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Hotel Theory
Hotel Theory is two books in one: a meditation on the meaning of hotels, and a dime novel (Hotel Women) featuring Lana Turner and Liberace. Typical of Wayne Koestenbaum’s invigoratingly inventive style, the two books — one fiction, one nonfiction — run concurrently, in twin columns, and the articles “a,” “an,” and “the” never appear. The nonfiction ruminations on hotels are divided into eight dossiers, composed of short takes on the presence of hotels in the author’s dreams as well as in literature, film, and history. Guest stars include everyone from Oscar Wilde to Marilyn Monroe. Hotel Theory gives (divided) voice to an aesthetic of hyperaesthesia, of yearning. It is an oblique manifesto, the place where writing disappears. A new mode of theorizing — in fiction, in fragment, through quotation and palimpsest — arises in this dazzling work.
192 pages, Paperback
First published June 21, 2007
9 people are currently reading
386 people want to read
About the author
Wayne Koestenbaum
82 books175 followersWayne Koestenbaum has published five books of critical prose, including The Queen’s Throat: Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire, which was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist; and three books of poetry, including Ode to Anna Moffo and Other Poems. He is a Professor of English at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
December 1, 2020
Koestenbaum is one of our most exciting living writers and one of our most important Jews. Both texts in this book rock, though the nonfiction meditations on hotels are the stronger half. Pairs really well with basically any Walter Benjamin and Marc Augé's "non-places".
January 29, 2008
The first puzzle is how to read this essay/novel. The next puzzle is how to enjoy it.
About thirty pages in, I decided to read it by skipping back and fourth between paragraphs, from left column to right column - from essay to novel - in the hopes of using the essay as a platform from which the novel might be better viewed. This worked only modestly well. As the essay seems the more serious exploration of the two, perhaps I should have used the novel to illuminate the essay.
Trouble is, there's no consistent correlation between the two. There are moments when one seems to relate to the other, and there are a variety of hints in the essay about its purpose in the book - but there's nothing that resembles symmetry. Perhaps that's the point?
After 170 or so pages, though, I've decided on a different point. In Hotel Theory Wayne Koestenbaum set out to write about hotels in a variety of ways. He also decided that so long as he was working on the essay or the novel, whatever thought came in his head must be about hotels. This is how we get numerous references to Chopin's music and Walter Benjamin's, well, everything.
Koestenbaum's initial ideas, that hotels are empty spaces that fill with transience and sex, seem to be right and well supported. That every other thought Koestenbaum had over the course of a year or two was also about hotels seems a more dubious proposition.
This book is experimental and worth reading if a person is interested in alternative ways of viewing the written page. Persons who want an occasionally insightful essay, too, may enjoy the left column. The right column, near as I can tell, fulfills no particularly useful function - and if it were read as its own work would be unsatisfying indeed.
I may have solved part of the riddle of how to read Hotel Theory, but I definitely didn't figure out how to enjoy it.
About thirty pages in, I decided to read it by skipping back and fourth between paragraphs, from left column to right column - from essay to novel - in the hopes of using the essay as a platform from which the novel might be better viewed. This worked only modestly well. As the essay seems the more serious exploration of the two, perhaps I should have used the novel to illuminate the essay.
Trouble is, there's no consistent correlation between the two. There are moments when one seems to relate to the other, and there are a variety of hints in the essay about its purpose in the book - but there's nothing that resembles symmetry. Perhaps that's the point?
After 170 or so pages, though, I've decided on a different point. In Hotel Theory Wayne Koestenbaum set out to write about hotels in a variety of ways. He also decided that so long as he was working on the essay or the novel, whatever thought came in his head must be about hotels. This is how we get numerous references to Chopin's music and Walter Benjamin's, well, everything.
Koestenbaum's initial ideas, that hotels are empty spaces that fill with transience and sex, seem to be right and well supported. That every other thought Koestenbaum had over the course of a year or two was also about hotels seems a more dubious proposition.
