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270 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1929
The experiences people have in a large hotel do not constitute entire human destinies, full and completed. They are fragments merely, scraps, pieces. The people behind its doors may be unimportant or remarkable individuals. People on the way up or people on the way down the ladder of life. Prosperity and disaster may be separated by no more than the thickness of a wall. The revolving door turns, and what happens between arrival and departure is not an integral whole. Perhaps there is no such thing as a whole, completed destiny in the world, but only approximations, beginnings that come to no conclusion or conclusions that have no beginnings. Much that looks like Chance is after all really the Law of Cause and Effect. And much that goes on behind Life's doors is not fixed like the pillars of a building nor preconceived like the structure of a symphony, nor calculable like the orbits of the stars. It is human, fleeting and more difficult to trace than cloud shadows that pass over a meadow. And anyone who attempts to give an account of what he has seen behind those doors runs the risk of balancing precariously on a tight rope between falsehood and truth . . .
The experiences people have in a large hotel do not constitute entire human destinies, full and completed. They are fragments merely, scraps, pieces.
“The revolving door turns and turns and turns.”
“The revolving door turns and turns and turns.”
The experiences people have in a large hotel do not constitute entire human destinies, full and completed. They are fragments merely, scraps, pieces. The people behind its doors may be unimportant or remarkable individuals. People on the way up or people on the way down the ladder of life. Prosperity and disaster may be separated by no more than the thickness of a wall.The relationship in the book between Kringelein, Baron Geigern, and Flammchen is particularly interesting. In the film, Dr. Otternschlag is a relatively uninteresting character, whereas in the book he is a morphine addict to deal with the pain of having had half his face shot away in the war.