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naley's review against another edition
challenging
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
marialianou's review against another edition
5.0
Μετά την ανάγνωση του Hotel Savoy δηλώνω γοητευμένη με τη γραφή του Joseph Roth.
ros_scallydandler's review against another edition
dark
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
Short but powerful evocation of the mess in Central Europe after the end of World War 1. Salutary to be reminded how central the Jewish community (Roth's heritage)was to life in those countries then and when this was published in the 1920s. We read this now with the knowledge of what was to come a decade or so later.
knigaljub's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
a_r_e_l_i_c's review against another edition
3.0
10 smell of iodine
16 aroma of gingerbread
—-cigars, and sometimes of wine
17 damp clothing
20 shaving soap & eau de Cologne
31 starch
36 mouthwash & brilliantine
40 liquor
47 vinegar, urine and stale air
51 new mown hay
57 soft coal
109 lily of the valley
16 aroma of gingerbread
—-cigars, and sometimes of wine
17 damp clothing
20 shaving soap & eau de Cologne
31 starch
36 mouthwash & brilliantine
40 liquor
47 vinegar, urine and stale air
51 new mown hay
57 soft coal
109 lily of the valley
karostol's review against another edition
mysterious
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
4.0
blackbird27's review against another edition
5.0
I started what I think of as my current reading-and-reporting regimen with Vicki Baum's 1929 Grand Hotel, a hugely popular book which took a kaleidoscopic approach to the inhabitants of a great Berlin hotel, romantic and superficially cynical and perfect for stage and film adaptations. And now I've just finished one of her (presumed) inspirations, Joseph Roth's 1924 Hotel Savoy, a much less friendly or sentimental book.
It's not nearly as kaleidoscopic -- it's recounted by a first-person narrator whose limited understanding keeps the reader's viewpoint equally limited -- but it also escapes the superficiality of Baum's glittering novel, plunging directly into the postwar malaise of a grimy industrial city housing soldiers from across the broken Austro-Hungarian Empire returning from the Russian front. (The city is never named, but the translator identifies it as Łódź, a central Polish city controlled by German industrialists, and where Roth himself had stayed on his own way back from the front in 1918.)
The Hotel Savoy, as the place where German industrialist, Slavic revolutionary, Russian circus performer, and Jewish currency trader meet, is symbolic of the crumbling, highly stratified, multinational Hapsburg Empire, with its unnecessary secrets, air of suspicion, and inveterate dependence on foreign money. Bloomfield, the American billionaire whom everyone awaits, proto-Godot or -Guffman, is one of the great strokes of fiction-making, both more and less than his whispered reputation expects. The final scene, both inevitable and fragmented, is one of the great modernist refusals of conventional narrative expectation.
As a prosodist and image-maker, Roth is every bit the equal of his more famous countrymen like Kafka or Zweig, and there are passages from this book I will keep with me for a long time (some of which hit too close to home to share). I don't know if I'll go on to his Major Fiction like The Radetzky March; I'll generally always prefer a perfect jewel of a short book anyway.
It's not nearly as kaleidoscopic -- it's recounted by a first-person narrator whose limited understanding keeps the reader's viewpoint equally limited -- but it also escapes the superficiality of Baum's glittering novel, plunging directly into the postwar malaise of a grimy industrial city housing soldiers from across the broken Austro-Hungarian Empire returning from the Russian front. (The city is never named, but the translator identifies it as Łódź, a central Polish city controlled by German industrialists, and where Roth himself had stayed on his own way back from the front in 1918.)
The Hotel Savoy, as the place where German industrialist, Slavic revolutionary, Russian circus performer, and Jewish currency trader meet, is symbolic of the crumbling, highly stratified, multinational Hapsburg Empire, with its unnecessary secrets, air of suspicion, and inveterate dependence on foreign money. Bloomfield, the American billionaire whom everyone awaits, proto-Godot or -Guffman, is one of the great strokes of fiction-making, both more and less than his whispered reputation expects. The final scene, both inevitable and fragmented, is one of the great modernist refusals of conventional narrative expectation.
As a prosodist and image-maker, Roth is every bit the equal of his more famous countrymen like Kafka or Zweig, and there are passages from this book I will keep with me for a long time (some of which hit too close to home to share). I don't know if I'll go on to his Major Fiction like The Radetzky March; I'll generally always prefer a perfect jewel of a short book anyway.
naimfrewat's review against another edition
3.0
I kept hesitating with the rating of this book. I started with 1 star for the first part, then progressed to two stars with the start of the second part of the book, at times even thinking that it merits 4 stars and then settling at 3 (2.5 to be accurate).
The problem is the shortness of this story. It's not about the characters who move into the hotel. It's not about the times and it's also not about some philosophical reflection about war and post-war Austria and so there's a bit of everything inside, which would have been interesting had each subject been further developed.
I focused more on the political reflection which underlies the story and I normally don't enjoy that in fiction; "learning" about a period of time as I prefer reading a non-fiction for that.
But so what I retain from the book, and what I liked, is this prescience about a second war, or a second armed conflict. At so it seemed to me that George Marshall must've read Hotel Savoy before deciding on his plan.
There's a bleakness to this story that was most definitely felt by Roth and it's that neither capitalism nor communism could provide the salvation for post-war Austria.
Communism was still an act of violence, the revolution armed and bloody and its protagonists hungry workers. Capitalism, in the character of Bloomfield, seemed, of course, more refined, more presentable, and promises a breathing space for the city's inhabitants. But capital flies as quickly as it lands in search for more profitable venues, leaving the city to its doom.
I also liked his portrayal of the middle class, if one can speak of a middle class, safely daydreaming within the Hotel Savoy, completely disconnected from the world of workers, content with their meagre wages that they spend on entertainment.
Still, I'm not deterred from Roth but I'll go this time with the ratings and pick The Radetsky March for my next book by Roth.
The problem is the shortness of this story. It's not about the characters who move into the hotel. It's not about the times and it's also not about some philosophical reflection about war and post-war Austria and so there's a bit of everything inside, which would have been interesting had each subject been further developed.
I focused more on the political reflection which underlies the story and I normally don't enjoy that in fiction; "learning" about a period of time as I prefer reading a non-fiction for that.
But so what I retain from the book, and what I liked, is this prescience about a second war, or a second armed conflict. At so it seemed to me that George Marshall must've read Hotel Savoy before deciding on his plan.
There's a bleakness to this story that was most definitely felt by Roth and it's that neither capitalism nor communism could provide the salvation for post-war Austria.
Communism was still an act of violence, the revolution armed and bloody and its protagonists hungry workers. Capitalism, in the character of Bloomfield, seemed, of course, more refined, more presentable, and promises a breathing space for the city's inhabitants. But capital flies as quickly as it lands in search for more profitable venues, leaving the city to its doom.
I also liked his portrayal of the middle class, if one can speak of a middle class, safely daydreaming within the Hotel Savoy, completely disconnected from the world of workers, content with their meagre wages that they spend on entertainment.
Still, I'm not deterred from Roth but I'll go this time with the ratings and pick The Radetsky March for my next book by Roth.