Hotel (Penguin Twentieth-century Classics) [Paperback]

Elizabeth Bowen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 6, 2003 | Series: Penguin Twentieth-century Classics

These were the balmy days of the 1920s. The English, liberated from one long war and not yet faced with the next had - at least when well-off- a confident kind of vitality. The Hotel was a comfortable hotel on the Italian Riviera, run for prosperous English visitors. It was a closed world of wealth and a setting for the inexhaustible comedy of casual personal relationships among a variety of 'nice' people, all English, all wittily reflected with characteristic vivacity. Elizabeth Bowen's wit, and her exact eye for social detail has often been compared to that of Jane Austen, and the similarity is perfectly captured in this, Elizabeth Bowen's first novel.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Elizabeth Bowen was born in Dublin in 1899, the only child of an Irish lawyer and land-owner. She was awarded the CBE in 1948, and received honorary degrees from Trinity College, Dublin in 1949, and from Oxford University in 1956. The Royal Society of Literature made her a Companion of Literature in 1965. Elizabeth Bowen died in 1973.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Random House Pod (March 6, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0099284758
• ISBN-13: 978-0099284758
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.8 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,226,215 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Charming and very much of its period, May 4, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Hotel (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

The novel's storyline is fairly divided among several well-to-do British guests staying at a hotel on the Italian Riviera in the 1920s--mostly concerned with the subtle nuances of their emotional interactions with one another, the narrative eventually comes to settle on the neurotic Sydney (a young travelling companion to an invalid cousin) who has become overly attached to the beautiful and manipulative Mrs. Kerr.

Though is far from Bowen's best, this is a wonderful read for anyone who has enjoyed the many novels of this period cocerning genteel Englishmen abroad--Forster's ROOM WITH A VIEW, von Arnim's THE ENCHANTED APRIL, and Woolf's THE VOYAGE OUT. The style is deceptive: you can get much more out of this on a second read than the first time round.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bowen's Marvelous "Hotel", September 23, 2008

By 

M. Held - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hotel (Penguin Twentieth-century Classics) (Paperback)

I can't imagine anyone will see this, but if there is someone still interested in Elizabeth Bowen and particularly her first novel, "The Hotel," I should think it a shame were they put off by some of the negative comments one sees here. The Hotel has wit, intensity and an exquisiteness of description that is most unusual. The relations amongst the guests at the hotel are drawn humorously and with great subtlety. The Hotel is a first rate novel of manners which I found fascinating.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good introductory Bowen novel, December 22, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Fullerton, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Hotel (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

Not the greatest novel in the world, but a good introduction if you would like to read Bowen. The lack of any real resolution to the plot is kind of disheartening and leaves the reader with a feeling of nothing being accomplished. Bowen writes about subtle emotions well, but throws out too many at the reader at once. The novel seems more of an intellectual excercise in form rather than a real literary accomplishment.