I am sitting here, wide-eyed and with a lump in my throat. I can’t move. After 17 hours and 52 minutes, it is over. But I don’t want to leave Count Alexander Rostov, Sofia, Anna, Andrey, Emile and all the others, whom I have come to love. Not just yet. I scowl at my Kindle, but it stubbornly remains silent. I sigh.
We first meet Count Alexander Rostov in 1922, when he is facing a Bolshevik tribunal which results in a life-time house arrest in the grand Metropol Hotel in Moscow. The interview taking place is the perfect introduction to the count.
Vyshinsky: And you write poetry?
Rostov: I have been known to fence with a quill.
Vyshinsky: [Holding up a pamphlet] Are you the author of this long poem of 1913: Where is it now?
Rostov: It has been attributed to me.
Vyshinsky: Why did you write the poem?
Rostov: It demanded to be written. I simply happened to be sitting at the particular desk on the particular morning when it chose to make its demands.
Rostov is well-read, charming and witty and first and foremost he is a genuine gentleman. But how does a gentleman create a meaningful life for himself confined to a hotel? At first the count is struggling with this conundrum. The hours move slowly; immediately after returning from lunch he starts counting down to his pre-dinner drink. However, when Rostov was a young boy the Grand Duke explained to him:
if a man does not master his circumstances then he is bound to be mastered by them.
Taking up this mantra, Rostov moves on with his new life. The people he meets play a crucial part. Nina is a bright and curious young girl residing in the hotel with her father. She befriends the count and shows him, that living in this amazing hotel can be turned into an adventure.
Another turning point occurs, when Rostov takes up the position as headwaiter at the Metropol’s fine dining restaurant The Boyarsky. The Maître Andrey and the cook Emile end up becoming his best friends and the scenes between this trio also known as the Triumvirate are fun and endearing.
A Gentleman in Moscow spans over more than three decades. The novel is a colourful mosaic of small and large events, serious and lighthearted situations, philosophical musings and eccentric characters.
Admittedly, such a story which meanders along without a clear purpose or well-defined plot could easily frustrate the living daylights out of me. With this story it was perfect. The mosaic of events and people is what shapes and develops a person and it was a privilege to follow the count on his inner journey. I also loved the description of the small occurrences such as the Triumvirate’s Bouillabaisse dinner, coffee drinking on the roof and geese visiting the fourth floor.
The novel unfolds over an interesting period of Russian history. But historical events are observed through the lens of the Metropol, where party leaders, diplomats and businessmen meet up. We do not hear much about the daily life of the average Muscovite which is obviously in stark contrast to the luxury life in the hotel. My appetite for Russian history has been whetted though.
It has been a while since I came across such a charming book about facing life’s ever changing conditions, gaining new insights whilst staying true to ones fundamental values and what it really means to be a gentleman.
Amor Towles’ beautiful prose and delightful descriptions transported me to the Metropol from page one. Thinking back, I actually feel I have been there.
During the 17 hours and 52 minutes, we barely left the hotel. But the count – with the readers in tow – went through an inner journey as wonderful and moving as any journey and I loved every minute of it.
I press the replay button.
Title: A Gentleman in Moscow [2016]
Author: Amor Towles
Format: Audiobook, narrated by Nicholas Guy Smith
Genre: Historical Fiction
I read this a couple of years ago as part of a challenge I did then to read history and fiction about the Russian Revolution. I admired the writing and found it an enjoyable read overall, although I didn’t love it quite as much as you. I think that’s because I was so involved in the Revolution at that point (reading about it, I mean!) that the tone of this seemed oddly light and nostalgic. From my review: “…it’s too light for its subject matter – too removed from the real world to say anything substantial about life under the Soviets. Towles wants, I think, to make points about denial of individuality, loss of personal freedom, loss of civilisation, but his choice to use a hangover from the old ruling elite makes the politics feel wrong. A few people may have lived privileged, intellectual, art-filled lives before the revolution, but most lived in appalling conditions in both towns and villages, without education, suffering real poverty and hunger. For them, perhaps communism didn’t work out the way they hoped, but I doubt they got overly nostalgic about the past either.”
