Hotel Splendide

I approached this book with some diffidence, humour, and the appropriate subjects of humour, often being very much of their time. The opening anecdotes were lightheartedly funny sketches of workers and patrons of the hotel, though there were parts that justified my reservations. Then, about ⅓ in, without losing the bantering tone, Bemelmans introduced some darker, even sinister, characters and situations, that might have raised eyebrows in polite society: Professor Gorylescu, the table magician, smoulders with a seedy loucheness that hints of more troubling proclivities.

Kalakobé, the one Black character, could have been a problem, and while Bemelmans does exoticise him somewhat, he presents him with dignity, noting that Kalakobé show more refuses the description "negro" and insists on his being "African".

There's a nasty incident at the end of the first anecdote which had raised my hackles, however, Bemelmans deftly weaves this into his final story: very satisfying. "Raconteur" fits Bemelmans well, and I had the feeling of hearing these stories in a corner of a dimly-lit dining hall after all the patrons have left, around a littered table with a stained cloth, waiters in shirt sleeves with unbuttoned collars, smoking cigar stubs and finishing off the opened wine and brandy bottles, regaling each other with the petty demands of diners and unwarranted tyrannies of the maître d'hôtel. show less

I learned about this book from the Read Like the Wind newsletter from the New York Times. Often it features older and out-of-print books and because of it, I’ve discovered quite a few gems. Ludwig Bemelmans is the author and illustrator of the Madeline book series for children. He also wrote for adults.

This little book is a fictionalized memoir of the author’s time working as a busboy and waiter at several high-end New York hotels in the 1920’s. The Hotel Splendide is a thinly disguised Ritz Carlton where Bemelmans worked for 15 years.

The book is a series of stories about the dining room staff and guests at the hotel. Much of it is humorous and charming and parts are definitely a reminder of societal norms that are best left in show more the past. All in all, it was witty and charming with a few moments that were a bit darker. Worth a read if you can hunt up a copy. show less

While reading this I thought that when it came to writing a review I would say simply that it was charming because both the stories and his drawings are simply charming and that sums it up well.
If I had read this before I published my own memoir (No Regrets: A Life in Catalonia), this would have been an inspiration because I also tell a variety of stories, and hopefully with some wit and humor.

This is an American Penguin and has a laminated cover in pink, yellow and green, featuring a waiter with twirly moustache and sad look.

En estas memorias disparatadas y no poco fantasiosas, Ludwig Bemelmans nos abre las puertas del fabuloso Hotel Splendide, trasunto apenas disimulado del Ritz de Nueva York, donde trabajó como camarero en los años de euforia y desenfreno previos al crac del veintinueve. En una serie de viñetas dignas de una película de los hermanos Marx, Bemelmans inmortaliza a los limpiadores, botones y ascensoristas que se afanan (y holgazanean) en los suntuosos vestíbulos y salones donde se divierte lo más granado de la sociedad neoyorquina. Un mundo de jerarquías sociales tan rígidas como porosas, habitado por personajes inolvidables como Monsieur Victor, el despótico maître d’hôtel; Mespoulets, serio candidato a «peor camarero del show more mundo»; o Kalakobé, el alegre friegaplatos que evoca las leyendas de su África natal.

Publicado en 1941 y convertido con el tiempo en un clásico, Hotel Splendide aporta un contrapunto irónico y desenfadado al canon literario de los locos años veinte, cuya mitología literaria tanto debe a autores como Hemingway y Scott Fitzgerald: el del personaje secundario, el observador discreto y sagaz que toma notas mientras a su alrededor suena la música y fluye el champán. show less