
by Vicki Baum
Translated from: German
Rating: ★★★★
Publication Date: January 1, 1929
Genre: fiction
Pages: 270
ReRead?: No
A grand hotel in the center of 1920s Berlin serves as a microcosm of the modern world in Vicki Baum’s celebrated novel, a Weimar-era bestseller that retains all its verve and luster today. Among the guests of the hotel is Dr. Otternschlag, a World War I veteran whose face has been sliced in half by a shell. Day after day he emerges to read the paper in the lobby, discreetly inquiring at the desk if the letter he’s been awaiting for years has arrived. Then there is Grusinskaya, a great ballerina now fighting a losing battle not so much against age as against her fear of it, and Gaigern, a sleek professional thief, who may or may not be made for each other. Herr Preysing also checks in, the director of a family firm that isn’t as flourishing as it appears, who would never imagine that Kringelein, his underling, a timorous petty clerk he’s bullied for years, has also come to Berlin, determined to live at last now that he’s received a medical death sentence. All these characters and more, with their secret fears and hopes, come together and come alive in the pages of Baum’s delicious and disturbing masterpiece.
I’m looping back to write up posts on books that I’ve assigned to one of my projects but never reviewed. I actually read this one over two years ago, in November, 2022. The only thing I wrote about it (on Goodreads) was: What a strange and compelling book.
One of my favorite bookish podcasts (The Mookse and the Gripes, for anyone who is interested), did an episode on hotel books, which mentioned this book. Hotel books are unique in that they will often bring together characters who, otherwise, would never cross paths. They are like balls on a pool table, hitting one other and changing trajectories. A hotel novel is an ensemble experience, taking place in lavishly decorated lobbies and dingy hotel rooms.
This book is an excellent examplar of the hotel book, with a collection of disparate characters that includes an aging ballerina, a doctor who has suffered an injury, a playboy thief, and a humble book keeper who has been told he is dying and has decided to experience one big blow-out before the end of his life.
Vicki Baum was Jewish, born in Austria. She emigrated to the United States in 1932 and became a U.S. citizen in 1938, dying in Los Angeles in 1960. Her books, originally written in German, were banned by the Third Reich in 1938. In response, she began publishing in English, and she worked as a screenwriter in the 1930’s and 1940’s.
She apparently wrote a sequel to The Grand Hotel, Hotel Berlin, set in the same hotel, in 1943. It doesn’t appear that one has ever been available in English.