Maybe if I’d read it at a different time, I wouldn’t have felt quite so strongly about Rostov’s life of privilege, and I’m glad you enjoyed it more! Have you read his earlier book, Rules of Civility? I gave it a happy five stars (pre-blog, though) – the same great writing and it didn’t tread on my political corns… 😉
I definitely see your point. Perhaps I am more tolerant (and certainly more ignorant) than you. Actually, I did not read this as a political commentary at all and barely saw it as fitting into the ‘historical fiction’ category. My experience was of a story about the human aspect of life, i.e. facing life’s ever changing conditions, gaining new insights whilst staying true to one’s fundamental values, etc. The story happens to take place in post-revolution Russia, but it might as well have been a different place, different time (apparently Towles wanted to explore the concept of a man stuck in a hotel. The idea came from his endless business travel as an investment banker where he spent lots of time in hotels and wondered about meeting the same people over and over again – as if they never left. The Russian setting seemed perfect to explore such an idea because people were actually put in house arrest at that time).
Generally my tolerance for how realistic historical fiction needs to feel is relatively high. As long as it is clear that it is fiction.
The fact that the book takes place in a luxury hotel will inevitably give a very distorted picture of what life was like at that time. I can easily identify with that since I suffer from ‘living in a bubble’ perspective myself. I always think of London as being very safe, clean and wealthy. But as my friends tell me, that is because I never leave zone 1 😉
Anyway, if I had been in the middle of studying the Russian Revolution when reading this book, I might have had the exact same objections as you had. Since I started reviewing books, I often think about how subjective ratings are, they may depend on when we read the book, which books we read previously, our expectations when starting to read and even our mood on that particular day.
Enjoyed your review Stargazer. I enjoyed it as much as you, as did most in my reading group. One, however, felt like Fiction Fan, going so far as to call it “intellectually dishonest” in face because it didn’t recognise as much as she thought it should the reality of the times. However, I don’t tend to judge a book on what I think it “should” be. Why “should” all writers write grim reality even if the times they are writing in and about were grim?
I did think he was critiquing the Bolshevik regime as I wrote in my post, but like you I felt his main themes were broader and more personal than political (albeit the personal is also the political). I think he was rejecting “isms” of any sort.
Thanks. I agree that writers should write the story they want, even if it is a charming story in a grim reality, but I also understand that some people would be disappointed or find it inappropriate, because they were expecting something different. I am sure you had an interesting discussion in your reading group about this!
We did! And yes, I understand being disappointed … but am sorry about it, all the same!
Your review of this book is beautiful and emotional. I have had this on my shelf for far too long, but now I think maybe I should try the audio, too, even at 17 hours! I think that’s why I’ve saved this one…because of reviews like this. I know I’m in for a really great read and for some reason I like to delay gratification with books. I need to work on that!
Thanks Jennifer! Having followed your blog for a while and seeing which books you enjoy, I am almost certain you would love this one. Audio works well for me, because I can listen whilst doing other things. 17 hours is quite a long audiobook, but as they say: time flies when you’re having fun 😉
Isn’t it wonderful when a book touches you like this! I’ve had it on my radar for some time and you’ve convinced me that I would love it. Very interesting discussion in the comments too 🙂
Yes, I love it when I find a book like this. It doesn’t happen every day. Always great with comments which give you a different views on a book, which you hadn’t thought about yourself. The interaction makes blogging a lot more fun! 😀
I haven’t read this, but your beautiful review made me add the book to my list.
I am glad to hear that.😀 Thinking about your ‘Happy Friday’ posts – this story can definitely help to cheer you up on a grey day!
Great review! I wonder whether I should read this book translated into Russian – that will be fun. I got so interested in the book while reading your review I searched for it and I found it translated into Russian by one Andreev in 2017 and can get a copy online. There is one Russian edition cover of the book which shows a cat sitting on a chair. It looks like it is going to be a great story 🙂
I think it is a great story, some people object to the fact that it doesn’t really reflect the reality such as it was for most ‘common’ people at the time though. Might be interesting to read it translated into Russian! I have never read the same novel in original and translated version. It sounds like you have done both for Anna Karenina. Was it a very different experience in two different languages?
It is a different experience to some extent, but I personally do not mind Anna Karenina in English because I first read it in English (as I read Dostoevsky, too), and only then in Russian. My first experience of reading it influenced how I view it now, and therefore I like both the original and the translation, and I need to re-read it again too.
Actually one Russian-language classic book which I prefer in English is Doctor Zhivago. When I read it in Russian, I could not immediately find all these beautiful quotations in English from the book which they post around on the Internet. In that way, somehow, the translated to English version ended up to be deeper and even more poetic somehow for me. And I also thought that Pasternak’s prose in original Russian was not fluid at all to begin with, but “clunky”.
That is actually quite interesting. I don’t know anything about Russian, but I know that English is quite a rich language (large, nuanced vocabulary) compared to the Scandinavian languages (which is where I am from originally). So when reading Scandinavian books translated into English, I sometimes wonder if the translator in some cases improve on the prose by utilising the richness of the English language.