The Greenbrier and a Short Reading List

The Greenbrier

Don't you just love slowing down and being catered to in a fine hotel? I do, and I just returned from a three-night stay at one of the finest: The Greenbrier in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia.

America needs more places like The Greenbrier with its genteel, subdued atmosphere. I was totally spoiled. There are spacious lobbies filled with comfortable chairs and sofas for chatting or resting. Afternoon tea is served every day at 4. The Victorian writing room's desk is filled with hotel stationery inviting one to sit and pen a note to a friend. There is a ballroom, a spa, a private casino, and many shops. The outdoor types (of which I am not one) can enjoy tennis, golf, swimming, horseback riding, skeet shooting, and croquet. Even falconry lessons can be had.

The Greenbrier is also the location of the government's once top secret emergency fallout shelter built into the mountainside in the 1950s. It was where members of Congress were to be sequestered in the event of a nuclear attack on the country. 

The Greenbrier has quite a history. Since the late 1700s, folks have been taking advantage of the property's regenerative sulfur springs. Its location, in the Allegheny Mountains, was originally filled with cottages built by wealthy Southerners in order to escape the summer heat. Then came a hotel and more cottages. During World War II the hotel served as an army hospital and relocation center. In 1948, it was reopened once again as a hotel by the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway and totally redesigned and redecorated by Dorothy Draper. The resort fell on hard times and in 2009 it was bought by local billionaire James Justice who just recently announced his candidacy for governor of West Virginia.

Many U.S. presidents, British royalty, golfers, tennis pros, and celebrities galore have stayed at what is touted as America's Resort. And now, I can add my name to the list.

Sigh. The worst part of leaving The Greenbrier is that I have to turn down my own bed at night...

In thinking about grand places to stay, I came up with a few books that feature hotels and their guests and even a murder or two.

At Bertram's Hotel by Agatha Christie - Miss Marple revisits London and Betram's Hotel and becomes involved in a crime. Actually, Ms. Christie wrote several mysteries that take place in a hotel.

Eloise by Kay Thompson - The adventures of a clever young girl who lives with her Nanny at the Plaza Hotel in New York City.

Hotel by Arthur Hailey -  This story of a fictional hotel in New Orleans was made into a movie and a television series.

These Foolish Things by Deborah Moggach - This is the book that the movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is based upon. (I wrote about the book here.)

The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving - I haven't actually read this one as I am not a John Irving fan, but the title came to mind so I'm listing it as well.

Do you have a favorite grand hotel to recommend? Can you think of any other books to add to the list?

Movies and Books

I don't watch too many movies, but the ones I enjoy the most are usually based on books. Sometimes I have read the book first, but other times the movie comes first and I find out that there is a book.

For example, this year, I went to see The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (basically because I adore Bill Nighy) and discovered that it was taken from a book originally titled These Foolish Things by Deborah Moggach. I enjoyed them both.

Also this year I came upon the books Millions and Framed written by Frank Cottrell Boyce. I read Millions first and then rented the movie version. On the other hand, I found Framed on Masterpiece Theatre and that led me to the book. 

I tackled The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas in July for the "Paris in July" blog challenge and managed to watch three versions of the movie all of which were very different. Each included and excluded different parts of the adventure told in the book. All of them were terrific. 

Others I have read and watched this year include All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren and Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes. In both cases the books were better although I don't really spin my wheels bothering with that argument. I try to take each book or movie on its own merits.

Two other movies I saw this year were Bell, Book, and Candle - for obvious reasons - and 84 Charing Cross Road. BB&C had many bookish aspects to it. It was originally a play and then was adapted for the big screen. Since I plan to read a play or two in 2013, perhaps it will find its way onto my TBR pile.

I own a copy of the book 84 Charing Cross Road and have slipped it into my Books to Be Re-read stack. Make that Re-Re-Re-read. I never grow tired of reading it.

Conversely, I rented The Hunger Games (star Jennifer Lawrence is from my hometown and I was curious to see her in action) but I have no desire to read the book.

What is your take on the book/movie idea? Do you enjoy seeing the characters On Screen as well as On Page? Any favorites?

