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Atlantic Hotel
Just who is the narrator of João Gilberto Noll’s dark and mysterious Atlantic Hotel? First he books a room where a murder has just occurred, claiming he's just arrived from the airport. But then he suddenly leaves the hotel, telling a cab driver he’s an alcoholic headed for detox. After that he hops on an all-night bus headed across Brazil, where he begins to seduce a beautiful American woman. Next he says he’s a soap opera actor, which is a bad idea—it makes the people he’s hitchhiking with want to kill him. Then he impersonates a priest. He travels to yet another town, and this time he knocks on a very wrong door. The man who opens it has him in the crosshairs of a gun—the narrator passes out, and when he awakes something terrible is happening to him . . .
Crossing the wanderings of a flâneur with the menacing mystery of a hard-boiled noir, and always leaving the narrator’s identity in flux, Brazilian master João Gilberto Noll ponders how any of us come to possess a sense of who—or what—we are. Published right before his widely acclaimed Quiet Creature on the Corner, Noll’s Atlantic Hotel is one of his best-known and most infamous works.
Crossing the wanderings of a flâneur with the menacing mystery of a hard-boiled noir, and always leaving the narrator’s identity in flux, Brazilian master João Gilberto Noll ponders how any of us come to possess a sense of who—or what—we are. Published right before his widely acclaimed Quiet Creature on the Corner, Noll’s Atlantic Hotel is one of his best-known and most infamous works.
138 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
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452 people want to read
About the author
João Gilberto Noll
25 books38 followersJoão Gilberto Noll was a Brazilian writer born in Porto Alegre, in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul.
His early years were spent studying at the Catholic Colégio São Pedro. In 1967 he began university coursework in literature at the UFRGS-Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, but in 1969 he interrupted his studies to pursue a career as a journalist in Rio de Janeiro, working for the newspapers Folha da Manhã and Última Hora. In 1970 Noll spent a year in São Paulo working as a copyeditor at the publishing house Editora Nacional, but a year later he moved back to Rio and resumed both his work in journalism at Última Hora, writing on literature, theater and music, and his university studies in literature, first at the Faculdade Notre Dame and then at the PUC-Rio, where he received his degree in 1979.
Noll published his first short story as part of a 1970 Porto Alegre anthology entitled Roda de Fogo, but his more formal literary debut came in 1980 when his first book of short stories O cego e a dançarina (English title: The blind man and the dancer) was released, for which he received three literary prizes. One of Noll's short stories from O cego e a dançarina, Alguma coisa urgentemente (Something urgent), was the basis for the film Nunca fomos tão felizes (English title: We've Never Been So Happy) in 1983, directed by Murilo Salles and starring the actor Claudio Marzo.
Noll received early international attention as a participant in the Writer's Program at the University of Iowa in 1982, and when his work appeared in an anthology of new Brazilian writers published in Germany in 1983. After a short visit to the University of California, Berkeley in 1996, he was invited to teach Brazilian literature there in 1997. He was an invited scholar for a Rockefeller Foundation seminar in Bellagio, Italy, was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002, and spent a two-month writing residency at the Centre for the Study of Brazilian Culture & Society at King's College London in 2004. All of these experiences were to shape the subject matter of later works.
His first collection of stories was followed by the novels A fúria do corpo (1981), Bandoleiros (1985) and Rastros do Verão (1986). Two of his subsequent and perhaps best-known works, the novels Hotel Atlantico (1989) and Harmada (1993), later came out in a 1997 English edition, translated by David Treece and published by Boulevard Books in London. Another novel, entitled O quieto animal da esquina, appeared in 1991.
From 1998 to 2001 Noll published a twice-weekly series of short stories in the major São Paulo daily Folha de São Paulo, and in 2004 he began to publish longer stories every two weeks in the daily Correio Braziliense published in the federal capital Brasília.
His early years were spent studying at the Catholic Colégio São Pedro. In 1967 he began university coursework in literature at the UFRGS-Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, but in 1969 he interrupted his studies to pursue a career as a journalist in Rio de Janeiro, working for the newspapers Folha da Manhã and Última Hora. In 1970 Noll spent a year in São Paulo working as a copyeditor at the publishing house Editora Nacional, but a year later he moved back to Rio and resumed both his work in journalism at Última Hora, writing on literature, theater and music, and his university studies in literature, first at the Faculdade Notre Dame and then at the PUC-Rio, where he received his degree in 1979.
Noll published his first short story as part of a 1970 Porto Alegre anthology entitled Roda de Fogo, but his more formal literary debut came in 1980 when his first book of short stories O cego e a dançarina (English title: The blind man and the dancer) was released, for which he received three literary prizes. One of Noll's short stories from O cego e a dançarina, Alguma coisa urgentemente (Something urgent), was the basis for the film Nunca fomos tão felizes (English title: We've Never Been So Happy) in 1983, directed by Murilo Salles and starring the actor Claudio Marzo.
