Medium – Audiobook
About the Book – Alec Le Sueur is a hotelier, who worked for five years in the only Holiday Inn in Tibet, which was based in Lhasa. For five years, he worked as the sales and marketing manager and tells the stories of his time in this beautiful, but troubled country. He describes the fights between the Chinese and Ex-Pat staff around plans for the hotels, the strange things that happen in the hotel and the ways in which the staff have to try and get the hotel to actually function as a hotel.
My Rating – 2.5/5
My Thoughts – I’m going to write this review in two parts – one part for the audiobook and one part for the actual content of the book, because I think it is important to make the distinction between the two!
The actual book was funny and interesting. I enjoyed the ways in which the struggles of the hotel were communicated and I really enjoyed the dynamics between the Ex-Pat (generally European) workers and the Chinese ‘Party’ workers. The bureaucracy was irritating to read about but really quite funny. I particularly liked the adventures of the poor chef – he ended up with lots of live animals that he had to dispatch, including yaks, pigeons, seafood and even snakes. The snakes ended up getting out and living in the air conditioning vents…
So the audiobook. Now, this is the reason that the rating I gave is so low. I know that it is difficult when you are a narrator having to voice characters from lots of different nationalities and countries, but this narration was pretty awful. The voices for the Asian characters bordered on racist, and the narrator had quite a patronising, condescending voice which didn’t necessarily go with Le Sueur’s original narrative. Overall, I would read the book again, but would avoid the audiobook like the plague!
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