Ladies' Night at Finbar's Hotel (Harvest Original): Amazon.de: Dermot Bolger: Englische Bücher

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In this almost-all-girl reprise of the collaborative fiction Finbar's Hotel, Dermot Bolger skillfully weaves together eight chapters, each contributed by a different Irish writer, into a light, coherent, and highly readable novel about a culture in flux. The old Finbar's had been a dark, unchanging place, a "grade two" businessman's hotel in Dublin smelling of gravy and overcooked meat. The impressive new establishment, owned and renovated by the not-quite-respectable Dutch wife of a rock star, is a symbol of 21st-century Ireland--unquaint and anonymous, its chilly white surfaces are indistinguishable from those of a Hilton or a Marriott, despite the "Irish Bar" tucked into one corner of the lobby as a sop to tourists. Bolger is the only man among the writers included, and it is to his credit (or a handsome rebuttal to the old argument about "men's" and "women's" voices in fiction) that we can't tell his contribution from the others. None of the chapters lists its author--a brilliant if unsettling device--so that readers are left wondering whether the bestselling Maeve Binchy, for example, can be distinguished from Anne Haverty and Éilis Ní Dhuibhne, both of whom write poetry as well as prose. Other contributors are Kate O'Riordan, Deirdre Purcell, and Dublin natives Clare Boylan and Emma Donoghue.

Most of the female protagonists are returning to the Dublin of their youth after finding success elsewhere: a former maid comes back to meet the son she gave up for adoption; a faded movie starlet's luck takes a strangely positive turn; a nun looks for a man to sleep with. In "Da Da Da--Daa," an up-and-coming designer tries to corner the Dublin market for her soft, Celtic-inspired fashion line, and instead must endure a long encounter with her mentally ill father. Looking anxiously around the lobby as her room is being readied, Poppy realizes the risks she is taking just by showing up again in the city of her troubled childhood. And if she cannot make her mark as a designer in Dublin, what will success anywhere else mean? But at least for a moment, her assistant takes her mind off her own problems:

He returned her smile confidently, but he was mincing like a camp poodle, so she knew he was nervous. First time to Ireland for this second-generation Bronxer. Secretly, he'd expected to be lynched. So he swaggered, flaunting the homosexuality that had so repelled his Roscommon father. So nervous, he couldn't yet see that the fabled Ireland of his youth, the endless, monotonous, force-fed sentimentality of his parents, had no bearing on this new country. For all the world as though he couldn't see the blatant y.e.s. tattooed on the buttocks of the porter's young assistant.

Although the early chapters of Ladies' Night read more like short stories than the opening of a conventional novel, Bolger teases the reader with recurrent scenes and characters, so that the final stories bring satisfying conclusions to several mysteries--and not a few surprises. --Regina Marler

From Booklist

For last year's well-reviewed collaborative novel Finbar's Hotel , editor Bolger asked seven well-known Irish writers to contribute an unsigned chapter apiece about the guests who stayed at the hotel just before it closed. Now, since its purchase by a rock star and his Irish wife, Finbar's, redecorated and reborn, is the in place for the literati and glitterati to stay when they're in Dublin. This time around, Bolger invited seven Irish women writers (Maeve Binchy, Clare Boylan, Emma Donoghue, Anne Haverty, Eilis Ni Dhubhne, Kate O'Riordan, and Deirdre Purcell) to contribute a (again, unsigned) chapter apiece about the women currently staying for a night at the hotel. In Room 101, a man is engaged in providing sperm to impregnate his wife's best friend, with unexpected consequences. Next door in 102, a successful clothing designer tries to cope with an unexpected visit from her mentally ill father. Less consistently excellent than the first volume, the stories range from the humorously poignant to the ridiculous. Nancy Pearl

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Appealing, fun, but a little fluffy 18. September 2000

Von Andrea Merkowitz

Format:Taschenbuch

I bought this book because I saw Maeve Binchey's name on it. As much as I love her writing, I have not read much Irish fiction, and this looked like a fun book.

The book is a set of short stories that have inter-connecting characters in the stories. Each chapter was written by a different author, and I had fun trying to figure out who wrote which chapter. The story itself was light and fun, but not as much as I had hoped.

I enjoyed reading Ladies Night at Finbar's hotel, and would highly recommend it as a vacation or beach read. Nothing too deep to get lost in.

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In Support of Women's Writing 22. Mai 2000

Von "obxgrl"

I must say that unlike the other reviewers who all love Binchy, I bought the book because I have great love for Irish poets, and this book offered a chance to support the female writers.

I was not previously aware of any of the other writers, and not overly knowledgable of Binchy's works, and therefore it was impossible for me to tell who wrote which chapter. I'm wondering if this can be an impediment to a writer trying to be noticed, that she writes a piece in a collection, only to have her name excluded from it.

In any case, I think it was a charming book, better than I thought it would be. It held my attention throughout, and was quite touching in most of the sections. This is not really a serious read, but the stories interweave in an interesting way and the characters are interesting.