Grand Hotel Europa

Pfeijffer's expansive if imperfect latest (after La Superba) reckons with Europe's reliance on and fascination with its past. The narrator, also named Ilja, arrives at the Grand Hotel Europa somewhere in Europe to reflect on his lost relationship with Clio, an Italian art historian he lived with in Venice. He meets the bellboy Abdul, a refugee who relates his harrowing journey across the Mediterranean; the majordomo Signor Montebello, whose dedication becomes dispensable under new Chinese ownership; and Patelski, an "eminent scholar" who pontificates on European identity, the 2015 refugee crisis, and other lofty themes. In flashback, Ilja and Clio meet in Genoa, then move to Venice after she gets a job with the Galleria delle Belle Arti. There, Ilja starts to document his impressions of tourists, and they hunt for a lost late Caravaggio painting. Travels to the Netherlands and Montenegro inform Ilja's trenchant observations on the destabilizing effects of modern tourism, but his egotism and infantilization of Clio erode their relationship. Sophomoric, smutty characterizations of Ilja's sex life and an occasional reliance on stereotypes--a man referred to as the "big Greek," an ethereal feminist French poet--clash with the otherwise vital commentary. There's real power here, but it's diluted by the distracting detours. (June)

A run-down European hotel, now being restored by its new Chinese owner, becomes the temporary home of a Dutch writer recording memories of "love in times of mass tourism." Prolific Dutch poet, playwright, essayist, and novelist Pfeijffer delivers an epic new work featuring Leonard Pfeijffer, "an esteemed and popular writer," who offers an account of his time with Clio, "the love of my life [who] isn't my love any more." Recollections of this intense, lusty Italian affair form a plotline that is sandwiched between the additional meat of the book--a disquisition on Europe, its history, significance, and decline under assault from tourists. Clio is an art historian whose work lends perspective to the view that Europe's greatness is all in its past. The fictional Pfeijffer is writing a novel on the subject of tourism, setting up a hall of mirrors concerning fact and fiction. But the insistent, multifaceted focus on the continent and its identity, and the meanings and truths to be found therein--financial, philosophical, political, creative, and more--merge into a relentless drumbeat of a message, with every subtopic, whether Clio's interest in a lost Caravaggio or visits made to Malta, Genoa, Amsterdam, or Abu Dhabi, expanding on or threading back to the thesis. Europe is in the business of selling its past to tourists, a "barbarian invasion" that is wringing "the neck of three thousand years of European culture"; "You could describe the history of Europe as a history of longing for history"; "Europe has become a prisoner of its own past"; and so on. Meanwhile, the eponymous, once-magnificent hotel rolls forward as a metaphor for all of the above, with its aging European clientele; its refugee bellboy, Abdul (representing the immediacy and potential of immigration); and its new owner applying fresh, globally inspired layers of profitable nostalgia. Pfeijffer's voice is variously comic, tragic, knowledgeable, inspired, and obsessive as he rides his hobbyhorse of a subject to a forced but characteristically elegant conclusion. The love story takes second place to an operatic, chest-beating, stylish, but overstated exploration of place and perspective. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.