Gall Bladder Attack Or Flu

Joseph Roth - "Hotel Savoy"

Gabriel Dan returns to the first world war from captivity in Russia and home stays in the Hotel Savoy stuck in a small Polish town. There are many stranded, disoriented to romp all the war. Varieteetänzerinnen returnees like him, Clowns and crooks and small business people who want to do in the time of inflation and unemployment in their business. No one knows where or even if he or she had family, they do not know where to find it or feel alienated from it. They dream of America or Paris, but no one goes. All drift at the Savoy Hotel by the gray rainy days. To the outside is still a glamorous hotel before the war, but inside already run down and shabby. A symbol of the once glorious, monarchical Europe that is down after the war shattered and disoriented.

The Hotel Savoy's all waiting for the rich businessman Bloomfield in America who come and to bring money and work. Just as Europe was waiting to Woodrow Wilson. But Bloomfield is not because of business and also brings with no work. He comes from personal reasons, such as Wilson at that time with the idea of the League of Nations came to Europe and drove off again disappointed, because Europe just wanted to talk about boundaries and compensation.

I got a bit used to get into it in the book. Roth describes the floating intermediate state of his protagonists in suggested scenes and emotions that are all of equal status. Since none of them know what and where he wants to go, for it also has all the same value. He follows no real plot, the protagonists actually, no external target and then only in the short term. Once Dan gets work, but is it going soon. Another time he wants to go away, but only comes up to the platform. It developed a love for Stasia dancer, but Dan is unable to pursue them somewhere. Only the expected arrival of Bloomfield and the growth of the disaffected returnees outside the hotel - which is also a long time told in passing, noticed because the residents of the hotel the outside world barely - based on something like anticipation. The description of the characters and how they drift through their lives, stumble and slide, the description of these people and their time is the main concern of the book. At the end spills with the masses of war veterans enter the Russian Revolution and burn down the Hotel Savoy. Europe is broken.
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