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A Gentleman in Moscow (2016) - I cried and laughed


“A Gentleman in Moscow" is a 2016 book by Amor Towles*. There is also an 8-episode TV series on Paramount+ / Showtime that I have not seen. This write up is about the book.


Count Alexander Rostov, a Russian nobleman who, after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, is sentenced to lifelong imprisonment in Moscow’s Metropol Hotel (1). That is as concise a summary as anyone could write. It tells you nothing about this book. This is a study of a character over the course of an adult lifetime. He starts half my age and the story closes as he is nearing my parents’ age. The backdrop is the transition from tsarist to communist Russia, but this is not an allegory on the merits of communism or autocratic rule. This is a story about people. There is a rich collection of supporting and side characters. These are people you know - not the fantasy players in a le Carré novel.

Essentially all of the action takes place inside the walls of a fancy hotel. There were scenes of polite and mannered company. There were scenes of impolite and ill-mannered company. There was love and romance and petty fighting and rotten scheming. Scenes of the divine and mundane. It made me want to listen to Édith Piaf.

85% of the book is a character study. I tried on the characters, wore them like a suit of clothes, and admired ourselves in the mirror. We looked really GOOD. I also had the chance to asked myself "what was I thinking?" 15% of the book is a thrilling adventure. I raced up to it, pushed my way through the queue to get on, tightened in my seat on the way up, and caught my breath as I squealed with joy down the chicane on the backside. I had a BLAST. I also got time to imagine how this ride is a small world.

In terms of language and storytelling, reading it is like looking at those GIANT canvases they have at The Louvre. Maybe “The Appearance of Christ Before the People” by Alexander Ivanov in the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow is a more appropriate example.** Like that painting, there is a LOT of detail and imagery. There is metaphor upon metaphor. There is a story and another story in there depending on the sector where you focus. Also like that painting, there is an opportunity for you to put yourself and your friends in if you want.*** It is too big to see all at once - I was down with it.

On a technical note: what is it called when the author tells you to look forward to something coming later? If you were going to say ‘foreshadowing’, that was not what Towles did. Foreshadowing is a literary device which gives the reader a hint. Towles uses the equivalent of a serial trailer that goes ‘Tune in next week, when we see how the Count deals with [this]’. I could not recall having seen that before in literature. He knew just when the reader might ask [Where is this thing going?] or [Could I just get some sense of closure for this person?]. I felt like I was being worked by the storyteller - I was down with that too.

At this point in my consumption of literature, it is not that often that I am taken away by the author of a piece. “A Gentleman in Moscow” did that. I cried and laughed - because I know that relationship and how I acted or wished I had in my life. The story came into my dreams - making me imagine how the people went on outside the novel. I am grateful to my friend for placing the story in front of me - I hope I can return the favor. I don’t want to sully their grace by turning it into a transaction, so I will just say: спасибо и дай бог здоровья


*Amor Towles - Towles surname is from the Old English name Toll; dweller, or collector, at a tollhouse. I read that 6 times before I stopped seeing ‘troll' (I kept saying - he is not that bad looking, that is really mean). Amor is based on a Latin word used in English speaking countries and it means ‘love’. I unpacked his name, because based on his brilliant wordplay, and careful exploration of persons and relationships during/after the Russian Revolution, I assumed he was part of The Diaspora. Maybe I was just placing my hereditament on this Love Troll … and yet … speaking as someone whose names have almost nothing to do with his patrilineage - I guess you never really know.

**In terms of Russian paintings, I am very partial to “Girl with Peaches” by Valentin Serov, but it is only ~3ft square - that just didn’t work with my analogy.  Ivanov’s canvas is huge at 5.4m x 7.5m (17.5ft x 25ft). The Louvre doesn’t have a lot of large format Russian paintings - and it seemed wrong to use a French or Italian artist for this comparison.

***Ivanov put himself and his buddy Nikolai Gogol in that painting. I think it is serendipitous that the picture I chose came from the period of the first half of the Russian Empire - a time after they defeated Napoleon, and before the Crimean war - and well before the Bolsheviks. A time when Russia could afford brilliant painters, musicians, authors, choreographers and thinkers. I hope for Russia that we have that again someday.

(1) https://www.supersummary.com/a-gentleman-in-moscow/summary/

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