Hi all,

At first I thought that this book was about money and giant corporate structures vs the small individual living (and dying) in their shadow. Global Hotel where it all takes place, and The World, for which "Penny" works. The money that is given to the homeless lady. The money that is mentioned or alluded to in every chapter and on almost every page is what this book is "about." The first chapter was very off-putting to me, but I quite enjoyed the rest of the book, even on the first reading.

Then I read reviews in: The Guardianand Rain Taxiand I got interested but kind of confused.
(Rain Taxi http://www.raintaxi.com/online/2002spring/smith.shtml) (The Guardian: http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/generalfiction/0,6121,472882,00.html)

So I read : Eshelman - Performatism vs. Late Postmodernism (http://www.anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap1002/transhotel.htm) which I'd read before for some insight into Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus (another great book!)

a snip from Eshelman:

"the fancy international hotel as an allegory of global capitalism ... Smith, who did Ph.D.-level work in English literature, makes ample use of what looks like Foucauldian and Butlerian premises to set up a gender-sensitive victimary scenario... Hotel World shows how helpless, decentered subjects accidentally and unintentionally come together to--unsuccessfully--resist the hegemonic order around them....

"This tossed salad of signifiers..."

And then..... I wanted to read it again. I HAD to read it again. There was a lot more here than I got on that first go-round!

So.... second reading:

Ali Smith (the genius, imo) has written a book that works (!) on many levels. Following the basic story line of a girl's accidental death after which life goes on, this book is about death and love and memory and the inter-relatedness of life. That's level one.

On another level, it's a big metaphor with the Globe Hotel posing as (signifying?) big money capitalism and international business being the "big bad guy," vs all the individual characters as the "little good guys." (This is the level which the first link above deals with explicitly but in post-modern terms.) (not necessarily a good place to start, it's more about the state of postmodernism today and the political leanings involved.)

But on still another level it's about literary theory with Freud and Lacan and Saussure and Derrida and even some Foucault. It's about the unconscious and signifieds and signifiers and what they mean and, probably more importantly, what they don't mean. This is deconstruction as Derrida uses it, as Foucault (history of sex - communication about sex, etc) goes around it and as Lacan plays with it. I think that Smith is having a great time.

And all through these levels the characters shine through, glowing and present to keep the story moving. The book may be more about the characters than it is about any of the other levels. It's a funny, loving and gentle book, a joy to read after the first go-round. (lol)

I am overwhelmed. I am astounded. I am flabbergasted. This stuff is on every single page, there is not a single throwaway scene. No. There's not a throwaway word!

Becky