Endless associations Hotel World is a dizzying stream of consciousness charting 5 lives interlocked by a comman theme - The Global Hotel. As the cover states: "Five People: four are living, three are strangers, two are sisters. One is dead". It's a clever cryptic to tease you to part the covers. Hotel World is at times a difficult read, its language spinning off in seemingly endless associations. But the challange and the depths reached worthwhile as the detail unfolds of the thoughts, wills and wishes of the characters emerge. The musings are compelling and unusual, especially that of the 'one dead'. Although there is more than a little autobiographical slant to Ali Smith's twist on the infamous female five of this tale, it allows you graciously to either take it or leave it. The female if not the feminine abounds in this book, to the almost superfluous exclusion of all that is male, although again, this aspect does not force itself on the reader and is only evident as an afterthought Commendation Hotel World is a good train/plane book. It will send you spiraling into it's world, eating up your minutes and miles with it's shifting viewpoints and depositing you at your destination a little wider eyed. Reviewer: Jane Huddart
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