? you'll have to read it for yourself and see) and I find I want to read it slowly (I know, I know, many of you have written in to tell me that you don't believe it's true...that you've never enjoyed a book so much that you wished it would continue on and on) because each sentence is a little gem. A little back and forth, a little I thought you'd like this and so what do you think between Mr. Koestenbaum and I.
I expect to return in a week's time with a proper critical analysis befitting a book titled Hotel Theory (for surely a bunch of it's-so-delightful delcarations don't do it justice); there will be questions raised and answered, theories put forth and refuted or not. Grand gestures and discussions about what it all means in the context of several other novels with two columns and different fonts will certainly follow. Perhaps a closer look at other books that engage in hotel theories of one kind or another is in order. It might even make sense to compare and contrast this particular piece of literature with literature from an actual hotel. Imagine. But until then...I'll steal these moments of pure enjoyment that can only be had if one ignores all that hooey.
Here, then, are a few passages I'm crushing on at the moment:
"Do you check into a hotel? Or does the hotel condition check into you?"
"Dream: I rented a room in a dormitory-hotel. There, my friend S. gave me a blue perfume called Chopin. (The bottle was blue. So were its contents.) I marveled that Chopin was now an expensive French scent's name. (Then I remembered that Chopin was also a brand of cheap vodka in tiny bottles, sold as stocking stuffers and souvenirs.) Accidentally I'd left my friend's gift on her toilet lid. Didn't I value Chopin's blueness? Was it a depressed perfume?"
"At her room in the Hotel St. Claire, my grandmother kept a box of chocolates in the bureau's top drawer. She opened it to show me bonbons--proof of occupancy, supremacy, greed. It might not have been good candy."
As I scan ahead I can see paragraphs, passages with promising titles: Beauvoir Hotel, Sebald Hotel, Hotel Auster, Hotel Paves, Hotel Fuentes...