This book is experimental and worth reading if a person is interested in alternative ways of viewing the written page. Persons who want an occasionally insightful essay, too, may enjoy the left column. The right column, near as I can tell, fulfills no particularly useful function - and if it were read as its own work would be unsatisfying indeed.
I may have solved part of the riddle of how to read Hotel Theory, but I definitely didn't figure out how to enjoy it.
November 22, 2015
Excellent meditation on the phenomenon of hotels in consciousness, in literature, music, film.
In which Wayne Koestenbaum describes how Chopin's music embodies "hotel consciousness."
In which he defines "Hotel Woman" as "a fugitive sensibility or character, often feminine, reprieved from the rigors of fixed address."
"Within a Chopin nocturne's melody, the ornament is the guest (the hotel woman), the malingerer, the cause of malingering in others. . . The ornament sustains the culture of the nocturne but also signals infection in the tune."
"Why hotels offer psychological safety: The room, its objects deliberately generic, offers no interference to the free play--dervish--of consciousness."
"Do you check into a hotel? Or does the hotel condition check into you?"
"The hotel room harbors the has-been as well as the star."
And so Wayne Koestenbaum leaves no one spared from his Hotel Analysis. Chopin, Walter Benjamin, Gertrude Stein, Joan Didion, Julia Stiles, Oscar Wilde, Siegfried Kracauer, Heidegger, Elizabeth Bishop... Who are the has-beens? Who are the stars?
In which Wayne Koestenbaum describes how Chopin's music embodies "hotel consciousness."
In which he defines "Hotel Woman" as "a fugitive sensibility or character, often feminine, reprieved from the rigors of fixed address."
"Within a Chopin nocturne's melody, the ornament is the guest (the hotel woman), the malingerer, the cause of malingering in others. . . The ornament sustains the culture of the nocturne but also signals infection in the tune."
"Why hotels offer psychological safety: The room, its objects deliberately generic, offers no interference to the free play--dervish--of consciousness."
"Do you check into a hotel? Or does the hotel condition check into you?"
"The hotel room harbors the has-been as well as the star."
And so Wayne Koestenbaum leaves no one spared from his Hotel Analysis. Chopin, Walter Benjamin, Gertrude Stein, Joan Didion, Julia Stiles, Oscar Wilde, Siegfried Kracauer, Heidegger, Elizabeth Bishop... Who are the has-beens? Who are the stars?
March 27, 2011
Have always loved Koestenbaum's work; this one is a challenge, but worth it. For further thoughts, seek out my One-Man Book Club entries on my web site. (Easily found.)
July 19, 2019
read between: hotel richter, moscow; airbnb in "great location" with no hot water, moscow; hotel meininger (really a hostel), st. petersbrg
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May 29, 2022Difficult but strangely inspiring
December 30, 2009
Wow, what a strange fucking book. Before you even read page one, you're forced to figure out HOW to read it. Each page has two running columns in different text. One column (Hotel Theory) is a loose, philosophical delve into Hotel-being. To do this Koestenbaum pulls at will from a wide variety of western-culture that includes but is not limited to Chopin, Walter Benjamin, Joan Didion and even something as campy as a Julia Stiles film. Along to way Koestenbaum attempts to expose the various aspects of Hotel existence. Overall, this section is fascinating, allusive and at moments brilliant.
On the other column is a a self-described "dime-store novel" featuring Liberance and Lana Turner called Hotel Women. Oh, and Koestenbaum decides to completely omit the articles "a", "an", and "the" from the entire novel. Why? Well, I assume it has something to do with introspection and vanity. He also might just want to be annoying. Hotel Women is pretty shallow in that eerie, existential way that includes a lot of nudity, suntanning and clever word play.
For the most part these two texts don't directly interact from what I can tell. Although they do seem to fit well together. I applaud Koestenbaum for pushing the boundaries on conventionality but one has to wonder if this book would have ever been published if Koestenbaum was not a successful art-critic who has published numerous books before this.