Noll received early international attention as a participant in the Writer's Program at the University of Iowa in 1982, and when his work appeared in an anthology of new Brazilian writers published in Germany in 1983. After a short visit to the University of California, Berkeley in 1996, he was invited to teach Brazilian literature there in 1997. He was an invited scholar for a Rockefeller Foundation seminar in Bellagio, Italy, was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002, and spent a two-month writing residency at the Centre for the Study of Brazilian Culture & Society at King's College London in 2004. All of these experiences were to shape the subject matter of later works.
His first collection of stories was followed by the novels A fúria do corpo (1981), Bandoleiros (1985) and Rastros do Verão (1986). Two of his subsequent and perhaps best-known works, the novels Hotel Atlantico (1989) and Harmada (1993), later came out in a 1997 English edition, translated by David Treece and published by Boulevard Books in London. Another novel, entitled O quieto animal da esquina, appeared in 1991.
From 1998 to 2001 Noll published a twice-weekly series of short stories in the major São Paulo daily Folha de São Paulo, and in 2004 he began to publish longer stories every two weeks in the daily Correio Braziliense published in the federal capital Brasília.
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November 16, 2017
Atlantic Hotel opens with the unnamed, and luggage-less, "barely 40" year-old narrator checking in to a hotel. But as he comes in, a body, evidently a murder victim, is being carried out.
I regretted having walked into that hotel. But as I stood there, retreat only seemed another cowardly act I'd have to shoulder on my journey. So I pressed on.
From the outset, he seems to be a mass of contradictions, seeming to be aimless and relaxed, a confident seducer, but also with anxiety and a pressing sense of urgency:
A countdown was in progress: I needed to get going.
But I decided to go back to bed. I kicked off my shoes. I felt I was repressing a sense of hopelessness inside myself, because I had to get going so - so I pretended to be calm, very calm.
He speculates about having himself committed (in a reversal of Catch 22 he argues that even claiming one is insane is a sign of insanity) or committing a murder to earn free cell and board from the state arguing Maybe that way I would get back to joy in just killing time.
And part of his anxiety steps from his physical condition, which at first seems middle-age hypochondria (enumerating the signs of my body's deterioration) but which becomes more sinister as the novel progresses.
He stays only one night, seemingly in the room where the murder took place if a suspicious looking stain is any guide, albeit that's long enough to seduce the receptionist, before he continues with a rather aimless journey around Brazil, choosing destinations almost at a whim, but somehow encountering death as he proceeds (a suicide, suggestions he may have witnessed another murder, threats to his own life, performing the last rites to an elderly lady while dressed in a borrowed Priest's frock). As the publisher's blurb explains:
His identity is rather unclear, not least as he casually makes up stories depending on who he is talking to: he tells the receptionist that he is married and his bags are still at the airport, then taxi driver that he is an alcoholic heading to a rehab clinic, and another person that he is a travelling salesman, so when he claims to be an unemployed actor, journeying on the funds from selling his car, we aren't inclined to believe him, but later others do indeed recognise him as a minor soap opera star.
And this ultimately leads to the novel's most startling development, where, having been recognised by the daughter of a surgeon
This is a deceptively slim (100 small pages) and simple novel, but one suspects hidden depths that I suspect in part passed me by. Joseph Schreiber of the roughghosts blog wrote a wonderful review of Noll's novel (later in the original, but translated previously in English) Quiet Creature on the Corner for Numero Cinq Magazine.
Many of the points he brings out have echoes in this novel:
Update - here is that (again very insightful) review
http://numerocinqmagazine.com/2017/05...
For balance, and to an extent amusement, I ought to provide a link to a hatchet job by Kirkus Reviews
I regretted having walked into that hotel. But as I stood there, retreat only seemed another cowardly act I'd have to shoulder on my journey. So I pressed on.
From the outset, he seems to be a mass of contradictions, seeming to be aimless and relaxed, a confident seducer, but also with anxiety and a pressing sense of urgency:
A countdown was in progress: I needed to get going.
But I decided to go back to bed. I kicked off my shoes. I felt I was repressing a sense of hopelessness inside myself, because I had to get going so - so I pretended to be calm, very calm.
He speculates about having himself committed (in a reversal of Catch 22 he argues that even claiming one is insane is a sign of insanity) or committing a murder to earn free cell and board from the state arguing Maybe that way I would get back to joy in just killing time.
And part of his anxiety steps from his physical condition, which at first seems middle-age hypochondria (enumerating the signs of my body's deterioration) but which becomes more sinister as the novel progresses.
