When You Lunch with the Emperor: The Adventures of Ludwig Bemelmans

Hotel Bemelmans #2

by Ludwig Bemelmans

Ludwig Bemelmans—legendary bon vivant and raconteur, and author of the Madeline series as well as the surprise success of 2004, Hotel Bemelmans—lived life like a character in a novel. Wherever Ludwig went and whatever he did—letting Parisian criminals baby-sit his daughter, getting caught with his toenails painted red by the Gestapo, or discovering the only restaurant with toilets in the Amazon jungle—his escapades are guaranteed entertainment. As Anthony Bourdain says of this new collection, "Whether writing about the backstairs misadventures of cooks and waiters or travel to faraway lands, Bemelmans is always funny, insightful and dead on target. No one has ever surpassed the master." When You Lunch with the Emperor collects Bemelmans’s work under the headings of Childhood, Work, and Play. Readers will enjoy their lunch with the Bemelmans!

Genres: Food, Memoir, Cooking, Nonfiction, Biography, Culinary, Cookbooks

320 pages, Paperback

First published November 17, 2005

About the author

Ludwig Bemelmans, Austrian-American illustrator, wrote books, such as Madeline in 1939, for children, and his experiences in the restaurant business based Hotel Splendide , adult fiction in 1940.

People internationally knew Ludwig Bemelmans, an author and a gourmand. People today most note his six publications to 1961. After his death, people discovered and posthumously published a seventh in 1999.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_...

Reviews

[Trin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ludwig Bemelmans, author of Madeline, led an insane life, starting with dramatically problematic parents, proceeding through troubled schooling and many fights, and then leading to a comical career in restaurants and hotels -- a sort of proto-Anthony Bourdain situation. I don't meant to give off the air of:

Girl Who Has Only Read The Vampire Lestat: I'm getting real The Vampire Lestat vibes from this...

...but I am. Shenanigans, they are afoot.

These pieces were assembled into this book well after the fact, and some merit their inclusion far more than others, but the good ones are very good. Bemelmans was no doubt somewhat exhausting to be around sometimes, but likely very fun to drink with, and you have to appreciate anyone who can't resist the urge to do such a mean impression of Adolf Hitler, in Nazi Germany -- in the town where Hitler liked to vacation -- that he gets arrested by the Gestapo.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short, mostly autobiographical fiction pieces excerpted from Ludwig writings. A memorable voice, a penchant for the bittersweet. and writing in a time period on the distant edge of living memory makes for an enjoyable read.

[Carolyn Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this because I enjoyed Madeline as a child. I really enjoyed some of the stories and others I just read to get through. I enjoyed his descriptive powers, especially his chapters on life in hotel service. He is not a man to be emulated, but he had some good stories. I will probably donate the book back to the thrift store I got it from.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a collection of short essays/stories from Bemelmans that were not written to be sequential, connected, or cumulative. This makes for perfect reading for someone like me who has been finding it difficult to nail down time to focus on a book for more than 10 minutes at a time or more than two days in a row. I could pick it up, sample a light story, fall asleep, and not feel badly if I didn't return to the book for a week and a half.

Beyond that, the book was good fun. I only knew Bemelmans from the Madeline books, so this was a new perspective. In the way he presents each story from his life, you get a sense (whether correct or not) that he floated through life as the consummate go-with-the-flow observer. Craziness surrounds him and is his life, yet he observes (a little dispassionately), rarely judges, and goes with whatever it is happening, noting the details of the players in the crazy. But, come to think of it, I think my favorite stories though were those where he was less dispassionate and more personally involved. The story of he and his daughter and the poodle on the trans-Atlantic ship was the best for me. But my favorite quote was from a different story:

"I told him he could start in right away. He could pack my trunk and take it to the ship; and as soon as he got to New York, there were several people I would like to have disemboweled, but nicely, and I would give him a list every Monday."

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up at a used bookstore so I would have something fun to read on the plane to my most recent work-related trip, and I am glad I did. Ludwig Bemelmans is the author of the Madeline books, and until recently, I did not even know he wrote anything else, but apparently he was quite prolific. So I look forward to reading more of his work, and highly recommend it to anyone who might enjoy a little time travel, as the author lived from 1898-1962, so you are visiting another world when you read his work. According to the back cover blurb, "Hotel Bemelmans" was the surprise success of 2004 (pretty surprising to have a hit 40 years after you die, I guess!), so that's next on my list.

[Tosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Superb collection of essays/stories/drawings/observations by Ludwig Bemelmans. For this past two weeks, I have been obsessing over his writings - and I think it is due to his ability to show his character through words. In most senses, that is what a writer does, but Bemelmans, like Robert Benchley, has a knack to take something normal or excessive, and express it in a very human and profound way or nature.

This book is sort of a Frankenstein monster in that the material comes from various other books by him. The first part deals with his life working in the hotel dining service in a top-notch hotel in NYC, and the rest deals with traveling and life with his daughter and their French criminal pal of theirs. His work may not change your life, but it will give you added textures - and it's the life among a textural world that is important.

[Audrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this book. Bemelmans is playing with reality a lot (his real biographical information doesn't always match to what he tells) but he admits to some very genuine sentiments alongside his amusing tales, which also have interesting information about historical hotel/restaurant/journalistic work.

