Event: 20th century hotel writers – Darran Anderson and Marcel Krueger in conversation

People in the hotel

“The hotel that I love like a fatherland is situated in one of the great port cities of Europe, and the heavy gold Antiqua letters in which its banal name is spelled out (shining across the roofs of the gently banked houses) are in my eye metal flags, metal bannerets that instead of fluttering blink out their greeting. Other men may return to hearth and home, and wife and child; I celebrate my return to lobby and chandelier, porter and chambermaid—and between us we put on such a consummate performance that the notion of merely checking into a hotel doesn’t even raise its head.” – Joseph Roth, “Arrival in the Hotel”

by Marcel Krueger:

I am not going to lie: I really like hotels. There is something very appealing about entering my room after I've checked in, unpacking my bags, setting up my laptop, notes and reference books I require for the piece of writing I'm working on the desk, and beginning to fill the blank canvas that a hotel room presents for each new guest, even if it's just for a brief stay. Checkout will come soon, my presence erased by the cleaning staff and the room again turned into a blank canvas for the next guest. Hotels, after a fashion, can provide us with a  fresh start whenever we visit. Or with an escape, to a a temporary home turned into a room of one's own by the magic of the “do not disturb” sign. And that applies to any hotel, regardless if it's the Grand Hotel des Londres in Istanbul or a B&B franchise behind the train station in Lüneburg.   

Of course, I am aware of the fact that being able to avail of a hotel on my travels is a privilege. And there are many other aspects of hotels that have nothing to do with the romance of travel or creative work: of being used as emergency (or permanent) accommodation for homeless people and refugees in the Republic of Ireland; of the Hotel Lux in Moscow becoming a trap for exiles that had fled Nazi Germany and being transported from here directly to the GULAG and the murder basements of the NKVD; of the Hotel Europa in Belfast becoming the “most bombed hotel of Europe” during the Troubles; of both Tito and Serbian war criminal Arkan using the Grand Hotel Pristina, the latter and his gang posting a sign at the main entrance of the hotel that read: “The entrance is forbidden for Albanians, Croats, and dogs”.

Hotels have always fascinated writers, as places of refuge and as setting alike, so it is no wonder that especially the first half of the 20th century is rife with books and stories set in hotels. I therefore honoured that one of my favourite Berlin hotels, the Circus Hotel on Rosenthaler Platz, has invited me and one of my favourite European writers, the mighty Darran Anderson (who was just awarded the Windham-Campbell Prize for non-fiction), to talk  more about our favourite 20th century hotel writers and their books. And we'll not only talk about the likes of Joseph Roth and Vicki Baum, but also about the real-life hotels that influenced them. 

“I have been here for long enough. If I stayed longer I would be unworthy of the great blessing of being a stranger. I might degrade the hotel to a home if I no longer left it unless I had to. I want to feel welcome here, but not at home. I want to be able to come and go. It’s better to know that a hotel is waiting for me here.” – Joseph Roth, “Leaving the Hotel”

READING: FAVOURITE 20TH CENTURY HOTEL WRITERS
DARRAN ANDERSON AND MARCEL KRUEGER IN CONVERSATION
Monday 26th June, 4 pm, Circus Hotel Lobby. Free event. 
Rosenthaler Straße 1 
10119 Berlin 

A lost world at Crewe Station

IMAGE: Alex Cochrane

By Alex Cochrane:

Late night at Crewe station. I wander empty dark platforms where rain drips down and fog drifts through the lights. A non-stop London-Glasgow train arrows past with unnerving silence and speed. 

It’s Sunday night and there are few travellers about which is surprising given Crewe’s renowned status as a major transport junction. Then again Crewe is also smaller than you would expect. The station will interest the railway history buffs with its many firsts, for example the first station to have its own adjacent railway hotel. The Crewe Arms was built in 1838 and is still in use although tonight its dark, foreboding airs make it look like the setting for a 1930s murder mystery novel. Then there are the glimpses, on the approach to the station, of ancient and decaying railway stock clustered around the Crewe Heritage Centre.  Crewe will interest and frustrate the urban explorers with its large swathes of inaccessible overlapping edgelands, wilderness and railway landscapes. One of the platform stalls serves an excellent hot chocolate often needed to warm up passengers waiting for connections. Even at the best of times, with the sun shining through its new roof, Crewe station is a little charmless. At night it is downright shabby and gloomy. But if you’re there on a Sunday afternoon or evening you can imagine a world now lost that does lend Crewe a hint of nostalgia. 

Ronald Harwood’s celebrated play, The Dresser, explores the relationship between a personal assistant and a brilliant but disintegrating Shakespearian actor as they tour the province theatres of World War Two England. In an emotional outburst Her Ladyship, the wife of the actor, Sir, laments life on the theatrical road, a litany of complaints which includes spending Sunday evening on Crewe Station.

In the age before television, theatrical and musical mass entertainment was provided in the variety theatres up and down the land. Every town had a variety theatre and the migrating performers were its blood. Bookings were weekly and on their Sunday rest the performers would travel to their next venue, often via Crewe. The station became a social as well as a transport hub; where the performers caught up with each other, like the railway lines criss-crossing, before separating and heading off for another town and another week of performance.

Tales of Sunday at Crewe, no doubt exaggerated, have been handed down one side of my family. In those days the goods vans of trains carried all the equipment which would be unloaded onto the platforms along with dancing girls, comedians, singers and circus acts. There was chaos and gossiping on the platform, drinking at the station bar, performers dancing and practicing their acts, performing dogs running amok amongst cases, props and surreal looking costumes.

It always sounds chaotic and lively.  Crewe is quiet and this world is gone now, even its ghosts have disappeared and the variety theatres have closed down or been redeveloped into flats and bingo halls. The train for Glasgow arrives. There’s little nostalgic or elegant about these trains with their stale airs, cramp seats, sticky plastic tables, garish lighting and jarring colours. Not unless you pay for the muted, sleek modernity of first class.

The train slides out of Crewe, gathering pace as it heads north.

Alex Cochrane is based in Glasgow and blogs about exploration, travel, history, historical erotica and other curiosities on his website. You can also follow Alex on Twitter at @alexdcochrane.