He stays only one night, seemingly in the room where the murder took place if a suspicious looking stain is any guide, albeit that's long enough to seduce the receptionist, before he continues with a rather aimless journey around Brazil, choosing destinations almost at a whim, but somehow encountering death as he proceeds (a suicide, suggestions he may have witnessed another murder, threats to his own life, performing the last rites to an elderly lady while dressed in a borrowed Priest's frock). As the publisher's blurb explains:
But then he suddenly leaves the hotel, telling a cab driver, rather randomly, that he’s an alcoholic headed for detox.His existence is itinerant: he carries no change of clothes, he generously dispenses his money but his funds soon dwindle and he relies on the hospitality of those wherever he ends up, he opportunistically seduces any lady in the area, from young virgins to experienced maids (although taken to a brothel, he decides to sleep) but then quickly moves on from each place without the least desire to turn back and look at it one last time.
I returned to my senses. The traffic. The cabbie commenting on the smog in the Rebouças tunnel. I leveraged my hands against the seat back and managed to bring myself upright. The car was emerging from the tunnel.
I was almost better, just a tremble in my hands.
“How come you’re so tired?” the cabbie asked.
“I was partying all night,” I replied.
He laughed. I showed him my hand and said, “Look how I’m trembling, it’s alcohol tremors.”
“You’re an alcoholic?” he asked.
“Yeah, but I’m going to a treatment center in Minas,” I replied.
He shook his head, gave a little snort of assent, and said, “I have a brother-in-law who drinks. He was in rehab three times.”
After that he hops on an all-night bus headed across Brazil, where he begins to seduce a beautiful American woman. Next he says he’s a soap opera actor, which is a bad idea—it makes the people he’s hitchhiking with want to kill him. Then he impersonates a priest. He travels to yet another town, and this time he knocks on a very wrong door. The man who opens it has him in the crosshairs of a gun—the narrator passes out, and when he awakes something terrible is happening to him . . .
His identity is rather unclear, not least as he casually makes up stories depending on who he is talking to: he tells the receptionist that he is married and his bags are still at the airport, then taxi driver that he is an alcoholic heading to a rehab clinic, and another person that he is a travelling salesman, so when he claims to be an unemployed actor, journeying on the funds from selling his car, we aren't inclined to believe him, but later others do indeed recognise him as a minor soap opera star.
And this ultimately leads to the novel's most startling development, where, having been recognised by the daughter of a surgeon
This is a deceptively slim (100 small pages) and simple novel, but one suspects hidden depths that I suspect in part passed me by. Joseph Schreiber of the roughghosts blog wrote a wonderful review of Noll's novel (later in the original, but translated previously in English) Quiet Creature on the Corner for Numero Cinq Magazine.
Many of the points he brings out have echoes in this novel:
We humans tend to fancy ourselves rational beings. We hold to the convention of cause and effect. We imagine that if faced with strange and unusual situations, we would respond with curiosity, anxiety, or alarm and make an effort to act appropriately. We are inclined to believe that we need to understand what is happening to us and around us at all times. But, is that truly the way we actually exist in the world?and I look forward to his apparently forthcoming review of Atlantic Hotel, as I suspect it will help me truly appreciate the book.
João Gilberto Noll is an author who dares to challenge that assumption. His novel, Quiet Creature on the Corner is, on the surface, a spare and modestly surreal tale of a young man who surrenders himself to a life that is inexplicably handed to him without seriously questioning his circumstances until he is deeply absorbed in a situation that is rapidly growing stranger and more uncertain.
Update - here is that (again very insightful) review
http://numerocinqmagazine.com/2017/05...
For balance, and to an extent amusement, I ought to provide a link to a hatchet job by Kirkus Reviews
Although author Noll (Quiet Creature on the Corner, 2016, etc.) has long been a phenomenon in his native Brazil, he has still remained largely unknown in the United States. This slim novel, narrated by a nameless man as he travels through Brazil, shows why that might not be such a bad thing.My amusement comes from the way the publishers managed to spin this into a blurb for the book!
…
These passages, both in their too-cool-for-school alienation and needless edginess, reek of affectation and cheapen the novel by making its cryptic nature feel like just a contrived stab at the avant-garde. Indeed, while Noll and his translator Morris' prose frequently has a seductive, noirish quality, the novel is so fatally hamstrung by its inherent lack of substance or point that any stylistic grace only reinforces how fundamentally empty an exercise it is. None of the surreal events in the unnamed narrator's life ever have a significance beyond titillation and transgression, and in its gratuitously sexual and violent episodes, the book often feels more like a 14-year-old's diary than the work of an eminent novelist.
May 11, 2017
Noll is a writer who demands, for me, more than one reading. Unlike Quiet Creature which required multiple readings for me to even decide what to make of it—I went into this reading prepared and was captivated immediately. I'm preparing a review for publication, my response to this work will be fleshed out in the process. My review of this book has now been published at Numero Cinq:
http://numerocinqmagazine.com/2017/05...
http://numerocinqmagazine.com/2017/05...