On the other column is a a self-described "dime-store novel" featuring Liberance and Lana Turner called Hotel Women. Oh, and Koestenbaum decides to completely omit the articles "a", "an", and "the" from the entire novel. Why? Well, I assume it has something to do with introspection and vanity. He also might just want to be annoying. Hotel Women is pretty shallow in that eerie, existential way that includes a lot of nudity, suntanning and clever word play.
For the most part these two texts don't directly interact from what I can tell. Although they do seem to fit well together. I applaud Koestenbaum for pushing the boundaries on conventionality but one has to wonder if this book would have ever been published if Koestenbaum was not a successful art-critic who has published numerous books before this.
could-not-finish-it
February 12, 2008I'm trying...I'm not giving up. But I have to step away for a while.
I appreciate what Kostenbaum is doing with this text, but (and I am only 34 pages in, so this is a very uneducated opinion)I don't see much in the way of progression; the same ideas are repeated over and over.
I think repetition is necessary in a book where there are intertextual "stories" written in two columns side by side--we need to be reminded of ideas, especially when we're switching back and forth, navigating through alternating columns. However, this book isn't going very quickly for me, for all of the above qualities.
The book is long--174 pages. I wonder if it wouldn't have been better as a novella or short essay? But, what do I know, I'm only 34 pages in.
I appreciate what Kostenbaum is doing with this text, but (and I am only 34 pages in, so this is a very uneducated opinion)I don't see much in the way of progression; the same ideas are repeated over and over.
I think repetition is necessary in a book where there are intertextual "stories" written in two columns side by side--we need to be reminded of ideas, especially when we're switching back and forth, navigating through alternating columns. However, this book isn't going very quickly for me, for all of the above qualities.
The book is long--174 pages. I wonder if it wouldn't have been better as a novella or short essay? But, what do I know, I'm only 34 pages in.
June 7, 2009
This is my new favorite book. After reading Hotel Theory, an impressionable reader may wish to rehabilitate with Liberace during a few questionable hours in El Salvador, the Lounge. Or, to experience the constant reappearance of mediocre-smelling soap, while eating food that materialized from bug-bombed, unpopulated halls. Be wary, the walls, though transparent, are visibly constructed and mesmerizing. The only annoyance—Liberace’s constant claims to the sweetest rooftop chairs. Finally, a supine Armageddon and the fulfillment of oil-slicked wishes. Dime, please.
June 1, 2007
Read this for the Newspaper. The idea is really interesting -- the author set up two running columns, the one on the left is a dime-novel about Liberace and Lana Turner having an affair, the one of the right is a cultural critique on hotels in general. There were some extremely beautiful imagery and ideas, coupled with some less articulated passages, but a provocative experience on the whole. (Postmodern lit; 300+ pages)
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July 7, 2009Hi. Lana Turner speaking.
Neighboring meditations on what “hotel” means: space, identity, indifference, masturbation. A great book to read alone in a hotel room while drinking. Makes me feel as though I will never leave my apartment again, and regardless, every room is the same and home is nowhere.
Neighboring meditations on what “hotel” means: space, identity, indifference, masturbation. A great book to read alone in a hotel room while drinking. Makes me feel as though I will never leave my apartment again, and regardless, every room is the same and home is nowhere.
February 7, 2008
If your funny bone resonates to the pitch of camp, you may find this novel irresistible:
Liberace surfaced, shook his canine bone-dry, towel-wrapped his middle, and sauntered over to Whitehead's perch.
"Pardon me, but it smells funny," Liberace said. "Underwater."
Liberace surfaced, shook his canine bone-dry, towel-wrapped his middle, and sauntered over to Whitehead's perch.
"Pardon me, but it smells funny," Liberace said. "Underwater."
June 14, 2007
it is true that hotel rooms are eerie places. this book is funny, sad, and incredibly weird. anyway, i wrote about it here -- http://www.bookslut.com/fiction/2007_...
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July 22, 2007in progress.
philosophy can be fun, even for an ex-major.
philosophy can be fun, even for an ex-major.
March 3, 2008
I love motels and hotels. And doppleganger texts; one fiction, one non.
Currently reading
February 24, 2011Not unlike Derrida's Glas
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews