Estoril
by Dejan Tiago-Stankovic
Edition: 2018
Pages: 352
Publisher: Head of Zeus, Apollo
Summary:
Set in a luxurious grand hotel just outside Lisbon, at the height of the Second World War, Estoril is a delightful and poignant novel about exile, divided loyalties, fear and survival. The hotel's guests include spies, fallen kings, refugees from the Balkans, Nazis, American diplomats and stateless Jews. The Portuguese secret police broodingly observe the visitors, terrified that their country's neutrality will be compromised. The novel seamlessly fuses the stories of its invented characters with appearances by historical figures like the ex-King Carol of Romania, the great Polish pianist Jan Paderewski, the British agent Ian Fleming, the Russian chess grandmaster Alexander Alekhine and the French writer and flyer Antoine de St Exupery, who forms a poignant friendship with a young Jewish boy living alone in the hotel.
Rating: 3/5
Review:
I received an online copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange of a honest review.
I didn't know the author until I came across his book. And I must confess one of the reasons I wanted to read it was the willing to find out what made this man write about a country that wasn't his, or even closer to his own nation.
Of course everybody knows there isn't any ulterior motives here, every writer wants to tell amazing stories and Estoril by 1940 was certainly one of the places to be or to write about.
Palacio Hotel started to be somehow so important in the plot that gained its own presence as a character. The lives of refugees, hotel' workers and the Hotel's Director were well described and could get any reader to be present there.
I also can tell you a interesting fact. I've started reading the book on the train. There is an excerpt on which the hotel is described, as well as how to get there. When I finished reading that segment, I looked up and my train was passing by Estoril, so I could look at the description as some recited on my mind or as augmented reality.
After some initial presentations and explanations about the context, we quickly started following the life of a man, a double agent, who stole the first role until then occupied by the hotel. While his character was well characterized, and I discovered later on the agent existed on real life, I didn't find him as interesting as the beginning of the book was promising. Even more because we lost a bit the narrative's continuity given until then to the Hotel and its habitants.
So I felt quite disappointed until I discovered the man was real (there are some illustrative photos on the book that show the reader who and how he was).
Even so, I couldn't get over the fact I found the speech related to this character a bit rusty and not quite interesting. What I really liked was the network created around him, that hid his flaws and made him shine. The other stories, real stories (some because they really happened at the time, other's because they were representative of the lives of many refugees from World War II who stayed in Portugal until being able to fly somewhere else, mostly USA), showed the reader what was the life in Cascais/ Lisbon during the World War II and also, how Portuguese government managed all operations that could compromise the country's neutrality. The agent from PVDE wasn't supposed to be funny, but I could get the characterization hints that made him a truly Portuguese, and we must know how to laugh about ourselves, so I've found some excerpts quite humoristic. I'm afraid they will not be so obvious for a non Portuguese reader.
It was also interesting to imagine and learn more about the lives of double agents, their tricks to communicate, the anxious of not knowing if they would be alive the next day and the pending threat in case of the slightest slip that would compromise their mission.
Mainly, I had fun reading this book, specifically recognising it's flaws but embracing them and accepting this as the story of a man, told by another man, and representing the stories of many others that contributed for their countries during the Great War. And the story of an Hotel, a temporary place, a workplace and a home - a refuge for all that ran from their fears and looked for the slightest hint of hope when the darkest time came.
Cláudia
About the author:
Addicted to the library Claudia loves to read on the move and we can
usualy find her sitting in a train or bus reading while commuting to and
from work. But don't be fooled she is also keeping an eye on the
landscape and all around her. She is an avid defender of sustainability
and volunteering and it's as easy to find her starting a new project as
it is to find her chatting with her friends. She is a dreamer and loves
good stories so she keeps looking for them in her personal life.
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