04-02-2020, 20:47
A Gentleman in Moscow – Amor Towles
![[Image: 220px-A_Gentleman_in_Moscow_%28Amor_Towles%29.png]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/73/A_Gentleman_in_Moscow_%28Amor_Towles%29.png/220px-A_Gentleman_in_Moscow_%28Amor_Towles%29.png)
A fabulous work of historical fiction. Elegant, amusing, intelligent, witty, informative and well-written. Set in the 1920’s in burgeoning communist Russian, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, a gentleman in his 30’s who is an unrepentant aristocrat, is sentenced to house arrest at the Metropol Hotel, Moscow, for the rest of his days. The reason he was spared the firing squad being that he was purportedly responsible for penning a revolutionary poem which was embraced by the Bolsheviks – they didn’t really know what else to do with him!
He is required to downgrade from the lavish suite he’d occupied at the hotel, however, decides to adjust to his altered circumstances with good grace and humour. The story weaves around the comings and goings at the hotel and the count’s interactions with various characters who are all extremely well drawn. The whole story, intriguingly, seldom ventures outside the Metropol’s four walls and the count runs the gamut of emotions once might expect from such confinement, including despair – not an easy challenge for a well-educated, well-travelled gentleman of refined tastes! He could have been a horrible character but instead is thoroughly likeable and I was very happy that the book has a satisfactory ending. So awful when they don’t! I loved it.
I could just see the rooms the author described, The Boyarsky Dining Room, for example, or the foyer, and the Metropol is in reality, a large, luxurious hotel in Moscow which has been open since the early 1900’s; the reason it is so well portrayed is that that Mr Towles has spent plenty of time there over the years – the hotel was the inspiration for this book. When I looked the place up online, I was not disappointed at all – it was just as I had imagined. Another place to visit when I finally make it to Russia. https://metropol-moscow.ru/en/history/
When searching for a photo of the cover of the book, I found this review by Bill Gates, which is pretty much exactly as I would have put it, so thanks Bill - here it is … https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/A-Gentleman-in-Moscow
A fabulous work of historical fiction. Elegant, amusing, intelligent, witty, informative and well-written. Set in the 1920’s in burgeoning communist Russian, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, a gentleman in his 30’s who is an unrepentant aristocrat, is sentenced to house arrest at the Metropol Hotel, Moscow, for the rest of his days. The reason he was spared the firing squad being that he was purportedly responsible for penning a revolutionary poem which was embraced by the Bolsheviks – they didn’t really know what else to do with him!
He is required to downgrade from the lavish suite he’d occupied at the hotel, however, decides to adjust to his altered circumstances with good grace and humour. The story weaves around the comings and goings at the hotel and the count’s interactions with various characters who are all extremely well drawn. The whole story, intriguingly, seldom ventures outside the Metropol’s four walls and the count runs the gamut of emotions once might expect from such confinement, including despair – not an easy challenge for a well-educated, well-travelled gentleman of refined tastes! He could have been a horrible character but instead is thoroughly likeable and I was very happy that the book has a satisfactory ending. So awful when they don’t! I loved it.
I could just see the rooms the author described, The Boyarsky Dining Room, for example, or the foyer, and the Metropol is in reality, a large, luxurious hotel in Moscow which has been open since the early 1900’s; the reason it is so well portrayed is that that Mr Towles has spent plenty of time there over the years – the hotel was the inspiration for this book. When I looked the place up online, I was not disappointed at all – it was just as I had imagined. Another place to visit when I finally make it to Russia. https://metropol-moscow.ru/en/history/
When searching for a photo of the cover of the book, I found this review by Bill Gates, which is pretty much exactly as I would have put it, so thanks Bill - here it is … https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/A-Gentleman-in-Moscow
"The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us." ~ Bill Watterson