Guests of the Grand Hotel des Bains, in Lido
A door that closes in the middle of the night, an argument in the next room, a suspicious-looking client who keeps an eye on us from the reception... A hotel is something like a paradise for a writer: a more or less closed environment where travelers from all over the world meet who probably would not know each other otherwise, that are related in the lounges, in the dining rooms or in the pool, but also through more subtle ways such as a look, a laugh or a broken conversation. While I was writing The Merchant of Death, which takes place largely in the Hôtel de Paris in Monte Carlo, I read a lot of novels that take place in hotels – some real, others invented – and I made this varied and incomplete list that I hope will serve as guide for those who share a taste for travel and literature.
The Gambler, Dostoevsky
The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoevsky. For those who have associated the author with the sordid escapades of the murderer Raskolnikov or the philosophical disquisitions of The Brothers Karamazov, this novel will be a discovery for the sense of humor with which it portrays the excessive fondness of the Russians for the game. Although the main stage of the play is the spa of a fictional German city with the pertinent name of Roulettenbourg, Dostoevsky **was inspired by the Nassauer Hof hotel in Wiesbaden, one of the meccas of romantic gambling in the 19th century in whose halls he lost his shirt more than once. **Both the city, which suffered little damage during World War II, and the hotel, which is still in use today, retain that atmosphere of hot springs and green carpet from the novel.
A Gentleman in Moscow, Love Towles
A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles. While in other works that take place in hotels, part of the plot usually takes place outside the establishment, In this novel that has become a worldwide bestseller – with more than a million and a half books sold – absolutely everything happens inside the Moscow Metropol. Count Rostov is sentenced to death by the Bolsheviks but, thanks to some revolutionary poems written years before, the government changes the firing squad for life imprisonment in such an emblematic hotel. Yes, the boot is somewhat unlikely, but hooks. As for the Metropol, in addition to being a stone's throw from Red Square, it has that atmosphere of comfortable decadence from other times that makes a visit to Moscow much more evocative.
Death in Venice, Thomas Mann
Death in Venice, by Thomas Mann. We all have in our retinas the images of Dirk Bogarde spying on the ephebe in Visconti's mythical film, but it is worth taking a look at a novel that caused a great uproar when it was published in 1912... and that more than a hundred years later still retains the morbid. The scene of this forbidden and unconfessed passion is the Grand Hotel des Bains on the Lido in Venice, where Diaghilev, the famous ballet impresario, also died. The establishment was, like a great whale stranded on the beach, abandoned for years, but its remodeling works, which if all goes well will be completed in 2021, will bring it back to life like an oasis within that martyred Lido of tracksuit overtourism.
Grand Hotel, Vicki Baum
Grand Hotel, by Vicky Baum. Best known for its film adaptation and for Greta Garbo's famous (and foreboding) line, "I want you to leave me alone," it perfectly captures the carefree and frivolous atmosphere of a 1930s Berlin hotel. All the characters are there: the decadent diva, the white-collar thief, the rich man from the provinces, the mischievous secretary, the bankrupt baron... The work is inspired by the Excelsior, the most fashionable at the time, and the famous Adlon. As Allied bombardment reduced the Excelsior to a mountain of rubble, we can imagine the action in the second, also destroyed in the conflict but restored to its luster after the fall of the Wall.
Hotel Savoy, Josep Roth
Hotel Savoy, by Joseph Roth. Not all great novels deal with great hotels. Although the Savoy in Lodz, Poland, is a far cry from the Ritz and somewhat depressing, Roth's is one of the best portraits of the immediate post-World War I period. Soldiers returning from the front or captivity, more or less cheerful dancers, revolutionaries, rich people living on the lower floors and guests on the upper floors who cannot pay their bills make up a mosaic of despair and chaos that is a sort of metaphor for what was happening on the continent in those days.
The Merchant of Death, Gervasio Posadas
. The merchant of death, Gervasio Posadas. Although it is ugly to talk about oneself, I will not miss the opportunity to talk about my new novel. A historical thriller based on the life of Sir Basil Zaharoff, the world's most notorious arms dealer in his time and owner of the Hôtel de Paris in Monte Carlo in the 1920s and 1930s. A fascinating place that I highly recommend you visit at least once in your life to feel like Churchill, Cary Grant or Grace Kelly. Or simply to play a few games at the casino, just a few steps from the hotel. Rien ne va plus!
Hotel de Paris, Monte Carlo