Customer Reviews

Hotel Crystal

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This French novel is a hoot, no doubt the author's accomplishment, but ably abetted by his translator. The result is a delightful read. There's no particular plot, as the protagonist moves about the world staying in hotel after hotel and for some reason constructing detailed descriptions of the rooms he occupies. And rather incidentally recounting the outlandish schemes and sexual encounters he involves himself in. The room descriptions are the most evocative parts of the narrative, at least for me, who has stayed in a fair number of hotels of various grades but has much less experience of sexual encounters and outlandish schemes to harken back to.

I had a hard time writing this review. The "story" (if it can be called that) edges close to being interesting, but ultimately fails. Part of its failure is the consistent framework of each "chapter" - 1-2 pages of excrutiatingly detailed descriptions of a hotel room, followed by 1-2 pages of a diary entry.

We are to believe the author is part spy, part lecturer, part international thief, and yet it all comes off as someone who took a video camera to thirty or so hotel rooms around the world, then went back home to painstakingly describe each panned video of the room, imagine what he would be doing staying in the room and then put in segments of a greater story we never really see.

Imagine, if you will, an avant-garde film that begins with a detailed filming of a hotel room, step by step, from the door, to the bathroom faucet, to the ceiling, to the first lamp by the bed, etc., etc. (really, like 5 full minutes). Then, you see a man standing in front of a mirror, smoking, looking out the window and down the street to where two men in t-shirts sit talking. The man turns. In his hand is a Glock pistol. And then the film jumps to another hotel room somewhere else in the world, painstakingly filmed (again, for another 5 minutes), and again we see the man, but this time, he holds a book in his hand instead of gun...ta da. Oh my gosh. What does it mean? What is the author saying? That the pen is not mightier than the bullet? and so on, and so on, ad nauseum.

If that's the kind of film that you can't wait to see - this is THE book for you.

If you rolled your eyes at the above and can think of a thousand other things you'd rather do than see that kind of film, don't waste your money or your time on this book.

this is not your regular novel-- every chapter begins with an exquisitely detailed observation of the hotel room, down to every last detail, followed by musings, anecdote (usually involving a sexual conquest) in that particular room.

the strength of the novel rests on the outlandish conspiracies and plots he is supposedly taking part in, and how the disparate parts of his life (melanie, his true love, is a frequent topic -- of both immense longing and trenchant rebuke) are gradually revealed, sort of like looking at magic eye 3-d puzzle long enough.

i thoroughly enjoyed it, and decided to immediately re-read it after finishing it the first time to truly appreciate it. i recommend you give it a try.