Edition Reads: A Gentleman in Moscow
“A Gentleman in Moscow is an amazing story because it manages to be a little bit of everything. There’s fantastical romance, politics, espionage, parenthood, and poetry. The book is technically historical fiction, but you’d be just as accurate calling it a thriller or a love story. Even if Russia isn’t on your must-visit list, I think everyone can enjoy Towles’ trip to Moscow this summer.” - Bill Gates on GatesNotes.com
When Bill Gates reviews a book and praises it the way he has for Amor Towles’ A Gentleman in Moscow, there’s little room for anyone else to say anything more. With raving reviews everywhere- in print and digital publications- what could I add that would possibly make a difference.
So why am I reviewing it, one may ask. Simple. There’s one very basic reason: because every reader who has read it, feels compelled to share their experience, what they took away from the book and how it informed theirworldview plus their knowledge of certain historical facts.
To begin with, it offers a closer look at the social upheaval suffered by 20th century Russia. Treat it as a self-help book and it will show you that the road to success is paved with perseverance. Not to mention, it’s the best literary prose one has read in a long time as each sentence, and its syntax is perfect. It’s a great lesson in friendship, in parenting and one of the greatest love stories. It’s characters and situations are as detailed and nuanced as Chekhov’s and yet his storyline and plot as powerful as Tolstoy’s.
This book can really move its readers deeply on so many levels. At a subconscious level, you’ll besurprised to find an allegory. Post the Bolshevik Revolution, all authority had been transferred to the Soviets, and aristocrats were being executed. As he sat facing a tribunal in 1922, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov - member of the Jockey Club, Master of the Hunt, is given a unique sentence. In lieu of his poem, which is largely considered a call to action for revolutionaries, he is sentenced to house arrest at the grand Metropol Hotel, located in the square across the Kremlin. It is a microcosm of regal Moscow as it used to be- with a barbershop, a tailoring setup, and restaurants that served international cuisines complete with a wine cellar rivaling the best in the country. People from all spheres of life in Moscow, from all over Russia and in fact from all over the world visit the hotel and the Count establishes some strong bonds and develops great friendships over the next three decades of his life he spends there.
“A nobleman of impeccable manners, Rostov is billeted in an austere attic room with barely enough space to swing a Cossack, but nevertheless never allows his highborn standards to slip. His Excellency is charm personified: he is altogether a bon vivant, a gourmet, a polymath and a gentleman of unrestrained integrity. Men love him, women adore him; even cats and dogs purr and pant in his glittering presence. In short, this is a chap who might make even Cary Grant seem inelegant.Despite being born into privilege, and therefore used to being fawned over by all and sundry, our aristocrat never condescends his attendants and sees great nobility in the honest toil of the proletariat.The novel is beautifully written and each inconsequential detail exquisitely observed … I detect an evocation of Oscar Wilde's writing in Towles' flamboyant figurative imagery, and the story cleverly avoids the trapdoor of tedium, despite its opulent-yet-claustrophobic setting (think of The Grand Budapest Hotel and you'll summon a kindred vibe).The Count is a fanciful, charismatic, genial companion; his waggish interplay with precocious kids,spiteful waiters and willowy movie starlets had me up on my toes and dancing the Kalinka with mille-feuille in hand!” - Writer, Kevin Ansbro.
But what makes this book remarkable is the fact that “…it succeeds in using characters as symbols - a technique originated by the Russian authors such as Boris Pasternak and Dostoyevsky. The main character, Count Rostov, is the quintessential aristocrat , refined in his manners and elegance and very erudite. He is beset by various characters around him that typify the Communist movement, the shallow idea that men should become soulless servants of the state, foregoing any individual pride they may have in their possessions and attainment- and also their own conscience. All this is contrasted against the education of Count Rostov, a man [belonging to a past] the Communists have razed, and as such is compassionate and brave…That is a point you can take from this book. Is it better to be an intellectual gentleman or an apparatchik devoid of any emotion other than loyalty to the state?” - Sagheer Afzal.
The Count with his chivalry, etiquettes and fine manners is symbolizing a lost era which has been replaced by the Industrial Age, when people had time and respect for each other; had time to indulge in noble pursuits of art and culture - music, art, literature; and the generosity of spirit to share the fruits of abundance. It lends special insight into the values, traditions and norms of more regal times.
As director/producer Tom Harper says, “A Gentleman in Moscow’ is a life-affirming book full of humor and charm that brings together the profound, the political, and the personal.”
In a tweet dated April 3, 2018, author Amor Towles announced that the book is being adapted for TV, starring Kenneth Branagh, and is to be directed by Tom Harper (who has also directed popular period dramas such as Peaky Blinders and the most recent TV adaptation of War & Peace).
An overall feel-good read that traverses various decades of Russian history, yet at the heart of it is the story of one man who triumphs in the face of all adversity. “A Gentleman in Moscow” leaves you with a little more faith in the world and as Bill Gates sums it up, “By the end of the book, I felt like the Count was an old friend.”