[Beki Neyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

i feel like 3 is the perfect rating because sometimes i would be so captivated by this book and others i found myself zoning out and not at all interested. so for all the highs and the lows, this averages to a 3

[E · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Hey look, a pink cover!)

As good as usual. I can't believe I'd never read Bemelmans until recently, nor can I believe that he didn't write more works for adults! Alas. Maybe I need to read some Madeline.--I imagine I would appreciate the humor and heart of the author a lot more now!

This book is mostly set in the same hotel as Hotel Splendide, but with different stories. Near the end of the book there are several pieces set on a trans-Atlantic steamer and a few in Europe--including a hilarious tale about an adopted dog and an overzealous official.

So, fun content yet again (perhaps only a few filler stories in the whole lot). Hopefully I can scrounge up one more volume by Bemelmans (I do have one on my radar).

[Suzanne Fournier · Rating 5 out of 5]

CW: Dog dies in violent way

Slightly fictionalized account of adventures in Ludwig Bemelmans life.

A thoroughly enjoyable read. The only disappointment was the death of the dachshund so horribly, I couldn't understand especially given other chapters why the dog didn't with them to America.

[Coldsoup753 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a charming little book of short essays by Ludwig Bemelmans drawn from the lifetime he spent working in the entertainment and hospitality industries. I think the jacket bio gives an accurate idea of what to expect from this book: “Ludwig Bemelmans (1898-1962) wrote more than forty books, including the beloved Madeline books. He wrote for Hollywood, owned restaurants, designed sets for Broadway, and painted everything from magazine covers to hotel frescos. Born in the Austrian Tyrol, he was sent to America at the age of sixteen after he shot a headwaiter at his uncle's hotel.”


The essays are loosely organized into three sections, childhood, work, and play. Which is good because without this structure the book would jump around wildly be pretty much unreadable. Though some of the essays are a bit tedious, on the whole they are amusing little stories that provide insight into life at the beginning of the 20th century. They have an charming rhythm, typical of someone for whom English is a second or third language. As well as a rather dry quiet humor. I think this would be just the thing to give to an older child who has grown out of Madeline, it is just the kind of thing I would have enjoyed in middle school, or a any grown up who likes to read books in front of a fire or before bed.

[Georgia Gross · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bemelmans, best know for writing and illustration of the Madeline books, was raised in the Austrian Tirol and worked in his family's hotel. As a scrappy young man he followed his wayward father to America with excellent hospitality references and secured a job at the Ritz-Carlton in New York. This volume of vignettes is divided into three parts: Childhood, Work, and Play. His quirky, eccentric childhood in the Tirol with his governess, his exagerrated, if not fully fictionalized, exploits and experiences as front of the house staff in one of the fanciest hotels in the world, and his later years as writer and world traveller. This volume also contains many of Bemelmans distictive illustrations.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like sinking into a warm bath. I read all the Bemelmans I could find years ago, after I heard it recommended by Jean ("A Christmas Story") Shepherd, of all people -- the two poles of Shepherd's life were old-fashioned Greenwich Village hipsterism and an obsession with Midwestern ordinariness, neither of which features much in Bemelmans' books. This collection is the next best thing to hauling all the books out again, from "My War With the United States" to the highly underrated "The Best of Times" (Bemelmans storytelling adapted to reporting from a Europe still clearing away WWII's rubble) to "On Board Noah's Ark." There's an excellent introduction by Andrew Goodfellow, whoever he is, but the book would have benefited from a mention of where the various pieces originally appeared.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book started out charming and became even better. "Little Bit and the America" was one of the most amusing stories I've ever read, I loved "Prison Visit," and the last two stories were fabulous too -- the first made me tear up, and the second made me crack up. Bemelmans describes scenes and people with a sharp, quirky eye and a great affection for all. His famous children's books about Madeline are certainly classics, but I don't understand why his other books (like this one) are not better known.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

My friend, Elizabeth, lent me this book and I loved reading this book. It is all about the life and times of Ludwig Bemelmans, the author of the Madeline books. He was the kind of man who enjoyed the finer things in life but had to slog away in the hotel industry for many years before he got to do that. Bemelmans was adventurous and pretty wild as a young man and all of his exploits make a pretty interesting read.

[Jenny Kellogg]

This book is the companion to Hotel Bemelmans. From what I can tell, the publisher took a bunch of out of print Bemelmans books and mashed them together in a vaguely coherent way. Nevertheless, Bemelmans is delightful and I recommend these books for reading in bed (especially if you have someone to read them to).

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a charming collection of essays by the same man who created the children's book character Madeleine and decorated the walls of the King Cole Bar at the St. Regis in NYC. He's had quite a life and is able to tell about the good and bad in a way that is classy and effervescent.

[Julie Mccuen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really loved some of the stories, they were fun - 5 star quality :). However, there were many that were a little dull and not as funny.

[Myra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very funny though sometimes hard to follow because of the syntax

[Glynn]

Madeline this is not.

[Cindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Entertaining! Great fun!

[Soumita Das · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting

[Refmonster]

This is not Madeline.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just not my style, hard to follow, strange prose style.