May 10, 2017
the second of joão gilberto noll's books to appear in english (after
quiet creature on the corner
), atlantic hotel (hotel atlântico) is an entirely different outing than its predecessor. the late brazilian novelist (he died in march of this year) infuses this slim work with a constant foreboding and mysterious atmosphere. surrounded by death, our nameless narrator bounces from town to town, aimlessly accompanied by a reader none the wiser. the uncertainty that permeates noll's fiction is perhaps its most striking feature, seemingly no less salient than when it was first published nearly 30 years ago. based on the two titles now available in translation, it seems noll's fiction is characterized by its enigmatic essence. brief, yet satisfying (though the text's many questions are, in fact, left unsatisfied), atlantic hotel is a noirish, nuanced novella from a brazilian fictionist long beloved in his native land.
*translated from the portuguese by adam morris (noll's quiet creature on the corner, hilst's with my dog eyes )
3.5 stars
if i feigned madness, or maybe numbed amnesia, the world would rush to commit me.
*translated from the portuguese by adam morris (noll's quiet creature on the corner, hilst's with my dog eyes )
3.5 stars
November 18, 2016
I don't know what it is, but I love stories about people who abandon their lives and fling themselves at the world. Spontaneous travel, strange hotels, assumed and mistake identities. Georges Simenon wrote a number of novels in this vein and Noll's Atlantic Hotel is no less intoxicating.
May 16, 2017
In "Atlantic Hotel," Noll’s nameless narrator wanders aimlessly across parts of Brazil. He’s rather like a human pinball, making decisions about his next direction abruptly, without forethought. He often says the first thing that comes to his head, which means he often seems to be lying. He has casual sex within minutes of meeting women. He might or might not have once been an actor on a TV soap opera, but now he gives his occupation as “unoccupied.” He is both running from something and searching for something, but he (and we) never know what.
The publisher say "Atlantic Hotel" is “reminiscent of the films of David Lynch,” which is about as good a description as I can think of. It's bleak and violent and filled with a sense of anomie, and yet it is a strangely compelling book. Noll writes in a style that I think of as anti-noir, for lack of a better term. "Atlantic Hotel" has many of the tics of classic 1940s noir writing: random violence, casual sex, snappy dialogue, a spare prose style, but there’s no justice in the end, there’s no moral compass in sight. For more, read the full review on my blog: https://sebald.wordpress.com/2017/05/12/atlantic-hotel/
The publisher say "Atlantic Hotel" is “reminiscent of the films of David Lynch,” which is about as good a description as I can think of. It's bleak and violent and filled with a sense of anomie, and yet it is a strangely compelling book. Noll writes in a style that I think of as anti-noir, for lack of a better term. "Atlantic Hotel" has many of the tics of classic 1940s noir writing: random violence, casual sex, snappy dialogue, a spare prose style, but there’s no justice in the end, there’s no moral compass in sight. For more, read the full review on my blog: https://sebald.wordpress.com/2017/05/12/atlantic-hotel/
January 31, 2018
[NO SPOILERS] Just finished with my first read of this book which, for a self-proclaimed slow reader, took less than 2 days. It's the sort of book one could read again and again, finding new dimensions of allegory and beauty with each go. The simplistic writing style might lend itself to misinterpretation as a simplistic work. However, this is far from the case. A poignant little text that is enjoyable, inspiring, astute, and pocket-sized. What more could I ask for?
July 31, 2018
I’d welcome alternative views, or even people who disagree, but to me, Noll’s short and rather strange novel is about mortality and adaptability.
The narrator has his own mortality very much in mind as he takes a blighted trip between Rio de Janeiro and Puerto Alegre.
Early in the piece he is mistaken for an actor from a soap-opera, a confusion that appeals to him, and he panders to it.
It’s no surprise death is on his mind, three people he meets die on him in as many days. These are the least of his misfortunes though as he becomes fatigued and depressed, and his mind and body start to deteriorate rapidly.
Though it’s a dark story set in shabby motel rooms and of weak and disabled bodies there is an ‘always look on the bright side of life’ attitude to the writing, with a Magnus Mills-esque sprinkling of humour to it. It conveys a certain innocence in its portrayal of the natural resilience of humanity.
The narrator has his own mortality very much in mind as he takes a blighted trip between Rio de Janeiro and Puerto Alegre.
Early in the piece he is mistaken for an actor from a soap-opera, a confusion that appeals to him, and he panders to it.
It’s no surprise death is on his mind, three people he meets die on him in as many days. These are the least of his misfortunes though as he becomes fatigued and depressed, and his mind and body start to deteriorate rapidly.
