The eccen­tric­i­ties of Amer­i­can cul­ture, par­tic­u­lar­ly the predilec­tion for stay­ing in small sum­mer hotels despite the acces­si­bil­i­ty of more lux­u­ri­ous accom­mo­da­tions, form the crux of Chap­ter 14 of “World­ly Ways and Byways.” The author won­ders why well-off Amer­i­cans opt to spend con­sid­er­able time in hotels and board­ing hous­es, mus­ing that an explor­er need not jour­ney afar to study fas­ci­nat­ing habits when such pecu­liar­i­ties abound in New Eng­land. The author recounts a per­son­al expe­ri­ence stay­ing in a small sum­mer hotel, where despite the dis­com­forts and min­i­mal ameni­ties, the guests, who could oth­er­wise afford bet­ter, seem con­tent.

These hotels offered mod­est rooms bare­ly fur­nished with neces­si­ties and uncom­fort­able beds, with clean­li­ness as their only com­mend­able fea­ture. The absence of baths, the lim­it­ed and poor­ly pre­pared food, and the enforced com­mu­ni­ty life paint a pic­ture of stark sim­plic­i­ty and lack of pri­va­cy. Meals, devoid of culi­nary zeal, are served at strict times, and guests rush through them, seem­ing­ly eager to return to idle­ness or per­func­to­ry social inter­ac­tions that replace gen­uine com­mu­nal joy. The dis­dain for brand­ing such estab­lish­ments as “board­ing-hous­es” or “hotels” by the pro­pri­etors, who feigned a host-guest rela­tion­ship there­by obscur­ing the com­mer­cial nature of the lodg­ing, under­scores a pecu­liar social dance around the com­mer­cial aspects of hos­pi­tal­i­ty.

More­over, the social dynam­ics with­in these set­tings are fraught with forced inter­ac­tions, a blur­ring of per­son­al bound­aries, and a strange pre­tense of famil­ial union among strangers. The nar­ra­tive under­scores the odd­i­ty of pre­fer­ring such accom­mo­da­tions, where pri­va­cy is sac­ri­ficed, and all sem­blances of per­son­al space and com­fort are eschewed for a com­mu­nal expe­ri­ence that offers nei­ther the warmth of true com­mu­ni­ty nor the dig­ni­ty of soli­tude.

This chap­ter elo­quent­ly cri­tiques this aspect of Amer­i­can soci­ety, ques­tion­ing the val­ue placed on com­mu­nal liv­ing spaces that offer min­i­mal com­fort and pri­va­cy. It high­lights a unique cul­tur­al phe­nom­e­non where the norms of pri­va­cy, com­fort, and indi­vid­u­al­i­ty are will­ing­ly sus­pend­ed for expe­ri­ences that offer nei­ther lux­u­ry nor true com­mu­nal belong­ing.