A really good read - A Gentleman in Moscow
Goodness but it’s been a while since I wrote a book review on here (5 months to be precise). That’s not, I want to point out, because it’s been that long since I read a book (honest), but rather that I’ve been writing about the books I’ve been reading over on the newsletter. So if you’re interested in those, and other weekly listening, watching and reading recommendations, do sign up!
Right, enough preambling and on with the review.
If I told you a book about a Russian count kept under house arrest for decades in Moscow’s most renown hotel, whilst the city - and the wider country - around him goes through tumultuous, society-shifting change, was beguiling, delightful and wonderfully uplifting, you might wonder how and why - especially bearing in mind our own recent experiences of enforced confinement.
When Count Alexander Rostov is sentenced to indefinite house arrest in June 1922, he is escorted out of the Kremlin and through the revolving doors of the elegant Hotel Metropole, where he has been in residence for almost four years.
But instead of being allowed to return to his handsome suite, he is led to a small, cramped attic room and informed that from now on, these will be his lodgings.
Far from being downcast, the unflappable, endlessly charming Count determines to make the most of his circumstances and sets about, with what we come to realise is typical focus and quiet, intellectual determination, to adjust to his newly-limited life.
The story and experiences that unfold in this beautifully constructed and written book are shot through with the Count’s humanity, humour, wisdom and reserved but ferocious curiosity about the world and particularly the lives and experiences of the people he encounters and interacts with in the hotel.
Packed with wonderfully realised characters, historical (but never stodgy) information and often minutely related details, you would do well to pay attention to who the Count meets and what he sees and does, because they will often become important to the unfolding story at a later date. Indeed, author Amor Towles, frequently brings your attention to information or people that will have later significance through the chattily informative side note passages that pepper the novel.
Our resourcefully adaptable Count may live a life constrained by the walls of the hotel, but it is a life filled with friendships - an early connection with a precocious young girl will have unforeseen and life-changing consequences many years later - love, and joy. A life with challenges and sadnesses for sure, but a life, nonetheless, that finds purpose and meaning in experiences and encounters large and small.
When the story reaches its unexpectedly thrilling denouement, you can’t help but celebrate whilst simultaneously feeling an aching sadness at having to say farewell to a man, a gentleman in every sense, you’ve come to admire, respect and care about deeply.
Other books I’ve read (which were reviewed on the newsletter) that you’ll love:
Meet Me At The Museum by Anne Youngson - Two strangers find a growing and powerful late-life connection through their correspondence across continents.
City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert - Glamour, resilience, friendship and the bitter-sweet joys of growing up are laid bare in this pacy tale of the lives of a cast of women in 1940s New York.
Old Age, A Beginners Guide by Michael Kinsley - Not all my recommendations are fiction. This diminutive book, comprised of a selection of essays, explores with honesty and humour, the challenges we all face as we ‘journey towards the finishing line.’
You’ll find other reviews in the rest of this Try Something New section of the Heydays site.
What are you reading, or have read, that you’d recommend?
