Vicki Baum's Grand Hotel (#1929Club)

"...that indefinable smell of Berlin in March..."

An aging Russian ballerina, an unimaginative company director, a stenographer who also does nude photos, an impoverished baron doubling as a thief, a bookkeeper with a fatal cancer diagnosis, a morphine-addicted doctor whose face was destroyed in World War I--they're all staying in a grand Berlin hotel.

That sounds like a series of character sketches, which is, according to the introduction, the way Vicki Baum first began to think about the novel, but she's worked out a plot that brings them all together. There's love, there's death, there's fortunes won and lost--or are they? The meeting of Grusinskaya, the ballerina, and Baron Gaigern (Greta Garbo and John Barrymore in the movie!) is both delightful and amusing. 

The novel--or the characters at least--affect a certain cynicism about love: the stenographer Flämmchen (what a name! Joan Crawford in the movie) tells Baron Gaigern, "True love? There's no such thing," and says of the sexual act, "It was like having a tooth filled by a singularly incompetent dentist." Gaigern himself is quite calculating about love, until, maybe, he isn't. The novel itself is less certain about that cynicism, but still a little cynical. Do unexpected characters fall in love? "No," says the third-person narrator. "Life is very far from producing such delightful surprises." Yet, even so, some hearts might be warmed.

Closer to the feeling of the novel is a concern for money. Kriegelein, the bookkeeper, says at one point, "Only with money can you begin to be a decent human being." Which room you're in, what clothes you wear, career choices and life choices. All the characters think about money, and a possible corporate merger is one of the main plot threads. 

It ends--but no spoilers!--with a big scene that involves all the major characters, even if one has already left town. Very enjoyable.

It's the week of the 1929 Club, hosted by Kaggsy and Simon, and this is very much a 1929 book...

Over the years, I've posted a couple of other 1929 volumes on the blog:

Gladys Mitchell's The Mystery of the Butcher's Shop,

and Mateiu Caragiale's The Rakes of the Old Court in the Sean Cotter translation.

Brona's post about her 1929 book reminds me that the A Room of One's Own is actually a 1929 book as well, though the lectures were given in 1928. My thoughts about it here.

Thanks to Simon and Kaggsy for hosting!