***
NOVEL: A Gentleman in Moscow
AUTHOR: Amor Towles
YEAR OF PUBLICATION: 2016
***
This book is nothing if not elegant. It’s beautifully written. Amor Towles is a gifted, graceful writer. His words, much like his protagonist, are thoughtful, erudite, and sympathetic.
***
The story concerns Count Alexander Rostov, sentenced in 1922 to house arrest at the Metropol (a grand hotel directly across from the Kremlin in Moscow). He’s summarily moved from his comfortable suite to an attic room with his books, his father’s old desk (containing, unbeknownst to the Bolsheviks, gold pieces in a hidden compartment), and a few other remnants of his old life, as he begins his new life as an Former Person.
He remains at the Metropol until 1954. At first, lonely and in despair, at one point suicidal, he adjusts to his reduced circumstances, and gradually, Count Rostov and we, the readers, discover a world within the hotel: colorful characters, true friendships, delectable meals, moments of almost indescribable beauty, adventure, and love.
***
It’s all very romantic and hard to resist, and Count Rostov behaves, throughout, as a perfect gentleman, uncomplaining (barely even acknowledging his predicament), charming, living true to his principles, appreciating good conversation, good wine, and wise books. Beyond the doors of the hotel, one of the most brutal regimes of the 20th century was busy killing tens of millions of people. In the novel, the horrors take place largely in the footnotes, or as authorial asides; there are no scenes set in the gulags or among the famine victims, although some of the characters have horrific fates, including an idealistic young woman and a dissident poet. From the novel, dryly: “Let us concede that the early thirties in Russia were unkind.” (I recommend reading this one on paper; the Kindle version leaves out much of the historical detail buried in the footnotes. Besides, an old-fashioned story should be read in an old-fashioned format. Preferably with a glass of fine wine at hand.)
***
The prose is gorgeous, the story captivating, the conceit original. And yet…it’s a cream puff of a story, an essentially lighthearted look at a privileged man in a luxurious setting under a malevolent government. Is it a lesson for us in holding on to civilized society in an uncivilized time? Is it a delusional nostalgia for an idealized past that never was? Is it about the strength of an individual surviving and thriving, and quietly resisting, keeping order while chaos rages outside? I’d love to meet the author and ask him these questions. If he’s anything near as urbane, sophisticated, and articulate as his creation, I’m sure he’d have some interesting things to say.
***
RATING (one to five whistles, with five being the best): 4 Whistles
***
HOW TO PURCHASE: Amazon
***
Laura LaVelle is an attorney and writer who lives in Connecticut, in a not quite 100-year-old house, along with her husband, two daughters, and a cockatiel.
Laura can be contacted at laura@newswhistle.com
***
Lead-In Image (from Book Jacket) Courtesy of Penguin Random House
***
ALSO ON OUR BOOKSHELVES:
A Countess Below Stairs, Eva Ibbotson
A Man Called Ove, Fredrik Backman
A Patchwork Planet, Anne Tyler
A Room With a View, E.M. Forster
An Infamous Army, Georgette Heyer
Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Anne Of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery
Blue Highways, William Least Heat-Moon
Bonjour Tristesse, Francoise Sagan
Books for Living, Will Schwalbe
Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, Roz Chast
Cheaper by the Dozen, Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. & Ernestine Gilbreth Carey
Cockpit Confidential, Patrick Smith
Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
Decorating a Room of One’s Own, Susan Harlan
Diary of a Provincial Lady, E.M. Delafield
Ed Emberly’s Drawing Book of Animals, Ed Emberly
Endangered Pleasures, Barbara Holland
Envious Casca, Georgette Heyer
Fever Dream, Samanta Schweblin
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg
Gaudy Night, Dorothy L. Sayers
Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, & Jack Thorne
Hemingway Didn’t Say That, Garson O’Toole
Hide My Eyes, Margery Allingham
Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen, Laurie Colwin
Hyperbole and a Half, Allie Brosh
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou
I Will Always Write Back, Caitlin Alifirenka & Martin Ganda with Liz Welch
If on a winter’s night a traveler, Italo Calvino
Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke
Lizard Music, Daniel Pinkwater
Madeleine’s Ghost, Robert Girardi
Malice Aforethought, Frances Iles
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, Helen Simonson
Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town, Jon Krakauer
My Life in France, Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme
Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
New York New York, Richard Berenholtz
Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
Notorious RBG, Irin Carmon & Shana Knizhnik
One Summer: America 1927, Bill Bryson
Out of the Blackout, Robert Bernard
Parnassus on Wheels & The Haunted Bookshop, Christopher Morley
Plotted: A Literary Atlas, Andrew DeGraff
Sanditon, Jane Austen and Another Lady
Selected Poems of Langston Hughes
Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, Carlo Rivelli
Straying from the Flock: Travels in New Zealand, Alexander Elder
Super Sad True Love Story, Gary Shteyngart
Tales of the Unexpected, Roald Dahl
The Book of Forgotten Authors, Christopher Fowler
The Cuckoo’s Calling, Robert Galbraith
The Dancer of Izu, Kawabata Yasunari
The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson
The House with a Clock in Its Walls, John Bellairs
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot
The Longbourn Letters, Rose Servitova
The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P., Adelle Waldman
The Making of Jane Austen, Devoney Looser
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, Oliver Sacks
The Missing Piece, Shel Silverstein
The Monogram Murders, Sophie Hannah
The Mother & Child Project, Hope Through Healing Hands (ed.)
The Piano Shop on the Left Bank, Thad Carhart
The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark
The Rosie Project, Graeme Simsion
The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss, Theodor Geisel (illustrator), Maurice Sendak (introduction)
The Snowy Day, Ezra Jack Keats
The Swans of Fifth Avenue, Melanie Benjamin
The Tale of Despereaux, Kate DiCamillo
The Tender Bar, J.R. Moehringer
The Three Questions, Jon J Muth
The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Rachel Joyce
The Unrest-Cure and Other Stories, Saki
The War on Normal People, Andrew Yang
The Weird World of Wes Beattie, John Norman Harris
The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
The Woman in Black, Susan Hill
The Women in Black, Madeleine St John
They Call Me Naughty Lola, David Rose
Thing Explainer, Randall Munroe
When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi
Worth a Thousand Words, Brigit Young
You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life, Eleanor Roosevelt
Up At the Villa, W. Somerset Maugham
84, Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff