My last few nights’ reading have been in the company of a very nice gentleman, in the city of Moscow, no less. Amor Towles is an American author whose book turned up in my local library, and I knew as soon as I saw the title that someone had recommended it so I brought it home. It turned out to be Tony from Tony’s Book World who’d described Towles as
a great literary stylist in the order of Vladimir Nabokov. A literary stylist knows that it is not our final destination that matters but the pleasures we have along the way. A stylist can go on and describe a game of Hide the Thimble for several pages, and we will not complain; in fact we will be charmed.
In 1922, in the wake of the Russian Revolution, Count Alexander Rostov is arrested by the Bolsheviks. His crime is that he is an aristocrat, but improbably, he evades summary execution or exile in Siberia because of his service in the prerevolutionary cause (as a poet) and is instead subjected to house arrest in the Hotel Metropol. No longer in his elegant suite, but in a poky attic upstairs, he adapts to his new circumstances with aplomb, guided by the advice of Montaigne:
The commonest way of softening the hearts of those we have offended, when, vengeance in hand, they hold us at their mercy, is by submission to move them to commiseration and pity. However, audacity and steadfastness – entirely contrary means – have sometimes served to produce the same effect. (p.40)
While the Count’s accommodation is claustrophobic, his circumstances seem quite congenial. He continues to dine well, to enjoy the hotel’s splendid cellar, and to have time for reading though his library is of necessity much reduced. He has gold coins secreted away in his furniture; he can still get his laundry done and his trousers mended. It’s true that the staff are no longer allowed to address him as ‘Your Excellency’; that the grand ballroom has been taken over by the Bolsheviks for policy and planning meetings; and the Metropol’s guests are not quite what they were, but the Count gets by, seemingly unbothered by the loss of his freedom – because the world comes to him, including his best friend Mishka, also a poet but of more reckless temperament. He also enjoys the company of the hotel staff Andrey and Emile, he has a lovely actress as a lover, and the friendship of a charming child called Nina whose parents are long term guests.
However Towles does not let the charming urbanity with which the Count negotiates his new circumstances conceal events outside the hotel. These focus on the Stalinist years, and there is very little about the Great Patriotic War (WW2). However, contrary to expectations, the picture is not entirely negative, with acknowledgement that Tsarist Russia was a backward country badly in need of reform, which was transformed into an industrial powerhouse and rival to the United States. When the Count, under The Thaw, is coaching a Soviet functionary called Osip in the genteel ways of the West, he relays Mishka’s views on the burning of Moscow and the toppling of statues, and the silencing of poets. Osip counters with a surprising point of view:
‘The Bolsheviks are not Visigoths, Alexander. We are not the barbarian hordes descending upon Rome and destroying all that is fine out of ignorance and envy. It is the opposite. In 1916, Russia was a barbarian state. It was the most illiterate state in Europe, with the majority of its population living in modified serfdom: tilling the fields with wooden ploughs, beating their wives by candlelight, collapsing on their benches drunk with vodka, and then waking at dawn to humble themselves before their icons. That is, living exactly as their forefathers had lived five hundred years before. Is it not possible that our reverence for all the statues and cathedrals and ancient institutions was precisely what was holding us back?’
Osip paused, taking a moment to refill their glasses with wine.
‘But where do we stand now? How far have we come? By marrying American tempo with Soviet aims, we are on the verge of universal literacy, Russia’s long-suffering women, our second serfdom, have been elevated to the status of equals. We have built whole new cities and our industrial production outpaces that of most of Europe.
‘But at what cost?’
Osip slapped the table.
‘At the greatest cost! But do you think the achievements of the Americans – envied the world over – came without a cost? Just ask their African brothers. (p. 297)
Osip goes on to say that the reason America and the USSR will lead the rest of the century is because they are the only nations who have learned to brush the past aside instead of bowing before it. The difference is that they have done so in the service of their beloved individualism while the USSR has done so in the service of the common good.
This perspective – that there might have been something valuable achieved under communism – is not what readers might expect of an American author in the age of triumphant capitalism.
Needless to say, however, A Gentleman in Moscow does depict some of the ‘costs’ so blithely dismissed by Osip. The years pass and Nina marries, departing with her husband and other Komosol youth to the Kady district, to aid the udarniks or ‘shock workers’ in the collectivisation of the region. As we know, things didn’t go so well under Stalin’s plans for agriculture and scapegoats had to be found, so before long Nina is back to ask the Count to care for her little girl while she follows her husband to Siberia.