Petals of Wisdom



 A few pearls, or should I say petals, from The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel:

"Dorothy Miller lived in a block of flats next to Madame Tussaud's....The waxworks stood, mute in their celebrity. Dorothy hadn't been in there in years but she sensed their presence, keeping watch with her through the night. Queens and murderers, mistresses and presidents, their selves had long since died but their replicas remained, forever poised - a hand raised, eyes gazing nowhere. During the war they had been stored in an adjacent building. One night, in a bombing raid, the roof was blown off; when the rescue teams arrived they had stared, appalled, at the heap of limbs."

*******

"Increasing years, of course, render us invisible as if in preparation for our eventual disappearance."

******

"Life was full of incomprehensible instructions. The manual for her video recorder was twenty pages long, in tiny print that only an ant could read."

*****

"It had been a day packed with incident - a pedicure, new red sandals, a monkey bite, a handsome doctor. There had been many more images, however, that crowded Evelyn's head - a man washing his ox beside the petrol pump; a boy, balancing a tray of tea glasses, weaving through the traffic...more than this, much more. The street outside teemed with life; she didn't really have to go anywhere at all."

*****

"Evelyn thanked him, though she couldn't imagine ever wearing a sari, nor an occasion special enough to warrant such a thing. Widows in India wore white ones, as if they were already ghosts. She was glad Christopher hadn't got her one of those."

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel: The Book

I have a crush on Bill Nighy who plays Douglas in the movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
based on the book These Foolish Things by Deborah Moggach

After waiting for three months, my name came up on the library reserve list for The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (which is really titled These Foolish Things) by Deborah Moggach. The movie (here) was such fun that I immediately put my name on the list for the book and now I have it and am enjoying it very much.

The story is about a group of retirees who leave England and relocate in Bangalore, India at The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a somewhat faded residence left over from the days of the Raj. The individuals have come for various reasons but mostly because of reduced financial circumstances and the state of the health care system in Britain.

The book has pretty much the same characters but there is much more background given on each of them. We learn about grown children, husbands, and careers that weren't covered too much in the movie.  The story takes a clear look at the consequences of aging. Joints pop, hearing grows fuzzy, eyesight wavers, thoughts get confused, vulnerabilities appear. I laugh out loud while nodding my head in recognition of some of the symptoms.

But this is not a somber treatise on growing old. These folks have left the familiar for the very, very exotic and unfamiliar and most face the change with a very British stiff upper lip. Although some of them are not very likable - namely the coarse Norman Purse who is constantly on the lookout for a bit of romance (only that is not what he calls it) - they each have a way of dealing with the upheaval to their lives.

I don't often compare a movie to its book (one usually comes out on the short end of the stick), but there is enough of the book in the movie and the movie in the book to make it an enjoyable experience. Now I find I want to see the movie again.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

I took myself off to the movies this afternoon to see The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel starring Judi Dench, Bill Nighy (I do believe I am in love with him), Dame Maggie Smith and some other attractive folks.

Old age is not for sissies and these folks, who are at a later prime of live than some, take off for India from Britain and land at the hotel which is advertised as being for the elderly and the beautiful. They all have their own reasons for taking such a risk and some adapt to the change better than others.

The acting is superb and the scenery is a dizzying kaleidoscope of sights and sounds and colors. A very exotic locale and not to everyone's taste. Especially when they arrive and find that the photos of the hotel in the brochure don't exactly match the reality. But the young man (Dev Patel) who is the owner/manager of the hotel, a former palace, is so charming and so positive and he assures them that all will be well. Some go out to explore the city and some choose to stay within the walls of the crumbling hotel.

There aren't too many surprises in the story, but what fun it is to watch these lovely British actors bring that story to life.

The credits listed the book These Foolish Things by Deborah Moggach as the basis for the movie. Random House has now issued a trade paperback under the title of the movie. I just put it on my reserve list and there are 30 people ahead of me.

Here is a bit of wisdom from the movie that the young owner gives to Judi Dench:

"Everything will be all right in the end.  If it isn't all right, then it's not the end."