Hotel Evropa

by Dumitru Țepeneag, Aleš Mustar (Translator)

The author-narrator, a sarcastic Romanian émigré with a French wife, tells with great insight and humor the story of a young student’s life and education as he passes from post-Ceausescu Romania through an unwelcoming Western Europe beset with dangerous problems of its own. Sex-and drug-traffickers are only one part of the strange and paranoid world in which the student and his fellow-countrymen become entangled, while the author’s past—in the form of post-communist gangsters—begins to catch up with him in his retreat in rural France...

Genres: Romania, Romanian Literature, Fiction, Novels, Literature

419 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Dumitru Țepeneag is a contemporary Romanian novelist, essayist, short story writer and translator, who currently resides in France. He was one of the founding members of the Oniric group, and a theoretician of the Onirist trend in Romanian literature, while becoming noted for his activities as a dissident.

Ţepeneag is one of the most important Romanian translators of French literature, and has rendered into Romanian the works by New Left, avant-garde and Neo-Marxist authors such as Alain Robbe-Grillet, Robert Pinget, Albert Béguin, Jacques Derrida, and Alexandre Kojève.

Reviews

[Eddie Watkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

For being so (intentionally) fragmented and messy and incomplete and sketchy - to mirror the lives of his wandering refugee characters as they look for footing after the Romanian Revolution I presume - this was an oddly compelling and infectious read. Going into this cold, knowing nothing of Tsepeneag, and expecting something dark and heavy that demanded to be taken seriously, I was instead treated with a playful concoction of literary games with dark and heavy themes floating within that allowed me to take it seriously, in my own fashion. This confounding of my expectations could have been a factor in my finding it so engaging, but I ultimately attribute it to Dumitru himself, whose persona and spirit, a congenial ever-observant casually anarchic cafe spirit, fill every page.

But what do I mean by "cafe spirit"? I mean an open and engaged spirit, a spirit in the thick of things, but also a spirit at a remove, noting and commenting with insight and intelligence, while enjoying itself (this enjoyment is key). There is a lot of taking pleasure in writing on evidence in Hotel Europa. Pleasure in the process, in the words, in the imagery, in the construction, in everything that writing is as a human practice; and he illustrates this pleasure by including the steps in the process of writing the book in the book itself, but in a self-deprecating way, as if he were having trouble writing the thing he is obviously writing with great ease and pleasure.


So what's the book about? There are two main themes here - the writing of the book with the author as a character within the book, and the refugee flight from Romania after the revolution in 1990. The book within the book is about the refugees and is at first presented very hesitantly as the author who is writing this book adjusts to his own life in exile by retreating to Paris to write, but as this author starts grooving the refugee story starts grooving and the author fades somewhat into the background, resurfacing here and there, often reading the newspaper, or talking to his Siamese cat. Toward the end, as the refugee character reaches Paris the two themes merge into a single reality, which is certainly not a new idea in meta-fiction, but there was a real off-handed elegance in Tsepeneag's handling of it. In fact there was a real off-handed elegance to the entire book; an easy mastery that fills the book light and air even as it recounts scenes of horror, indigence, and generally screwed up and tragic situations.

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 3 out of 5]

Romania’s premier innovator is never the same from novel to novel. His longest so far in translation is a rambling epic that cleverly mingles fictional recollections from the author’s formative years with autobiographical ditto, and a (fictional?) account of the novel’s composition replete with wifely quarrels and talking tomcats. Chronicling the euro-hopping adventures of displaced dissident Ion as he mingles among lowlives, hustlers, prostitutes, and other rambling people stumbling from the wreck of Ceausescu’s Romania, the novel is a sequence of engaging and humorous set-pieces that for me involved a heap of self-administered stamina to complete caused by the fragmentation and fluidity—however, Tsepeneag is hilarious, skilled in writing excellent dialogue, and always interesting at the level of form. The novel’s wandering anti-structure will resonate with anyone suffering exile or displacement. His shorter novels like Vain Art of the Fugue or Bulgarian Truck are better starting points.

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hotel Europa is a bizarre geological phenomenon, a collection of indentations, creating a school of puddles, each autonomous, yet porous enough to allow interaction. The premise of the Romanian uprising which deposed Ceausescu alights each of the pools with fecund genetic happenings. Each teems. Bristles, even. A plot develops in one, only to be altered and enhanced by another. This is also the tale of an exiled novelist in Paris struggling to complete his work, badgered by his French wife and his mocking Siamese cat, his efforts spurred by a collection of news clippings and worn Deutschmarks which lead him further afield.

This isn’t a philosophical novel nor is one which is eager to rub elbows with other texts. It sort of stands aloof like an immigrant in transit, sitting alone in a rail station’s pub.

3.5/5

[Ruxandra Visoiu · Rating 3 out of 5]

A somehow fantastical and slow-paced story, fine for whoever likes this style of writing.

[Ef Grey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tohle byl čistě random výběr z knihovny. Nejprve mi to přišlo fakt boží, básnila jsem o tom snad všem, ale jak počet přečtených stran narůstal, můj zájem postupně opadal.
De facto je to o píšícím spisovateli, prolíná se tam svět vymyšlený a "knižně reálný", spousta útržků, někdy se v tom ztrácíte, ale vlastně si nemáte na co stěžovat, jelikož už jste byli upozorněni v anotaci.
Už vás ani nepřekvapí mluvící kocour nebo pošťák s křídly, to už je jen takový bonus.
Jediná srozumitelná mi přišla linka Marianne, protože ta byla doma s kocourem a rušila pana spisovatele od práce. Takže u ní jsem se měla čeho chytit, jinak to byla velká jízda a chaos.

[Andreea Lipovan · Rating 2 out of 5]

A fost o lectura mai complexa, având în vedere ca este despre scrierea unui roman. Naratorul ne poartă in cele 500 de pagini alături de el în scrierea romanului. Finalul nu este unul închis, dar probabil ca se finalizeaza în următoarele volume

[Marina Sofia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting premise and structure, with many moments of hilarity and heartbreak, but overall a bit too long, a bit too confused (too many characters and names).

[Robert · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too random for me to follow. Tried skipping ahead but it continues on in the same rambling disjointed way.

[Paula Koneazny · Rating 3 out of 5]

An odd novel. I enjoyed its structure: there are essentially three time frames; the narrator in the process of writing the novel & his daily life; the events & characters of the novel being written; & the "real life" events & characters upon which the novel is based. What makes this interesting is that all three time/event frames bleed into one another, so all is quite fluid. What makes it less interesting is that the main "character" in the novel (other than the writer of the novel) Ian is just not that engaging. Much about Romania at the time of overthrow of Ceaucescu & aftermath. Old exiles (the writer who lives in Paris)& new ones (younger, mostly students who wonder around Europe from East to West, from one version of Hotel Europa to another.