Hotel World: Ali Smith

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However, we also see her doing her job, which, at least in part, seems to involve going against the wishes of management (e.g. keeping clients on hold for a long time). Well once again I encounter that remarkable "wretched stream-of-consciousness" that I'm not really a great lover of (Virginia Woolf immediately springing to mind) but somehow it worked very well here. I must confess that I felt like a voyeur travelling in a somewhat sleepy fashion at times through the book but it is an enthralling work. Though it never comes to fruition in the novel, Sara Wilby's sexual awakening when she meets the girl in the watch shop—and the girl's shared interest in Sara, which is only conveyed briefly near the end of the novel—reveal a very internal coming out process for both women as each recognizes in herself her potential as a sexual being attracted to the same sex. Sara Wilby's early reluctant awareness of her attraction, and her subsequent somewhat obsessive observing of the watch shop girl, echo the recurring theme of watching and observing in the novel, and simultaneously convey the hope and complexity associated with recognizing one's queer self. Where British reviewers see ambition, subtlety and wild imagination, all I can detect are leaden whimsy and mechanistic storytelling. Hotel World turns out to be a thin piece of work." - Michael Upchurch, The New York Times Book Review

Hotel World - Ali Smith - Google Books

A masterful, exuberant novel from the Booker Prize-shortlisted, Women's Prize-winning author of How to be both and the critically acclaimed Seasonal quartet Hotel World is a not a novel for reading in stolen snatches in public places. It demands first to be read aloud -- there are voices which have to be heard to be heard -- and then to be read again -- the story, insofar as there is one, pulls you round in the sort of circle which only begins to take shape when you've walked it more than once." - Claudia FitzHerbert, The Spectator

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Other figures dominate the following sections, including a homeless woman, given a room in the hotel, a journalist, and Sara's sister.

Hotel World By Ali Smith | Used | 9780140296792 | World of Books Hotel World By Ali Smith | Used | 9780140296792 | World of Books

Lise – a receptionist for the Global Hotel, Lise was responsible for inviting Else, the homeless woman, to spend a night there. Ali who? Hotel what? Even for people who follow contemporary British literature, neither the name nor the title meant a lot. They do now. HOTEL WORLD makes a striking impression. It's a challenging, often bleak but affecting journey through the lives of four young women united by the death of another . . . What an introduction to Ali Smith.

None of the five seems to be happy, complaining about their lot but accepting it, presumably because, given where they live, there are few options. What romantic relations they have are not happy ones. Sara has a crush on the woman at the watch repair shop but does not pursue it. Penny has sex with a friend of her father as way of revenge when he is unfaithful to her mother. Sara, aged fourteen, has sex with the man doing the tiles when her mother is upstairs having a shower. in Smith’s hands, this slender plot serves as an excuse for a delightfully inventive, exuberant, fierce novel of which the real star is not the dead Sara, or any of the living characters, but the author’s vivid, fluent, highly readable prose. HOTEL WORLD was a well-deserved finalist last year for two prestigious British prizes: the Orange Prize and the Booker Prize. . . . I can’t begin to paraphrase all that this dazzling book conveys about humanity and mortality . . .”