The several characters are people employed by or having some other connection to a corporate chain hotel in an English city: A young female employee who has a tragic accident; a night reception clerk who extends a kindness to a young homeless woman; a guest who’s a PR writer on assignment; the deceased employee’s little sister.

Hotel World | The Booker Prizes

In this voice from beyond the grave Ali Smith has created the perfect literary ghost imbued with a powerful sense of wonder at the minutiae of everyday sensuality and her beautiful, vivid descriptions are reinforced by a sharp, unsentimental tongue. The Times (London) Though it never comes to fruition in the novel, Sara Wilby's sexual awakening when she meets the girl in the watch shop—and the girl's shared interest in Sara, which is only conveyed briefly near the end of the novel—reveal a very internal coming out process for both women as each recognizes in herself her potential as a sexual being attracted to the same sex. Sara Wilby's early reluctant awareness of her attraction, and her subsequent somewhat obsessive observing of the watch shop girl, echo the recurring theme of watching and observing in the novel, and simultaneously convey the hope and complexity associated with recognizing one's queer self.

hooooooo what a fall what a soar what a plummet what a dash into dark into light what a plunge what a glide thud crash what a drop what a rush what a swoop what a fright what a mad hushed skirl what a smash mush mash-up broken and gashed what a heart in my mouth what an end. The plot, if you can call it such, is based on five woman, who are either based/visiting the Global Hotel or outside and literally too. This book has four female characters, Else, Lisa, Penny and Claire. Each character has her own section which is written as an interior monologue. Each section is connected directly or indirectly to the hotel where a fifth character called Sara fell to her death before the book began. We hear the voice of her departing spirit trying to converse with her own dead body in a kind of preface but the book itself centres on the other four voices.

Hotel World by Ali Smith | Goodreads

Life can end in a heartbeat!...Live freely and passionately in the time you inhabit...now, the present! Ali Smith includes several quotes and short poems at the start of the book which are reflective of the themes of the novel.First: Thank you, Doug, for recommending this one to me. Playful and inventive and wonderful, everything you said is true. Ali Smith's remarkable novel HOTEL WORLD....is a greatly appealing read. Smith is a gifted and meticulous architect of character and voice." The Washington Post

Ali Smith: Hotel World | The Modern Novel Ali Smith: Hotel World | The Modern Novel

The book opens with the story of a chambermaid at the hotel -- nineteen year old Sara Wilby, as we later learn. Hotel World is compelling, however, precisely because it suggests shifting yet coherent perspectives rather than simplifying lives into rigid, inert realities. Most impressively, Smith has mastered sophisticated literary techniques, which never intrude or bog down a delectable narrative of human perception and rumination. (...) (A) damn good read." - Alexandra Yurkovsky, San Francisco ChronicleBecause it was October, I had campaigned for my book club to read something scary, but I was overruled and we ended up with Hotel World as the selection. I didn’t get my first choice, which would have been Frankenstein, although I did get a ghost story, but a sad one, not a scary one. Told, as Ali Smith’s stories often are, by different characters in alternating sections, the language and narrative structure of the book are creative, sometimes experimental, which is also in keeping with what I’ve come to expect from her. This one, however, was not as skillful or readable as the other Smith novels I’ve read. A: I was about to say no–but actually, I have. There’s a gruesome character in a short story from my second collection, Other Stories and Other Stories; the story is called "The Hanging Girl." It’s about a woman living now, who finds she is being befriended by the ghost of a girl executed by hanging, probably in the second world war (it’s never made clear). It’s a guilt parable, funnier and lighter than it sounds, honest. So is Hotel World. I was surprised myself when I was writing it that such a dark-perceiving book would veer so readily into the hilarious and wild. Thank goodness. Sara Wilby – a teenage hotel chambermaid who has fallen to her death in a hotel dumbwaiter. She is the daughter to her parents Mr. and Mrs. Wilby, and also older sister to Clare. A character in Hotel World talks of manipulating people with stories. She'll tell lies to them about her life, stories designed to evoke sympathy and pity: she is an orphan, she was neglected by her parents, she was sexually abused by a family friend. The stories are tearjerkers, tropes designed to pull the heartstrings. Someone tells you a story like that and, unless you have no heart, you have to say, "Oh my god! How horrible for you!"

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The heaviness of the prose gave this work the sensation of swimming through metaphors that could not be rushed. One had to come up for air from time to time to continue the breaststroke forward. The second woman is Elspeth, known as Else. She is homeless and has a pitch just outside the hotel. It is not clear why she became homeless but now she scrabbles for small change, envious of the young woman over the road who, because of her age, does much better. She reminisces about her past and about her current life but seems quite happy to be homeless. She remembers when someone from a Sunday paper came and photographed all her possession for an article in the paper. Towards the end of her section, someone comes from the hotel – we will know her as Lise, a receptionist – and offers her a room for the night, as the hotel is fairly empty and it is going to be cold. She accepts and enjoys the room but, inevitably, this has consequences. But everyone has a story, and stories have a way of bumping into each other and creating other stories.....ad infinitum. There is unfinished business in Sara's life, too: a watch, for example, she brought to get repaired -- a momentous event in her life, though she did not act as fully on it as she might have. The best parts of this book was the brooding on the topic of death and the unique perspectives. They added some variety, but you will never find a conventional thrill in one of her books. More likely, you will stumble through with the sensibility you have during those dreams, where you're in a public place, nothing is happening, but you are suddenly overcome with incomprehensible anxiety, or you're suddenly naked and dead - one or the other. Obviously, Ali Smith has garnered popularity and success through her slanted view of modern people and their foibles.

The Pepto Bismal pink book cover is a shame. In fact, most of her book covers are a shame. They seem to scream "Ladies Only" and probably put most male readers off. If Ali Smith is a woman's writer, then call me Shirley and sign me up for the next one.