The novel begins like a short story, waking up to an unexpected situation. When you turn the page, thrilled and excited, “you’ve already agreed to the terms of service,” as the author, Laila Lalami, concludes her eerie introduction. Safety, surveillance, dreams and waiting: what’s this dystopian book, The Dream Hotel, all about? A review.
The Dream Hotel as a Realistic Dystopia
I have read, reviewed and recommended other dystopian and near-future fiction books in this blog. The Dream Hotel is the closest and most realistic dystopian novel that I read. It’s hard to review a moving story and share thoughts that haven’t been discussed before, without giving away too many details. A trigger warning is not a spoiler though. If you’re not used to reading thrillers, maybe you should not read it. But then you’d miss its surreal dream scenes, emotional crisis, love and friendship. That sounds more trivial than it reads.
The Dream Hotel novel became a popular bestseller in the USA last year. We might read the book as another commentary on the current political situation, like Jasmine Mooney’s true detention story (You’re not a criminal, but you’re going to jail).
Layered Ambiguity: What’s Left Unsaid
However, Laila Lalami actually began writing The Dream Hotel more than ten years ago. She set it aside for many years, until inspired by isolation during the pandemic. The interrupted creative development process benefits the book. Now it’s more of a universal dystopia beyond a short-lived contemporary story. Inside my book I saw no pictures at all, except for those forming within my mind. There wasn’t even a photo of the author. So much room for nuances, interpretation, and connecting to personal experience. There’s a disturbing resemblance to dystopian details of present reality.
The international paperback edition features an enigmatic abstract artwork by David Mann, that I prefer over Jack Smyth’s original striking symbolist cover design. Several international editions and translations featuring at least four different cover designs, with an Italian variation resembling the iconic 2001 Space Odyssey book and movie.
Reading Experience and Narrative Style
Reading The Dream Hotel, I found that when suspense resumed after a thoughtful intermission, I could hardly wait for the next pages and the resolution. In fact, halfway through the book, I was already disappointed that it wasn’t many longer than its 322 pages. I must say though that Laila Lalami chose the right length. What must remain unsaid and shouldn’t be exhaustively explained, not within the book itself, and hopefully not by spin-offs, actors, or fan fiction.
A Small Step from Normal Procedure to Confinement
A Small Step from Normal Procedure to ConfinementSara’s story started with a normal situation, waiting for admission to leave the airport and meet her family after attending a conference abroad. From then, we learn about surveillance and predictive policing, again not unlike what we usually accept for the sake of safety and convenience in our real lives. After all, the system seems to work. Nobody is overtly evil, everything is procedural, still we already sense where it leads.
The narrative style involves frequent time jumps, but initially everything is from one perspective. We experience the dystopian development from Sara’s perspective with very few exceptions. Craving for answers being withheld, she begins to adapt to her precarious situation and eventually reminds herself to be grateful for the little that she’s got.
Nothing to Hide and Played Off Against Each Other
“Having nothing to hide” is a fallacy that fails when the system turns against us. Transparency becomes a one-way observation mirror, its fake transparency easily exposed. Error is a popular element of dystopian narratives and toxicity in pop culture: Systems are not infallible and prejudice can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Rules can be arbitrary and unjust. People get punished because they are different and don’t fit into desired patterns or business models. People are declared as illegal migrants or refugees. The legitimate attempt to tell victims from criminals and not to penalize righteous people can easily turn into its opposite.
Who’s to blame when totalitarian systems are upheld by normal people just doing their jobs, and there is no obvious evil villain? Victim blaming comes as no surprise, again we sadly don’t need a book to know that. We don’t need confinement experience either to feel the insecurity and suspicion of close fellows whose past history remains unknown beyond their word of mouth and overheard rumors.
Will self-conscious introspection, research and precise observation provide missing information and, more importantly, help Sara escape her situation?
Why the Book is Worth Reading
Suspense might make way to justified anger sometimes, but in the end, this is a thriller, not a textbook. And although Laila Lalami didn’t need to engineer an overly complex setting, the aspect of dreams adds an additional layer of intrigue and ambiguity. Some escalating situations and action scenes might feel a little exaggerated, but they surely add tempo and drama to make the book a page-turner.
Is The Dream Hotel difficult to read in English?
My review is based on the international edition of The Dream Hotel shown in the photograph above. I only read a few paragraphs of the German translation as reading sample. The English original felt more fluent and isn’t too hard to read. It wasn’t really necessary to look up up the meaning of uncommon words or details like a certain dish.
Not being a native speaker, I haven’t read any English book without wanting to look up at least one word.
While it rarely matters for following the story, it adds detail. In The Dream Hotel, the choice of words also adds additional allusions of ambiguity. I wasn’t aware of the many meanings of words like like creosote, bland, snitch, giddy or dote. I never consciously noticed litigious or debauchery before. Again, not that it matters much, but such subtleties get lost in translation and slightly shift stories and their atmosphere. Much like the choice of cover artworks do.
How does it feel and smell?
It may be an unusual questions for a book review, but worth noting. I remember that the book felt rough, vintage and brand new at the same time. Large serif letters and a large format uncommon in my country also contributed to making the book easy to read. Both the pulp fiction scent and touch, and the book’s title made me think of Vicky Baum’s Grand Hotel (Menschen im Hotel), a book with the subtitle “A pulp novel with background.”
Beyond the book’s smell, we follow Sara’s imagination when she remembers traditional Moroccan dishes. I’m no fan of culinary literature, but Lalami mentions Morocco for a reason. The family memories contrast the institution’s stark smells and sparse catering. Thus, even when reading the book in a comfortable place like on a sofa far away from its set location, the sensory details contribute to the aftertaste that the book left me with.
Real-Life Implications
I felt a little disturbed after I closed the book and surprised about my mixed emotions. After all, this book has revived ideas and feelings too easily forgotten living our daily lives. We can hardly pretend the story has nothing to do with us. Just imagine that your story, too, might take an unexpected turn toward further inquiries ending in custody instead of the taxi stand.
Anything, anger, dreams and random encounters, can be used against you. Technological progress comes at a price. The world’s fate is not in our hands. We still have some influence after all. Do you have time for thoughts like that? What would you do if you were in Sara’s situation?
In short: Laila Lalami and her novel, The Dream Hotel, offer a bleak outlook, an entertaining read, and an author worth discovering!
