Cant beat a fly on the wall! (Hotel Babylon - Imogen Edwards-Jones)

Name: Lush Walrus

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Product:	Hotel Babylon - Imogen Edwards-Jones
Date:	28.10.05 (574 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to read lighthearted narrative

Disadvantages: So many opportunities missed

Early for my train, I found myself on my usual time wasting exercise of perusing the books in W H Smith, not really intending to buy anything, but somehow Hotel Babylon jumped out of the shelf. Probably due to the modern interest in seeing into everyone elses life was what really sold it to me, combined with the consumer savvy irresistible offer of buy one get one half price!

On the back cover there are the promises of the insight to come, underlined by the statement of 'All of the following is true….more than a decade is compressed into twenty-four hours.' Having worked in the service industry myself at this point I could only imagine what would be contained within the cover!! Based in London, before even opening the pages I was second guessing which 5* hotel was the real identity of Hotel Babylon, Savoy, Ritz, Landsdown? which could it possibly be.

Written by Imogen Eswards-Jones, a successful journalist and the author of My Canape Hell, Shagpile and The Wendy House, the real knowledge base comes from a guy only ever described as 'Anonymous'. The thoughts were racing through my head, if he wants to hide his identity then this really must be a good gossip filled expose! But in fact the reality is the guy having spent 15 years working in London's luxury hotels, he is still working for them and so whatever he says would need to be unidentifiable to him, after all would you employ someone who has correlated all of his experiences into a book?

The book is narrated by 'Anonymous' himself, a fixture in the reception, the all seeing, all hearing centre of any hotel. The layout of the book itself is very simple, set over 24 hours each chapter represents an hour, an hour in the life of a hotel receptionist working a 24 hour shift. Of course the events of the 24 hours are infact a compilation of a lifetime dedication to reception work. The text itself I found aggravatingly large (a personal dislike of mine!), so large infact that if you are sitting next to someone on the train you will be able to comfortably read every word along with the book owner!

Chapter one represents the start of the day and the start of what will turn into a very long day for the narrator. Set at 7am-8am, the narrative gets straight into the mood for the book, the narrator fresh to work is feeling far from fresh and launches into what will become one of many recollections centred on the hotel and staff. Let the gossip begin!

Pretty soon chapter one turns into chapter two into finishing the book. As the day evolves comes another introduction to more staff and customers, all created to represent what 'anonymous' feels to be a typical of its kind. The author aims to describe two things throughout and in my opinion manages it quite successfully. The first is to describe the working conditions of the staff and how the typical person gets through it and interacts, while the second is a description of all of the characters that go to hotels and their reasons for being there. Along the way, each type are characterised and fitted into their appropriate time slot, for example the cleaners really come into play in the dead of the night, and until then remain unmentioned, the chiefs are fitted into the evening slot and so on. The same occurs with the typical type of customer, the businessmen have a mention in booking in, the prostitutes appear in the dead of the night and so on. Along with this are mentions of crazy things that have happened at other hotels, and interestingly these are mentioned by name. I'm convinced that by process of elimination if you jotted down each hotel mentioned you would sooner or later hit on the actual hotel Babylon is representing!

The character descriptions are really aimed to describe the characteristics of a typical barman, manager etc and as such bar one or two characters the book avoids trying to build a physical image of any of the characters. However this is only really something I have realised in retrospect!

Humour is present throughout, sometimes covertly others the reader has the impression from the outset that something is being mentioned purely for the comedy value of that event or person. Every now and then a famous name is dropped and an example of that persons bad behaviour at such and such. To me these parts although short, were the books main weekness. They added nothing more or nothing less than any tabloid speculation would and were no more convincing or interesting! I'm not totally sure what the aim of including them was, it could purely be to place the book in a timescale that we all can identify with but if this were the case I think there are other more effective methods of getting the same result.

The combination of short chapters, basic narrative, anticipation of something good coming around the corner and large writing not only keeps your attention on the book but prevents you from putting it down.

Personally overall I enjoyed the read but it was more the anticipation which was enjoyable than any particular part of the book. It is a very light read, with a degree of amusement rather than one that will have you holding in the laughs to stop yourself laughing uncontrollably. There is not enough depth or details to really tempt me into reading it again, and I think the author has missed quite a few tricks which could have made something more of it than it is. The topic is of general interest to most I would have thought, especially with the promise of an insight. Unfortunately all too often there is not enough depth and I cant help but feel the author with a topic such as this has missed the chance to turn what is a mediocre book into an infamously hilarious one.

This is a book purely for those moments of wanting a light relief. Im still unsure as to whether I should recommend it or not, the truth of the matter is yes I did enjoy it but I cant help but feel that after all of the promises on the back cover I may deep down have a tinge of disappointment in me.

Borrow it from your library or a friend rather than search bookshop to bookshop for it. Its available in paperback and hardback and priced at £7.99 for the paperback there is better value reads out there so make sure if you buy it you get it on offer.

Summary: Shame the opportunity to really amuse was missed!