Though it’s a dark story set in shabby motel rooms and of weak and disabled bodies there is an ‘always look on the bright side of life’ attitude to the writing, with a Magnus Mills-esque sprinkling of humour to it. It conveys a certain innocence in its portrayal of the natural resilience of humanity.
October 25, 2017
Quite the interesting little book.
February 24, 2024
o nome do livro deu gatilho
August 18, 2025
Fiebertraum
(7/10)
(7/10)
July 26, 2019
My bookmark for this book was a bandage. I didn’t realize how appropriate that was until the end. It hurt to read this, but I loved it, too.
May 12, 2017
Breve nota confusa
Tengo que releer este libro. Dejarlo reposar, darle tiempo, y volver luego. No voy a poder hacerlo, sin embargo: la academia me obliga a una relectura la próxima semana. Lo comentaré de nuevo entonces, por ahora, en brevedad: ¿existencialismo sin poética?, ¿narración abismal despojada de la angustia expresada narrativamente, remplazada por la angustia del vacío en la estructura de la novela?
Un personaje anónimo, cuarenta años, hombre, narra en primera persona sus peripecias por el sur de Brasil. Libro de viajes sin que exista motivo para el viaje o equipajes; novela de aventura sin emoción o determinación por parte del narrador-protagonista, más títere del destino que héroe; absurdismo sin drama.
En Hotel Atlántico Noll se faja el Kafka de El proceso a una velocidad demoledora, sumándole la Brasil urbana de Rubem Fonseca en sus aires negros y despiadados, pero con un nivel mínimo de descripción.
No sé, espero releer para prestar más atención. Siento en la novela que demanda relectura, eso ya es tremendo mérito, ¿no?
Tengo que releer este libro. Dejarlo reposar, darle tiempo, y volver luego. No voy a poder hacerlo, sin embargo: la academia me obliga a una relectura la próxima semana. Lo comentaré de nuevo entonces, por ahora, en brevedad: ¿existencialismo sin poética?, ¿narración abismal despojada de la angustia expresada narrativamente, remplazada por la angustia del vacío en la estructura de la novela?
Un personaje anónimo, cuarenta años, hombre, narra en primera persona sus peripecias por el sur de Brasil. Libro de viajes sin que exista motivo para el viaje o equipajes; novela de aventura sin emoción o determinación por parte del narrador-protagonista, más títere del destino que héroe; absurdismo sin drama.
En Hotel Atlántico Noll se faja el Kafka de El proceso a una velocidad demoledora, sumándole la Brasil urbana de Rubem Fonseca en sus aires negros y despiadados, pero con un nivel mínimo de descripción.
No sé, espero releer para prestar más atención. Siento en la novela que demanda relectura, eso ya es tremendo mérito, ¿no?
October 28, 2017
This was a 3.5 read for me
Thoughts coming shortly
Thoughts coming shortly
November 28, 2017
I didn’t like it, but I found myself wanting to talk to someone about it, to see if connections I saw were really there, and compare unanswered questions.
February 6, 2018
Noll's Atlantic Hotel is basically an 800-page modernist picaresque tome put on 8x fast forward.
Read
January 6, 2023Review written June 2019
Atlantic Hotel follows a middle-aged man on a journey through Brazil in a particularly cold July. Noll refrains from giving the reader any background for the protagonist, leaving him nameless, faceless, and unknown, then introduces him as someone who tells lies to play with people’s perceptions of him. Early in, he tells a hotel receptionist he has a wife waiting for him elsewhere to try to make the receptionist curious about him. On the next page, they’re already having sex, her on all fours on his dirty hotel room carpet. The narrator is good at influencing people, and I was drawn in, too: I read this book for the utter mystery of it all. I was so intrigued by the unknown narrator that I followed him to each destination with an ardent curiosity. With all the lies he tells, I came to expect dishonesty from this unreliable narrator to the point that, when he begins telling the truth, I was still skeptical until I had proof. The pacing of this, from a sprinkling of attention-grabbing lies to attention-grabbing truths, to vulnerable honesty by the end, was very smoothly done. I am left torn between doubt and belief.
Sex, mystery, travel—what’s not to love? Well, gritty sex scenes, mentions of underage incest, suicide, violence against people and dogs, a detailed description of rape and the implication the victim wanted more—this story just blurts shocking ideas out, suddenly and shamelessly, and the brave reader must immediately recover and trudge onwards. Even in milder scenes, this novella contains details about other characters that put you on edge and make you want more context even if you’re not sure why, perhaps due to some sense of self-preservation like that which propels the narrator forward. I wanted to learn why these details felt so threatening, and then I wanted to retreat to safety. There were times the narrator just wanted to walk away without exploring further, and I understand that choice. This is not a pleasant book.
