Nomad’s Hotel – Cees Nooteboom
Picked up Nomad’s Hotel at Carmichael’s in Louisville… along with a copy of the Best Fiction of 2010. I got into Nooteboom a couple of year’s ago when I stumbled on an podcast interview with him discussing his new work Lost Paradise.
Nomad’s Hotel is travel writing, not fiction, and I don’t usually read travel writing, but since we’re in DC this week, I thought it might make sense. Reading about Nooteboom’s adventures traveling up the Gambia increased my general sense of dislocation, but also piqued my interest in further adventure.
When I wake […] I hear […] a low crunching sound, as if someone is chewing on too-long nails. I fell behind me for the lamp, and kick off the sweaty sheets. On the rim of the grimy washbasin, a brown cockroach as big as a child’s thumb sits staring dreamily at me. “So, Moriarty, we meet at last.” I think, and consider what sort of sound it will make when I crush it. So I don’t.