As the years roll on and there is no sign of Nina, the Count progresses from being Uncle Sasha to Papa. At the same time officiousness begins to affect operations at the hotel and the Count’s lifestyle too. He is required to work, so he becomes a waiter, a job which suits his gourmet tastes since there is a daily meeting of The Triumvirate to taste test the day’s specials and to choose a splendid matching wine. Alas, the day arrives when someone has decided that it’s contrary to soviet principles to have wine that only the rich can afford, so all the wines have their labels removed and are sold for the same price. (Can you imagine it? You might get a Grange, or you might get a bottle of Jacob’s Creek!) An officious manager nicknamed The Bishop institutes a process of inventory and ordering so onerous that meals arrive at the table stone cold. Worse, he insists on attending the Triumvirate’s meetings, imposing economies and suggesting incompatible side dishes to use up what’s in the pantry. And The Count’s friend Mishka chafes under the policies imposed on literature and the arts …
But these sombre events are only episodes in the broader canvas of the Count’s life. A Gentleman in Moscow is a testament to the human spirit – uplifting, droll, exciting, and utterly seductive. I’m going to see if I can find this author’s first novel Rules of Civility as well.
Author: Amor Towles
Title: A Gentleman in Moscow
Publisher: Penguin Random House UK, 2016
ISBN: 9781786330383
Source: Kingston Library
Available from FishpondA Gentleman in Moscow
ANZ LitLovers LitBlog 
Thank You so much for the mention. ‘Rules of Civility’ is another very fine novel, and it surely will not disappoint you. Here is my link:
.
LikeLike
By: Anokatony on January 29, 2017
at 8:37 am
Thank *you* for alerting me to the book! I hope the library has Rules of Civility…
LikeLike
By: Lisa Hill on January 29, 2017
at 8:43 am
Love your definition Tony of literary stylist – it perfectly delineates the two types of readers, those who read primarily for story and those who love to wallow in writing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
By: whisperinggums on January 30, 2017
at 9:46 pm
I did so enjoy this book! And your review is fabulous – thanks!
I don’t know as I’d go so far as to compare Towles to Nabokov as that one reviewer did, but … whatever. Towles is really quite good.
The history in Gentleman in Moscow was wonderfully presented and never intrusive while still giving the distinct feeling it was quite real – Stalin really was there – and the others over the years. And the comments about the US – spot on as you Aussie’s would say. And Osip’s comments were the sentiments in the time of glasnost – after the Berlin Wall came down – before the fall of the Soviet Union – 1989 – 1991 or so. They’d be different today, I think, in this era of, as you so aptly put it, “triumphal capitalism.”
Anyway – kudos on capturing the flavor and essence of the book. It was one of my eight “best of fiction” novels for 2016. Thanks also for bringing the memory of it back.
Fwiw, I’ve had Towles’ prior book, “Rules of Civility” on my wish list ever since I read A Gentleman in Moscow. lol –
LikeLike
By: beckylindroos on January 29, 2017
at 10:22 am
Ah ha, I found your review! https://beckylindroos.wordpress.com/2016/06/19/a-gentleman-in-moscow-by-amor-towles/
LikeLike
By: Lisa Hill on January 29, 2017
at 3:18 pm
LOL! I had to go back and remember one more time. :-) I read it maybe 7 months ago? –
LikeLike
By: beckylindroos on January 29, 2017
at 3:29 pm
A great review Lisa; I almost feel as if I don’t need to read it….only, I will.
I’ve read a couple of reviews of this book and it sounds brilliant.
LikeLike
By: Jonathan on January 29, 2017
at 10:03 pm
As you will see when you do read it, I was spoiled for choice when it came to choosing excerpts to tempt you!
LikeLiked by 1 person
By: Lisa Hill on January 30, 2017
at 10:32 am
The publisher sent me a review copy of this, and because I knew that Tony had warmly recommended it I have it on my bedside table ready to read in the next month or two. Now that you have warmly recommended it, I know that I must get to it sooner rather than later.
LikeLike
By: kimbofo on January 29, 2017
at 10:57 pm
You lucky thing, I wish the publisher had thought of me, I’d love to have a copy to keep and eventually re-read!
LikeLiked by 1 person
By: Lisa Hill on January 30, 2017
at 10:33 am
I’ve been umming and ahhing and wondering whether I would love this or hate it. You’ve rather convinced me I should read it very, very soon!
LikeLike
By: kaggsysbookishramblings on January 30, 2017
at 4:36 am
It is, I think, a rare example of something that will appeal to popular taste as well as people who want more from their reading. Just when I was thinking, this is nice and I’m enjoying myself, but that’s all, there was an aside, a comment, a footnote or a digression which made me realise that there was more to the book that is apparent at first glance.
LikeLiked by 1 person
By: Lisa Hill on January 30, 2017
at 10:25 am
[…] with a neat segue back to Tony’s Book World because Tony recommended it, A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. Tony described Towles as a great literary stylist in the order of Vladimir Nabokov. A literary […]
LikeLike
By: A meme: Novels with Place Names | ANZ LitLovers LitBlog on April 11, 2017
at 8:51 pm
I have a question: What was in the envelope the Count found slipped under his door? “… it had an unusual feel, as if something quite different than a letter had been enclosed.”
LikeLike
By: John Goodwyn on September 9, 2017
at 6:25 am
I wish I could answer that for you, John, but I don’t have the book any more – and I can’t remember! I’m sorry!