I am graduating college this month, so ideas of departure and deciding where to go next are heavily on my mind. Lines about how long the protagonist would last in any one place seem to take on a deeper meaning and are skillfully crafted to apply both to the short term and the long term. So much of his decision-making can be summed up with “why not?” He functions on instinct alone, and I wish I had the bravery and mental freedom that lifestyle requires. There are not many things I envy of the main character, but I do envy this.
The protagonist is nervous, observant, imaginative, an overthinker, and an independent loner. He has a wariness of human curiosity and a fascination with love incarnate. He has confidence and charisma, but more noticeably, a lack of boundaries toward female bodies. When he wanted them, he would get them. Hence, I felt pity for the protagonist at times, but never my full sympathy. As a woman, I’m disgusted by the man who thinks he has a right to reach out and open strangers’ shirts.
This story details a man’s unplanned journey, and while I don’t trust the man, I respect the freedom he employs. He walks a thin line between bravery and cowardice, but never is deterred. As I am about to graduate and am personally terrified of the unknown, I wish I had this unflinching steadiness in any situation regardless of potential consequences. Noll includes lots of play between past and present: what you used to look like, where you used to live, who you used to talk to, what you used to care about, what gave you joy that you’ve missed since childhood, compared to now—aging, injured, alone, searching. I’m a sentimental, nostalgic person, and I wish I didn’t hang onto my past so much. The narrator is no longer tied down to anything; he is leaving behind his physical possessions and leaving behind his past, too. While I recycle college papers and try to decide which childhood stuffed animals I can bear to put in the “donate” trash bag, Noll’s narrator leaves a map on the bus seat and borrows clothes while his only outfit is washed. In my own period of transition, I am trying to analyze what I must bring with me and what I must leave. I, too, am concerned with how others view me and what legacy I will leave behind me when I go. How do I minimize regrets and find a balance between independence and support? The important things in life are not the physical ones, and the narrator is in need of discovering what is important instead.
This is a story of beginnings and endings, first times and last times. It is a story of trying to understand how we get from one place to another. In many ways, this story is a return to what makes a home, and a search for a place to be happy. Trying to resist giving in to hopelessness or madness, and trying to believe that the good things in life are not permanently lost. The world may seem sad, and it is, but there are so many people and so many places that are not lost yet.
Atlantic Hotel follows a middle-aged man on a journey through Brazil in a particularly cold July. Noll refrains from giving the reader any background for the protagonist, leaving him nameless, faceless, and unknown, then introduces him as someone who tells lies to play with people’s perceptions of him. Early in, he tells a hotel receptionist he has a wife waiting for him elsewhere to try to make the receptionist curious about him. On the next page, they’re already having sex, her on all fours on his dirty hotel room carpet. The narrator is good at influencing people, and I was drawn in, too: I read this book for the utter mystery of it all. I was so intrigued by the unknown narrator that I followed him to each destination with an ardent curiosity. With all the lies he tells, I came to expect dishonesty from this unreliable narrator to the point that, when he begins telling the truth, I was still skeptical until I had proof. The pacing of this, from a sprinkling of attention-grabbing lies to attention-grabbing truths, to vulnerable honesty by the end, was very smoothly done. I am left torn between doubt and belief.
Sex, mystery, travel—what’s not to love? Well, gritty sex scenes, mentions of underage incest, suicide, violence against people and dogs, a detailed description of rape and the implication the victim wanted more—this story just blurts shocking ideas out, suddenly and shamelessly, and the brave reader must immediately recover and trudge onwards. Even in milder scenes, this novella contains details about other characters that put you on edge and make you want more context even if you’re not sure why, perhaps due to some sense of self-preservation like that which propels the narrator forward. I wanted to learn why these details felt so threatening, and then I wanted to retreat to safety. There were times the narrator just wanted to walk away without exploring further, and I understand that choice. This is not a pleasant book.
I am graduating college this month, so ideas of departure and deciding where to go next are heavily on my mind. Lines about how long the protagonist would last in any one place seem to take on a deeper meaning and are skillfully crafted to apply both to the short term and the long term. So much of his decision-making can be summed up with “why not?” He functions on instinct alone, and I wish I had the bravery and mental freedom that lifestyle requires. There are not many things I envy of the main character, but I do envy this.
The protagonist is nervous, observant, imaginative, an overthinker, and an independent loner. He has a wariness of human curiosity and a fascination with love incarnate. He has confidence and charisma, but more noticeably, a lack of boundaries toward female bodies. When he wanted them, he would get them. Hence, I felt pity for the protagonist at times, but never my full sympathy. As a woman, I’m disgusted by the man who thinks he has a right to reach out and open strangers’ shirts.
