The Authors’ Lounge: Remembering the Literary Greats

As an avid reader, one of my top priorities on a recent trip to Bangkok, Thailand, was to visit the Authors’ Lounge in the historic Mandarin Oriental Hotel. The Authors’ Lounge pays homage to the many writers and artists who have frequented the hotel since the late 19th century during their visits to Bangkok, with a number of the rooms being dedicated to well-known writers who have stayed there.

Our visit begins with some uncertainty, as the taxi driver deposits us at the nearby Mandarin Hotel. We are slightly confused and sense we are in the wrong place. Fortunately, the doorman comes to our rescue, orders another taxi and sends us onto the impressive Mandarin Oriental Hotel, situated on the banks of the Chao Praya River. Formerly known as the Oriental Hotel, in 1974 it became part of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group.

To enter the lobby of the Mandarin Oriental is to be transported into a large light-filled atrium. My attention is drawn to the ornate bird cages suspended from the ceiling. They are delicate in design with large intricate heart shaped pendulums adding a sense of fantasy to the overall formality of the chic furnishings in subdued autumn tones. This lobby, with its striking floral displays, is warm and welcoming as small groups of guests enjoy this expansive, airy space, drinking coffee, reading the daily paper, and chatting.

We are met in the foyer by Patty, Director of Communications. She greets us warmly as she invites us to go on a guided tour with her of the Authors’ Lounge. As we enter the foyer of the Authors’ Lounge, I finally get to see this beautiful environment that I have only ever seen in photographs, and it does not disappoint. It comes with such a sense of history and richness, a photographic gallery, of the many writers, who, at some stage, have stayed fleetingly or have called the Mandarin Oriental home for a period of time.

***The chic light-filled lobby of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel.***

Specific writers including James Michener, Noel Coward, W. Somerset Maughan and Joseph Conrad have rooms of the Authors’ Lounge named after them with extensive photographs on display. Patty tells me there are also suites honouring other authors including John Le Carre, Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal.

Graham Greene, the English novelist and journalist, who, remembering the happy times he spent at the Oriental, wrote that he was highly honoured to have a suite named after him. Similarly, Barbara Cartland, another English writer known as the Queen of Romance who was a frequent visitor to the hotel wrote that “the hotel is the most glamorous in the world.” While a signed portrait of her is on display in the Authors’ Lounge, the suite in her honour, not surprisingly, has been swathed in her favourite colour – pink.

When our tour comes to a close with Patty, she brings us back to the James Michener room where she has arranged a table for us. We are offered a selection of teas and some snacks as Patty surprises me with a beautiful copy of Andreas Augustin’s extensively researched book The Oriental: The Amazing Tale of Bangkok’s Legendary Hotel. It is a pictorial history of kings and queens, rock stars, sporting greats, writers, stars of stage and screen, diplomats, and astronauts, all who have passed through this legendary hotel.

***The impressive entry to the beautiful Authors’ Lounge.***

As Patty leaves, I take the time to further investigate. I am curious about the framed quotes adorning the walls from many of the writers which offer an insight into their outlook on life. James Michener, an American who wrote over 40 books including Tales of the South Pacific, which won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1948, has his thoughts framed in the lounge dedicated to him: “If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay home” and “If your book doesn’t keep you up nights when you are writing it, it won’t keep anyone up at nights reading it.”

Other American writers photographed enjoying the hospitality of the hotel include John Steinbeck, Nobel Laureate in Literature in 1962, Norman Mailer, author and playwright and Tennessee Williams, best known for A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and whose framed quote advises: “Never say NO to adventures. Always say YES otherwise you’ll lead a very dull life.”

Noel Coward has a lounge dedicated to him. The flamboyant English actor and playwright gives an insight into his time at the hotel. Photographed outdoors in a casual pose, smoking a cigarette, he was a frequent visitor to the Oriental. He says: “There is a terrace overlooking the swift river where we have drinks every evening watching the liver-coloured water swirling by and tiny steam tugs hauling rows of barges up river against the tide. It is a lovely place and I am fonder of it than ever.”

***The elegant tropical décor of the Somerset Maugham lounge.***

The hotel was a popular place for many English novelists whose photographs decorate the walls including Ian Fleming, known for his James Bond series, John Le Carre, author of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, David Puttnam, the British film producer best known for Chariots of Fire, William Golding, Nobel Laureate in Literature in 1983 and the actor Richard Attenborough, who is photographed in the Authors’ Lounge. Joseph Conrad, the Polish-British author famous for his novel Lord Jim has a terrace looking out to a tropical garden dedicated to him.

However, the most beautiful lounge is dedicated to the English writer W. Somerset Maugham, a prolific writer of novels, publications and plays. He first arrived in Bangkok in 1923, although at that time he is less than complementary in his writings about Bangkok and the Oriental Hotel. He complains that his “room was dark, one of a long line with a verandah on each side of it, the breeze blew through, but it was stifling.” He finds the heat of the city overwhelming, the Eastern food makes him sick, not to mention the ‘garish magnificence’ of the wats (Buddhist temples) which gave him a headache.

Maugham was forced to recuperate in the hotel after he contracted malaria during his travels. When he began to recover, he writes that as he had nothing to do but look at the river and still feeling weak from his illness, he invented a fairy story which is included in his novel The Gentleman and the Parlour. Despite Maugham’s less than favourable beginnings at the hotel, he returned in 1925 in good health and in 1960 to celebrate his 85th birthday.

The Somerset Maugham lounge is like a breath of summer with its gleaming white interior, comfortable white rattan chairs with elegant green and white cushions and a large colourful central floral display. The enormous gilt-edged mirror is a feature of the room and holds a link to Somerset Maugham’s time in the hotel.

***Serving afternoon tea in the Somerset Maugham lounge.***

There is a photograph showing it was once in the bedroom he occupied while suffering from malaria. On the wall nearby a framed quote from Maugham says: “Now it is a funny thing about life, if you refuse to accept anything but the best you very often get it.” And his advice to budding writers: “There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately no one knows what they are.”

It is in this beautiful room that we have a booking for the The Oriental Afternoon Tea Set. We choose a table that looks onto the Joseph Conrad terrace and beyond to the outdoor greenery. A young hostess arrives pushing a tea trolley laden with delicacies and porcelain pots of tea. With great care she meticulously places dainty china bowls of hot food in the centre of the table and to the side, tiered cake stands laden with a selection of savouries and sweet pastries, all with an Oriental flavour except for that very traditional English inclusion of home-made scones, jam and Devonshire clotted cream.

And it feels like a fusion of cultures, this Oriental afternoon tea with finger food specialties that highlight the wonderful flavours of Thai culture while surrounded by the photographs and musings from many of the great literary names from Western culture. It is a memorable afternoon tea.

As we leave, I am reminded of the quote by James Michener: “A nation becomes what its young people read in its youth. Its ideals are fashioned then, its goals strongly determined,” and I wonder, as literary tastes change, and a new generation embraces their own literary giants, will we still remember those great writers from another era who shared their stories and their lives and became part of the legendary history that is the Authors’ Lounge at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Bangkok.