LikeLike
By: Lisa Hill on September 9, 2017
at 4:56 pm
I am puzzled by the two or three professional reviewers who got it wrong when it came to stating why the Count was under house arrest. It was because he was living a life of luxury after the revolution (Page 5, 19 & 20). One of the prosecutors stated, “. . . the clear-eyed spirit who wrote the poem . . . has succumbed irrevocably to the corruptions of his class – – and now poses a threat to the very ideals he once espoused.” [in the poem]
But the reviewers said the punishment was for the poem. This is contradicted by the Count’s statement on Page 369: “But for that poem, they would have shot me back in 1922.” Being in trouble for writing something in the Soviet Union is such a common plot in fiction, I guess the reviewers made a knee-jerk assumption.
The poem promoted the 1917 revolution which came to pass, so why would the victors punish the assumed author? The prosecutor even called the Count “the clear-eyed spirit who wrote the poem”. Punishing the Count for the poem would be equivalent to Thomas Paine being prosecuted by the victorious colonists for writing pamphlets promoting the American Revolution.
LikeLike
By: John Goodwyn on September 12, 2017
at 7:09 am
Hi John, I haven’t seen the professional reviews you’re talking about, but your reasoning might be right. There are long-standing negative tropes about the USSR and I wouldn’t be surprised if they surfaced in reviews about this novel. Nevertheless, it was always quite clear to me that the reason the Count didn’t get sent to the gulags or worse was because of the poem – it was Soviet approval of his poem that saved him from a greater penalty.
However, while I don’t make any claim to be an expert on Soviet policies, I do know that under Stalin, artists and musicians dropped in and out of favour, and not necessarily for reasons that are transparent or coherent. Having been in favour of the revolution beforehand or in its early days didn’t necessarily mean that it was immune from criticism about its implementation, and Stalin tolerated no criticism at all.
I don’t have the book with me now, (it was a library loan) but from your reading, can you clarify for me whether the poem was promoting *the* revolution, the one that came to pass, or whether it was promoting *a* revolution or some other kind of reform or just ideals of equality etc? From what I know of Soviet history, from the late 19th century onwards there were multiple movements for reform, including agitation from members of the intelligentsia and the aristocracy who recognised that the economy was in deep trouble because the entire Industrial Revolution had passed them by. There’s a very good bio of Lenin (https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/05/23/lenin-the-dictator-by-victor-sebestyen/) which explains how little actual support there was for Lenin and Co, so (without knowing whether Towles was basing his Count on an actual person or moment in history or a real poem) I’m wondering if perhaps this poem in the novel was seized upon as being pro-Bolshevik in an effort to make the revolution look as if it had more support than it really had?
LikeLike
By: Lisa Hill on September 12, 2017
at 8:44 am
The novel states “What with the revolt of 1905 and the repressions that followed, when we graduated it was still a dangerous time for writing poems of political impatience.” The Count and Mishka met at university in the fall of 1907, so they probably graduated around 1912. Therefore, the poem was written after the 1905 revolt and before the 1918 revolution. Only part of the poem is revealed in the novel (Pg. 2). As do most poems, the poem speaks figuratively and vaguely, but one line asks, “Well, where is our purpose now?”, as if to say, what should the various revolutionary movements attempt to accomplish now. I cannot say what the poem promoted beyond change, because the poem itself seemed to be asking what should be promoted. During that time, the Okhrana was monitoring and infiltrating various Russian revolutionary groups on behalf of the Russian Empire, so it was dangerous to write such a poem.
I cannot comment on whether the poem was used to make the revolution look like it had more support than it actually did. There were various revolutionary groups at that time, so I don’t think it promoted “the” revolution, which came later. I did read in Wikipedia that there were times when the Okhrana gave some support to the Bolsheviks because they were thought to be more moderate than the other revolutionary movements, so possibly the Lenin group was not the most popular.
LikeLike
By: John Goodwyn on September 12, 2017
at 10:40 am
Thanks for this detailed reply, John, it clarifies things nicely.
LOL From what I’ve read it was almost an accidental revolution!
LikeLike
By: Lisa Hill on September 12, 2017
at 11:24 am
[…] Lisa at ANZLitLovers […]
LikeLike
By: A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles #bookreview | BookerTalk on February 14, 2018
at 8:46 am
[…] Lisa (ANZLitLovers) thoroughly enjoyed this book too. […]
LikeLike
By: Amor Towles, A gentleman in Moscow (#BookReview) | Whispering Gums on May 9, 2019
at 9:45 am
[…] #6Degrees starts with a book I really enjoyed: A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. (See my review here). One of the reasons I liked this book so much was that it offered a different perspective to […]
LikeLike
By: Six Degrees of Separation: A Gentleman in Moscow, to … | ANZ LitLovers LitBlog on September 7, 2019
at 12:53 pm
[…] many others, I discovered the wit and finesse of US author Amor Towles with his bestselling A Gentleman in Moscow. Rules of Civility is his first novel, but Goodreads tells me that there is the prospect of a new […]
LikeLike
By: Rules of Civility, by Amor Towles | ANZ LitLovers LitBlog on August 30, 2020
at 3:38 pm