This story details a man’s unplanned journey, and while I don’t trust the man, I respect the freedom he employs. He walks a thin line between bravery and cowardice, but never is deterred. As I am about to graduate and am personally terrified of the unknown, I wish I had this unflinching steadiness in any situation regardless of potential consequences. Noll includes lots of play between past and present: what you used to look like, where you used to live, who you used to talk to, what you used to care about, what gave you joy that you’ve missed since childhood, compared to now—aging, injured, alone, searching. I’m a sentimental, nostalgic person, and I wish I didn’t hang onto my past so much. The narrator is no longer tied down to anything; he is leaving behind his physical possessions and leaving behind his past, too. While I recycle college papers and try to decide which childhood stuffed animals I can bear to put in the “donate” trash bag, Noll’s narrator leaves a map on the bus seat and borrows clothes while his only outfit is washed. In my own period of transition, I am trying to analyze what I must bring with me and what I must leave. I, too, am concerned with how others view me and what legacy I will leave behind me when I go. How do I minimize regrets and find a balance between independence and support? The important things in life are not the physical ones, and the narrator is in need of discovering what is important instead.
This is a story of beginnings and endings, first times and last times. It is a story of trying to understand how we get from one place to another. In many ways, this story is a return to what makes a home, and a search for a place to be happy. Trying to resist giving in to hopelessness or madness, and trying to believe that the good things in life are not permanently lost. The world may seem sad, and it is, but there are so many people and so many places that are not lost yet.
April 4, 2021
Very much within the tradition of listless masculine characters faced with a mysterious/noir landscape tinged with anxieties about the possibilities of identity and society (ranging the gamut from The Stranger, No Country for Old Men, The Tunnel and The Trial, to The Dark, Everything I Found on the Beach, and The Laughing Monsters - you can even throw in movies like Bladerunner, Memento, Drive, and The Killing of a Sacred Deer), Atlantic Hotel just doesn't stand out in any meaningful way. A maybe possibly former soap opera star roams Brazil shifting his identity in response to the grim hijinks he finds himself trapped in - in my mind invoking Scooby Doo running from, and disguising himself to avoid, fake monsters - all while having lots of sporadic hetero sex (or failing to perform it).
It's possible this has heft in the Brazilian/South American context, especially in the original Spanish, but I fail to see it. Especially when, in the same time frame as Noll, you had novels like Argentines Juan Jose Saer's The Clouds and Cesar Aira's Ghosts, or Chilean Roberto Bolaño's The Savage Detectives. Atlantic Hotel feels like it was written as a thesis for the (supposedly only formerly) CIA-backed Iowa Writing Workshop - which Noll did in fact attend for a 1982 program. With no interest in rehashing the tired debates about MFAs here, the point is that this novel comes across as an incredibly stale attempt at giving a parable-like quality to noir tropes.
Paul's review has helpful links to a Kirkus and Numéro Cinq review of Atlantic Hotel, as well as a review of Noll's previous book Quiet Creature on the Corner. They didn't help me find the book more interesting. Despite loving sharp critiques, even Kirkus' harsh review seemed vanilla and misdirected. I think the worst thing I can say about this book, more damning than anything else, is that, much like its main character, there's not much definitive to say about it. It exists. Barely.
It's possible this has heft in the Brazilian/South American context, especially in the original Spanish, but I fail to see it. Especially when, in the same time frame as Noll, you had novels like Argentines Juan Jose Saer's The Clouds and Cesar Aira's Ghosts, or Chilean Roberto Bolaño's The Savage Detectives. Atlantic Hotel feels like it was written as a thesis for the (supposedly only formerly) CIA-backed Iowa Writing Workshop - which Noll did in fact attend for a 1982 program. With no interest in rehashing the tired debates about MFAs here, the point is that this novel comes across as an incredibly stale attempt at giving a parable-like quality to noir tropes.
Paul's review has helpful links to a Kirkus and Numéro Cinq review of Atlantic Hotel, as well as a review of Noll's previous book Quiet Creature on the Corner. They didn't help me find the book more interesting. Despite loving sharp critiques, even Kirkus' harsh review seemed vanilla and misdirected. I think the worst thing I can say about this book, more damning than anything else, is that, much like its main character, there's not much definitive to say about it. It exists. Barely.
May 22, 2024
In a world where experiences define us this man poses a serious threat to maintaining stability due to the continuity of happenstances which befall. Apparently rather than adhering to a script from the book of life we see jumps without an afterthought. The people encountered are not as significant but center directly into an unimaginable realm of possibilities that could only happen in a story artfully told. If there was a compass leading me to figure what sort of drive calls for fulfilment it would be the unintentional, unlearned choices he made which begs the question: aren’t we all living from situation after situation hoping for the best possible outcome? The takeaway is that consequences have their way of playing out-ever heard of the uncertainties that can overcome us all of a sudden?
