I have this childlike pleasure in what I guess I’d call resort fiction – like a civilized desert island of charming amenities and quirky characters. Hotel du Lac sounded so marvelous – not a high and narrow bed and veal-colored curtains, mind you, but so many other details: “Its furnishings, although austere, were of excellent quality, its linen spotless, its service impeccable.” Also: “There was no sauna, no hairdresser, and certainly no glass cases displaying items of jewelry.” And a bar where drinking was discouraged! Hehe.
I’m trying to think of other books with this sort of escapist thrill. There’s Agatha Christie’s “At Bertram’s Hotel,” not one of her better stories but all about a fine and old-fashioned hotel of a bygone era with two pages dedicated to a high tea that might tempt you to change your citizenship. Of course there’s Something Going On there, or there’d just be the tea. Or even “The Shining,” creepy though it is, giving over to the hotel as really its own character dwarfing the main players. (I would really love to visit the Overlook Hotel some summer; wouldn’t that be a fine road trip?)
Do any fictional or real-life travel tales bring back fond memories for you? Did anything from Hotel du Lac tickle your fancy?
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5 comments:
The Overlook would be a fun adventure, especially if it has managed to not become a tourist-trap caricature of itself.
Thomas Mann's "A Death in Venice" comes to mind — the vacation that turns crazy and deadly and weirdly beautiful. And all of Henry James' stories about Americans abroad — living the high life as guests in Roman villas or English country estates or magnificent Parisian apartments. Also E.M. Forster's "A Room With a View," about uptight English people traipsing through sunny, sexy Tuscany. Or his "A Passage to India."
That would be good lit class, cl — a whole semester of novels about people being guests in foreign countries. Or something like "The Hotel in Literature." Hehe
I'm reading the Lord of the Rings now, so I was just thinking about books with the theme of travel, the theme of a road. Like, um, "The Road" and "On the Road" and "Grapes of Wrath" and even "Moby Dick" and the Odyssey and the Aeneid (watery roads).
Oh, I'd teach that class, kc!
I had always meant to see the "Death in Venice" movie. How was the story? Maybe that would be a good pick sometime. I was momentarily thinking of "Don't Look Now," based on a Daphne du Maurier story and very creepy. (I'm not sure the original story was supposed to be quite so sexy.) But anyway, Venice is this increasingly menacing place for its visitors. You know, that horror book I told you I picked up to help with trivia questions had a chapter just on horror stories based in Venice. It must have a certain aura to it!
And all the James and Forster stories you mentioned -- well, the ones I've read -- that fish out of water element is a nice story component, isn't it? And I don't know where Edith fit into that. I mean, the locals weren't a strong part of the story because their disdain/indifference was set at the start, but Edith did and didn't fit in with the other hotel guests as well. But she needed that change of scenery from her quiet little life with her garden and whatnot to shake up her viewpoint.
Are you talking about the "Death in Venice" movie from the 1970s? I've never seen any of the movies. The book (it's actually novella length) is fantastic. It's about this very upright, austere German scholar, a repressed homosexual, who becomes passionately obsessed with this beautiful boy who's staying at his same hotel in Venice. Sounds kind of pervy, but it's really a lovely (and very haunting) story of sexual awakening — you know, someone who has been emotionally removed his whole life, who has bowed to pressure to live a certain kind of upright existence and, consequently, missed out on everything that really mattered. Sort of reminds me of how Edith moves through her own life at times, the way she's repeatedly "tempted" by the life of domestic safety and stability and respectability, but then keeps realizing that those things are really only enjoyable if you're sharing them with the right person. If it's the wrong person, those things just underline your loneliness.
Sounds marvelous. I will check it out sometime.
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