Hotel World by Ali Smith (2001): A Review

Title: Hotel World

Author: Ali Smith

Publication Year: 2001

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Pages: 256

Source: book

Genre: literary fiction, queer

Awards: Shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction 2001; Shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2001; Received the Scottish Arts Council Book Award – Fiction 2001; Received the Scottish Arts Council Book Award – Book of the Year 2001; Received the Encore Award 2002

Continuing the Ali Smith Bookathon, it’s now Hotel World’s turn in the spotlight — her second novel, published in 2001. It is absolutely nothing like “Like,” while at the same time being extremely like “Like.” Quantum Smith.

Is it still confusing like “Like?” Yes, it is. But this time, with a bit of readerly detective work — the kind where you squint at the page and wonder if you missed a sentence or three — you end up less confused and more… productively bewildered.

Do we have multiple POVs? Of course we do, and then some. There are more perspectives than most hotels have pillows. Strangely, this doesn’t make things more confusing. Instead, the tangle of voices actually clarifies the story; you get the sense that without all these perspectives, there would barely be a story, or at least not this one. The book’s beauty is in its form and in its cast of characters — the kinds of people who, in real life, would slip past your attention: reception staff, cleaners, guests, the homeless outside the automatic doors. Hotel World turns this single hotel into a little microcosm of everything outside it, cramming the world into one building with a faulty lift.

At first glance, you might think the book is about a death and a ghost’s obsessive replaying of her own demise, told from various angles to reveal “what really happened.” Let me just say: that was one of the dumbest ways to die. Period. If there were a Darwin Awards ceremony in literary fiction, this girl would be front row.

But underneath the ghostly gimmick, the novel really circles around the dead girl’s sister and her grief. Some characters are closely linked to the ghost, some barely at all, but the sister is the one who keeps threading through everyone’s lives. Through her presence, we see all those “invisible” characters — each wrestling with their own troubles.

Smith uses this strange, shifting structure to talk about death and mourning, but also about corporations and their bland brutality, class difference, love, time, illness, poverty, and abuse. You name it. The result is beautifully sad — the kind of sadness that sits next to you on the bed and refuses to leave, and then becomes part of you.

You can also feel how much Smith has grown between her first and second novels. Hotel World reads like Smith testing and perfecting the techniques she’ll later use in her major works: fragmented voices, playful typography, moral seriousness tucked inside formal experimentation, and stream-of-consciousness with no brakes. It’s as if Like was the rehearsal, Hotel World is the dress run, and the great masterpieces are already loitering in the lobby, waiting to check in.