October 19, 2017
The protagonist of this short novel, pictured in my mind, looked a lot like Anton Chigurh from the Coen Brothers'
No Country for Old Men
. Not that this character was nearly as menacing and evil, but he did find himself, over and over again, on the road, in motels, surrounded by trouble. The writing, also, was reminiscent of McCarthy-esque spare, sinewy prose. The story telling here did not embellish or indulge. And sometimes that made it difficult to get lost in. There's an evocative feeling to the writing but not enough to truly capture and keep my attention, despite its use of strong mystery devices.
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April 7, 2020This short novel follows its narrator, an unnamed fortyish man, in a strange journey from place to place. We never learn just why he keeps moving about (without luggage)--whether he's escaping something, seeking something, or just wants to behave randomly--but death and unsettling circumstances pop up everywhere he goes. Reasons for events are rarely provided. I enjoyed it and by the end found it funny in a dark, perverse sort of way. I did, however, wonder why the translator felt it necessary to call trees with no leaves "nude" rather than "bare" or "leafless." Sometimes it's better to go with standard usage; the nude trees were distracting rather than poetic.
August 31, 2022
Noll e seu mistério
João Gilberto Noll diz que a sua escrita é: ¨Como se realmente a linguagem fosse um exercício desejante de ação. Ação não no sentido norte-americano, evidentemente, de cinemão, mas no sentido de que o personagem começa de um jeito e vai terminar de outro.¨ De fato, não há melhor definição para Hotel Atlântico (Editora Rocco, 1989), talvez a obra mais celebrada do autor gaúcho.
A vontade realmente é de ler até o fim de uma vez só. Você quer saber até onde vai o mistério, até onde a jornada do protagonista vai dar. Um marco na literatura brasileira.
João Gilberto Noll diz que a sua escrita é: ¨Como se realmente a linguagem fosse um exercício desejante de ação. Ação não no sentido norte-americano, evidentemente, de cinemão, mas no sentido de que o personagem começa de um jeito e vai terminar de outro.¨ De fato, não há melhor definição para Hotel Atlântico (Editora Rocco, 1989), talvez a obra mais celebrada do autor gaúcho.
A vontade realmente é de ler até o fim de uma vez só. Você quer saber até onde vai o mistério, até onde a jornada do protagonista vai dar. Um marco na literatura brasileira.
November 13, 2024
Durante años he repetido como mantra uno de mis versos favoritos de Charly García: "cuando el mundo tira para abajo es mejor no estar atado a nada", Hotel atlántico hace las veces de ampliación de ese verso. Un hombre que no tiene a donde ir o que no quiere ir a ningún lugar concreto se mueve para no quedarse quieto. No lleva equipaje, no lo necesita y, aún así, la muerte encuentra la manera de dibujarse en los caminos del sur brasileño, mientras la vida, o lo más parecido a ella, transcurre entre hoteles y carreteras.
May 28, 2020
I liked the book, I think. The main character of the book was very loosely defined-could not figure out if I liked him or not, did not get a good idea of who he really was. We know that he was ill, everything else about him he made up as he went through the story -a TV personality, a singer, a priest, etc.
December 29, 2017
spare, attenuated sentences, moving towards ultimate dissolution. the main character, an ex soap-opera star, lacks affect and agency, drifts around brazil, on an unseasonably cold wind, accompanied by paranoia, death, mutilation and sex.
^ aims for 2018
^ aims for 2018
April 16, 2018
Atlantic Hotel af brasilianske João Gilberto Noll udmærker sig ved sin mystiske, mørke og rugende stemning og Nolls meget enkle, men samtidig stærkt billedskabende, filmiske sprog. Det er som at læse en road movie omsat til roman. Desværre fører den ingen steder hen.
Læs hele boganmeldelsen på K’s bognoter: http://bognoter.dk/2018/04/16/joao-gi...
Læs hele boganmeldelsen på K’s bognoter: http://bognoter.dk/2018/04/16/joao-gi...
November 17, 2018
I don’t know what I just read. The plot was predictable yet confusing. This book character explanation and depth. If this book was more than three stars it could definitely get 3 stars and up because just needed better explanation.
January 15, 2021
Las coincidencias con Dante y Ulises hacen del libro un viaje que une la excelencia de la tradición con la identificación con la modernidad, las mujeres funcionan como Beatriz y los choferes como Caronte, Sebastiąo puede ser un Virgilio en una travesía de la muerte al paraíso.
January 23, 2024
Noll é um prosador incrível, tem um ritmo e uma linguagem próprias, faz prosa como quem faz música, e seu protagonista é, no fundo sempre o mesmo, e não é o autor, mas alguém cuja existência dentro dele era vital.
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January 24, 2025weird one, went over my head I think. I originally got this for a novella writing class that was interrupted by covid so we didn’t get to this book; I think if I’d read it in that context I’d have gotten more out of it.
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