Economic Circulation World

Blog Post 2

Ali Smith’s Hotel World

At first it is hard to piece together how the five female narrators in Smith’s novel have anything to do with each other, but as the novel progresses the picture becomes clear. Sara Wilby, the ghost narrating the first section of the novel, was a hotel chambermaid at the Global Hotel, a place which soon becomes the scene of her death. Else, part two, is a homeless woman beginning for change outside the hotel. Lise, part three, was a hotel receptionist who is now bedridden with some unknown illness. Penny, part four, is a journalist staying at the Global to write a review and who, with the help of Else, assists a young girl is prying open a wall in the hotel. This young girl becomes the narrator of part five and Sara Wilby’s sister, Clare.

All of the women are drawn, at some point throughout the novel, into the world of the hotel which in turn acts like a kind of economic center for them. As characters each woman both represents a singular character as well as a symbolic representation of the different levels and positions a person can have within an economic system.

In this reading of the text, Else as a homeless woman represents the unemployed, although it is unclear as to why she is unable to work. Lise represents the able bodied work as receptionist at the hotel. Penny also represents an able bodied worker, yet her work is more of a leisurely kind, also she is the only character in the novel actually staying in the hotel to enjoy it. Clare represents the up and coming laboring unit as a student who will soon be out in the world helping circulate currency and capital.

Each woman represents a different type of person in the economic system which illustrates how people in the world can move between the different areas of labor quite fluidly. One day one could be working and contributing to society and the next society is contributing to their personal care and they are taking capital out of the system, but unable to return it. Such is the case for Lise. Once she was an able bodied worker and now she is bedridden and needs other to support her. Her mother Deride tries to produce something lucrative from her decaying daughter in the form of an epic poem. Similarly to how the ghost of Sara tries to get something lucrative from her own decaying body, the memory of her death. Every character in the novel is constantly contributing in one way or another to the economic system around them. This in turn leads to an interpretation of the Global Hotel as its own quasi-economic system which circulations able bodied workers and currency in and out of its doors