A Gentleman in Moscow
An elegant story of unexpected pleasures
I wonder if there shouldn't be a category of books called "Books for Pleasure". And we distinguish it from categories like thrillers, erotica, or romance, where the pleasure derived is often second-hand, as they invariably pass through a filter of adrenalin, testosterone or dopamine respectively before pressing different buttons.
I'm talking about the feeling which you get when the winter sun touches your skin or you enter your home and the aromas from the kitchen seep into your senses or when you read your first ever Mary Oliver poem or, years after you've read it, you think of Elizabeth and Darcy. That's the pleasure I'm talking of, that's the pleasure which you get from the exquisite A Gentleman in Moscow.
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles draws us into a minutely-etched period with the story of Count Alexander Rostov, at a time when he is deemed an aristocrat (couldn't have been accused of a bigger crime!) by a Bolshevik tribunal. He is saved the guillotine only because he had once written a poem which exalted the Bolshevik ethos. He is instead sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an insuperable man of education and wit who has never worked a day in his life, must now live in a small room tucked away in a dusty corner of the hotel, even as some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history unfold outside in the streets. Ironically and happily, his unexalted circumstances instead give him an entry into an unexpected universe of emotion and self-discovery.
The Count forges friendships, discovers love, rediscovers tenderness and proves to be surprisingly useful to the new regime even as he is incarcerated in the hotel. He finds meaning in the adage that when our worlds reduce themselves to their bare minimum, we figure out the world in them: what's essential comes into sharp relief and we derive our blessing from what we have in front of us.
Amor Towles is a master of description and detail. He builds a world in atmospherics. You wonder what the plot driver is in the long episode of the making of Bouilossane or when the little girl, Nina, makes the Count hide in a tiny alcove above a banquet hall, to see gorgeous parties, such that he tears his trousers multiple times. But we happily discover that the episodes are the plot, because the prologue, the middle and the denouement are all embedded in each of these incidents. Until finally we see how they all add up into one seamless whole.
The warm-hearted core of this splendid novel comes from two little girls - one is happenstance and the other a gift. And between them arises the tenderness and the thrill of the story. Even as the swirl of the hotel's staff - Andrey, the maitre'd of the Boyarsky (the finest restaurant in the Metropol), Emile the chef, Marina the seamstress, and Vasily the concierge - gives the Count a fulcrum; Anna the actress provides the direction; and the two girls provide the purpose.
The gorgeousness of this novel is in its sophisticated sumptuousness. The Count is a man of erudition, and nothing eludes him. His indolence gives him access to immense knowledge - and when entwined with his love, as it appears and grows in his life, it provides the means to him to give to the one he loves the most, what was most missing in his own life. His philosophy is that “by the smallest of one’s actions one can restore some sense of order to the world”, and in that driving force lies embedded the Count's openness to people and experiences: to play a game called "Zot", to see movies starring Humphrey Bogart as a window to the Western civilization - or to plan a life for those he loved dearly, with a windblown sense of sacrifice, but a grace which only a true gentleman could ever conceive of or engender.
A Gentleman in Moscow is a book to re-read and treasure and gift - and never lend!
Quotes from the book:
Amor Towles talks about A Gentleman in Moscow:
EconTalk host Russ Roberts discusses the book, as also the craft of writing, the wellsprings of persistence, and Towles's reading habits, in this erudite and fun interview. You can get it here. Or listen to it below:
I’m a Cormoran Strike fan too. Going to read that after Gentleman in Moscow. I hope you enjoy Ladies’ Tailor 😁!
Interestingly your post found me between books - just bought this book on Kindle and can start right away. I have many on my To Be Read pile and was literally just thinking about which one...